Mikhail Fedonkin

Mikhail Alexandrovich Fedonkin (Russian: Михаил Александрович Федонкин, often quoted by the English transliteration Mikhail A. Fedonkin; born June 19, 1946 in Orechowo - Zuyevo ), is a Russian paleontologist and pioneer of research into Precambrian soft-bodied fossils.

Life and work

Fedonkin studied geology at the State University and since 1978 at the Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. In 1978 he was with the work of soft bodied fauna and fossil traces of Vendian in the northern Russian platform PhD (Candidate items) and 1985 habilitation (Russian doctorate ) work with soft bodied fauna of the Vendian and its place in the evolution of metazoans. Since 1985 he is a senior scientist and since 1992 he heads the Palaeontological Institute, the Laboratory of Precambrian organisms. He also heads the Department of Bio - geochemistry. He is Honorary Research Fellow at Monash University.

He organized more than 40 expeditions ( including in addition to Russia to Canada, Australia, Norway, Poland, Spain and the USA ) and has published more than 200 research papers, including 11 monographs.

In addition to Paleobiology and Stratigraphy of the Proterozoic and Cambrian, he also deals with the paleoecology and organic geochemistry of the early organisms including paleoclimatology and history of the metabolism and the enzyme system earlier organisms.

In 1997 he became a corresponding member and in 2008 a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is deputy secretary of the Academy of Geosciences. He is vice chairman of the National Committee of Geologists in Russia and on the Russian side in various international geoscientific committees, among others, at UNESCO.

He is the first to describe some fossils of the Ediacaran fauna as Hiemalora stellaris (1982 ), Onega stepanovi (1976 ), Nimbia occlusa ( 1980) and of Horodyskia moniliformis (2000, with Ellis Yochelson ).

In 1997 he received the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal.

Writings

• Biota of the White Sea from the Vendian ( Precambrian soft-bodied fauna from the northern Russian platform ), essays from the Geological Institute, Moscow, Nauka, Volume 342, 1981, pp. 1-100 (in Russian )
• Organic world of the Vendian, Moscow, VINITI 1983, pp. 1-128 (in Russian )
• Soft-bodied fauna and their place in the evolution of metazoans, Transactions of the Palaeontological Institute, Volume 226, 1987 ( Russian)
• With James Gehling, Kathleen Grey, Guy Narbonne, Patricia Vickers - Rich The rise of animals - evolution of diversification of the kingdom Animalia, The Johns Hopkins University Press 2007
• Precambrian metazoans, in DEG Briggs, PR Crowther (Editor) Palaeobiology. A Synthesis, Blackwell Scientific Publ, 1990, pp. 17-24.
• Fedonkin, Runnegar Proterozoic metazoan trace fossils, in J. William Schopf, Cornelius Klein ( Editor) Proterozoic biosphere. A multidisciplinary study, Cambridge University Press 1992
• With TP Crimes Evolution and dispersal of deepsea traces, Palaios, Volume 9, 1994, p.74 -83
• Geobiological trends and events in the Precambrian biosphere. in O.H. Walliser (Editor: Global Events and Event Stratigraphy in the Phanerozoic: Results of the International Interdisciplinary Cooperation in the IGCP Project 216 "Global Biological Events in Earth History " ), Springer- Verlag, 1996, pp. 89-112.
• With JH Lipps, AG Collins: Evolution of biological complexity: Evidence from geology, paleontology and molecular biology, in RB Hoover (Editor) Instruments, Methods, and Missions for Astrobiology. Proceedings of The International Society for Optical Engineering, vol. 3441, 1998, pp. 138-148.
• Fedonkin The origin of the Metazoa in the light of the proterozoic fossil record, Paleontological Research, Volume 7, 2003, pp. 9-41