DGSE Geoscience Seminar—Monday, February 10 (Today!)
Speaker:Dr. Neil Kelley (Vanderbilt University)
Topic: From Mountains to Museums—Piecing Together the History of Triassic Marine Reptiles in the American West
A message from Stacia Gordon: This coming Monday’s seminar speaker will be Dr. Neil Kelley from Vanderbilt University. Learn more about his research here at Earth Horizons and Vanderbilt University.
Abstract: The successful re-adaptation of terrestrial reptiles to aquatic life in the oceans after the end-Permian mass extinction coincided with top-to-bottom reorganization of marine ecosystems during the Mesozoic. Since the mid-1800s, the American West has been a rich source for fossils that record this pivotal evolutionary transition. Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors including fragmentary fossils, complex tectonics and remote localities, the American Triassic marine reptile fossil record has long been overshadowed by contemporaneous fossil assemblages from Europe and Asia. During the past several years, new discoveries in the field, as well as reappraisal of forgotten, misidentified or overlooked specimens in museum collections, have helped to fill in some gaps in our knowledge and reaffirm the important perspective provided by Triassic marine reptiles from the American West. This talk will review key historic and contemporary developments on this scientific frontier and explore what recent discoveries reveal about the evolution and extinction of Triassic marine reptiles and the ecological roles they played in an interval of global change.
UNR DGSE Geoscience Seminars Fall 2019 (Dept. of Geological Sciences & Engineering)