Everett C. Olson

Everett Claire Olson ( born November 6, 1910 in Waupaca, Wisconsin; † 27 November 1993) was an American vertebrate paleontologist.

Olson grew up in Hinsdale, a rural suburb of Chicago. He gained even as a schoolboy butterflies and put it later regularly in North America and the tropics with his colleagues Entomology G. A. Bartholomew continued. He studied chemistry and then had geology at the University of Chicago, where he also emerged as a gymnast and a sports scholarship. After the bachelor's degree in 1932, he studied vertebrate paleontology at Alfred Romer. Romer supervised Olson's promotion, after he had gone to Harvard. After receiving his doctorate in 1935 Olson paleontologist in the Department of Geology at the University of Chicago. During World War II he worked as a cartographer for the military and also published books. He became a professor in Chicago, where in 1947 he helped the vertebrate paleontology with the establishment of an interdisciplinary research committee for more autonomy from the geologist.

Olson turned then new methods in vertebrate paleontology (such as sedimentological statistical methods, aerial cartography, paleoecology, functional morphology and morphometry, taphonomy ). He focused in particular on the early evolution of land vertebrates in the Permian (especially therapsids, a group of early mammalian relatives ) from North America ( with excavations in North Texas and Oklahoma) and South Africa, but also in Russia, where he built up from 1959 contacts ( for example, to Ivan Antonowotisch Yefremov, an expert in taphonomy ). On the issue he came by his teacher Romer and processing of collections at the Walker Museum of the University of Chicago. His research could include an existing up to that gap in the fossil record in the Early Permian. In 1952 he introduced the concept of a Chrono fauna of ecological communities that exist over a long geological periods, but not necessarily always include the same species in the respective ecological niches.

In 1987 he received the first Romer -Simpson Medal the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, he became an honorary member in 1980. Since 1980 he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. From 1953 to 1958 he was editor of Evolution and 1962-1967 of the Journal of Geology.

He was married in 1993 and had three children. He played violin and piano and liked to wear before paleontological songs on socializing.

Writings

• RL Miller Morphological Integration, University of Chicago Press 1958
• Parallelism in the evolution of the Permian reptilian faunas in the old and new worlds, Fieldiana Zoology, Vol 37.1955, p 385-401
• Fauna of the Vale and Choza, Fieldiana Geol, several parts from 1951 to 1958, most recently No. 14, Summary, review and integration of the geology and fauna, Volume 10, 1958, pp. 397-448
• Morphology, Paleontology and Evolution, in S. Tax (Editor ) Evolution after Darwin II The Evolution of Life, Chicago University Press, 1960, pp. 523-545
• Jaw mechanisms: Rhipidistians, amphibians, reptiles, Am. Zool. , Volume 1, 1961, 205-215
• Size frequency distribution in samples of extinct organisms, J. Geol, Volume 65, 1962, pp. 309-333
• Late Permian terrestrial vertebrates. USSR and USA, Trans Am. Phil Soc., Volume 52, 1962, pp. 1-224
• Russian viewpoints on evolution, Evolution, Volume 17, 1963, pp. 119-120
• Evolution of Life, Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1965
• Community evolution and the origin of mammals, Ecology, Volume 47, 1966, pp. 291-302
• Vertebrate Paleozoology, Wiley 1971
• With JA Robinson Concepts of evolution, Columbus / Ohio, Charles R. Merrill, 1975
• Taphonomy: Its history and its role in community evolution, in AK Behrensmeyer, AP Hill Fossils in the Making, University of Chicago Press 1980, pp. 5-19
• The problem of missing links: today and yesterday, Quart. Rev. Biology, Volume 56, 1981, p 405-452
• The other side of the medal, Blacksburg 1990
• With MS Gordon Invasions of the Land, Columbia University Press 1995