Steven M. Stanley

Steven Stanley Mitchell ( born November 2, 1941 in Detroit ) is an American paleontologist.

Stanley studied at Princeton University (Bachelor 1963) and received his doctorate from Yale University in 1968. In 1967 he was assistant professor of geology at the University of Rochester and from Assistant Professor and later Professor of Paleobiology at Johns Hopkins University. From 1972 he was a Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution. In 2005 he went into retirement.

Stanley focused on paleoecology and paleoclimatology, patterns and rates of evolution and mass extinction. In 1972 he developed the hypothesis that the Cambrian explosion could be explained by evolutionary pressure of predators, after which the prey, for example, with the development of shells, faster swimming, or the ability to feed ravens responded, which opened this partial new habitats.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Geological Society of America. In 1977 he was awarded the Charles Schuchert Award of the Paleontological Society Paleontological Society Medal and 2007. In 2008 he received the William H. Twenhofel Award of the Society for Sedimentary Geology and Mary Clark Thompson Medal 2006, the National Academy of Sciences. In 2013 he was awarded the Penrose Medal. In 1980 he was Guggenheim Fellow.

Writings

  • Historical Geology. 2nd edition. Spectrum, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-8274-0569-6.
  • With David M. Raup Principles of Paleontology, Freeman 1971
  • Earth and Life through time, Freeman, 1986, 1989
  • Earth System History, Freeman 1999, 3rd edition 2009
  • Children of the ice age: how a global catastrophe allowed humans to evolve, Harmony Books 1996
  • Exploring earth and life through time, Freeman 1993
  • Macro evolution - patterns and processes, Johns Hopkins University Press 1998
  • Extinction, Scientific American Library, Freeman, 1987, German translation turning points of life, Spectrum Publishing, 1988, 1998
  • The new evolutionary timetable: fossils, genes, and the Origin of Species, New York, Basic Books 1981
  • With Niles Eldredge (Editor) Living fossils, Springer Verlag 1984
List of Penrose Medal winners Integrated Authority File
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