Mark Norell

Mark Allen Norell ( born July 26, 1957 in Saint Paul, Minnesota) is an American vertebrate paleontologist.

Norell studied at California State University at Long Beach with a bachelor 's degree in 1980, at the San Diego State University with a master's degree in 1983 and it was founded in 1988 at Yale University doctorate ( Cladistic Approaches to Evolution and Paleobiology as Applied to the Phylogeny of Alligators ). In 1989 he became Assistant Curator, Assistant Curator in 1994 and 1999, curator in the Department of Paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History ( AMNH ). He led from 1990, the renovation of the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology and there is Head of paleontology.

With AMNH expeditions of the rich Cretaceous dinosaurs Fund has been discovered in Ukhaa Tolgod in the Gobi Desert in the early 1990s under his and led by Michael Novacek. He also led expeditions to Patagonia, the Chilean Andes, Cuba, the Sahara and West Africa and North China. He is working on new methods of Fossil investigation with computed tomography and computer image processing.

It deals mainly with the phylogeny of theropods and especially the origin of birds. He discovered and Luis M. Chiappe and erstbeschrieb with James Matthew Clark the small feathered dinosaur Shuvuuia from Mongolia. The interpretation of the made ​​by Chiappe, Norell, A. Pearl, JM Clark and Rinchen bars Bold in Mongolia finds of the small bird-like Alvarezsauriers Mononykus as a sideline of the birds did not sit through. More first descriptions of the finds in Mongolia are the Upper Cretaceous bird Apsaravis ( the first such discovery of a modern bird in the Upper Cretaceous since the seabirds Ichthyornis and Hesperornis ) Byronosaurus and new Oviraptoren ( Citipati ) including nests that the reputation of the Oviraptors as egg predators ( thus corrected the meaning of his name ), and also showed how breeding behavior in birds. In the Oviraptor - Set also the first discovery of an embryo of theropod found Expeditions to Mongolia also provided rich material found on lizards and Champsosauriern ( from the group of Choristodera ).

Norell examined the newly discovered feathered dinosaurs from Liaoning in China ( Jehol Group ), where he notes on feathers in Velociraptor found with colleagues (see also feathered dinosaurs). With colleagues, he described a small basal dromaeosaurid Mahakala from Mongolia and they concluded that the common ancestor ( Paraves ) of birds Archaeopteryx - line dromaeosaurs, Deinonychosauriern and troodontids were very small in general. After the rich finds in Mongolia, he underwent the systematics of Coelurosauria and several of its sub- groups of a revision.

With Xing Xu, he described an also found in Lianoning primitive tyrannosaurids, Dilong paradoxus, which had feathers. Norell therefore also suspected springs in the later descendants such as Tyrannosaurus rex, at least in young animals and later a Restbefiederung with down -like feathers. For more information on relationship of birds and dinosaurs ( and a form of warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs ) came with the discovery of a sleeping dinosaur. Having his head between the front limbs as in birds, where it serves to maintain the body heat The corresponding type Mei long was first described by Norell and Xing Xu. and also dates from 130 million years old layers in the Liaoning province. The animal probably died by volcanic gases and was then buried briefly under volcanic ash. However, no traces of feathers were found in the specimen.

It also deals with theoretical kladistischer analysis and the detection of evolutionary patterns in the phylogenetic tree.

1998 appointed him the The New York Times to New York City Leader of the Year.

He is married to Vivian Pan since 1991 and has one daughter.

Writings

• By JM Clark, PJ Makovicky Cladistic Approaches to the Relationships of Birds to Other Theropod Dinosaurs, LM Chiappe in, LM Witmer Mesozoic Birds - Above the Heads of Dinosaurs, University of California Press 2002, 31-61.
• With Peter J. Makovicky: Important features of the dromaeosaurid skeleton II: information from newly collected specimens of Velociraptor mongoliensis. In: American Museum Novitates. 3282, 1999, pp. 1-45
• With Peter J. Makovicky Troodontidae and Dromaeosauridae in DB Weishampel, P. Dodson, H. Osmolska (eds. ), The Dinosauria, 2nd edition, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004
• With Lowell Dingus: Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus rex, University of California Press, 2011
• With Dingus, Gaffrey Discovering dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History, Knopf 1995
• By JM Clark Birds are Dinosaurs, Science Spectra, 8, 1997, 28-34

For children and adolescents:

• With Dingus, Eugene S. Gaffney Discovering Dinosaurs: evolution, extinction and the lessons of prehistory, A. Knopf 1995 ( awarded the Scientific American 's Young Readers Book of the Year Award )
• With Dingus: Searching for Velociraptor, Harper Collins 1997
• With Dingus A nest of dinosaurs: the story of Oviraptor, Doubleday / Random House 1999 ( Orbis Pictus received the Award of the National Council of Teachers )