Paul E. Olsen

For Paul Olsen the musician, see Scrapomatic.
Paul E. Olsen
Born (1953-08-04) 4 August 1953 (age 71)
New Jersey, USA
NationalityDanish-Ukrainian American
Alma materYale University
Known forNewark Supergroup
Scientific career
Fieldspaleontology, geology
InstitutionsLamont Doherty Earth Observatory

Paul E. Olsen (born August 4, 1953) is an American paleontologist and author and co-author of a large number of technical papers.

Biography

Growing up as a teenager in Livingston, New Jersey, he was instrumental in Riker Hill Fossil Site being named a National Natural Landmark as a teenager by sending President Richard Nixon a dinosaur footprint cast from the site.[1][2][3] He received a M. Phil. and a Ph.D. in Biology at Yale University in 1984. His thesis was on the Newark Supergroup.

His interests and research examine patterns of ecosystem evolution and extinction as a response to climate change over geological time, and Triassic and Jurassic Continental Ecosystems. His research methods include paleoclimatology, structural geology, paleontology, palynology, geochemistry, and geophysics.

Professor Olsen is currently Arthur D. Storke Memorial Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University; Research Associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, the American Museum of Natural History and the Virginia Natural History Museum, from which he received the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Natural Science, in 2015. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2008.

Below is a list of taxa that Olsen has contributed to naming:

Year Taxon Authors
2008 Postosuchus alisonae sp. nov. Peyer, Carter, Sues, Novak, & Olsen[4]
2001 Hypuronector limnaios gen. et sp. nov. Colbert & Olsen[5]
1999 Plinthogomphodon herpetairus gen. et sp. nov. Sues, Olsen, & Carter[6]
1994 Clevosaurus bairdi sp. nov. Sues, Shubin, & Olsen[7]
1993 Xenodiphyodon petraios gen. et sp. nov. Sues & Olsen[8]
1993 Gomphiosauridion baileyae gen. et sp. nov. Sues & Olsen[8]

Recent publications

  • Olsen, P.E., Laskar, J., Kent, D.V., Kinney, S.T., Reynolds, D.J., Sha, J., Whiteside, J.H., 2019, Mapping Solar System chaos with the Geological Orrery. PNAS, May 28, 2019 116 (22) 10664-10673.[9]
  • Peter LeTourneau and Paul Olsen (ed.), (2003) The Great Rift Valleys of Pangea in Eastern North America, vol. 1-2, published by Columbia University Press. Volume 1: Tectonics, Structure, and Volcanism (ISBN 0-231-11162-2), Volume 2: Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Paleontology (ISBN 0-231-12676-X)

In production

  • Olsen, Paul E., Dinosaur and Other Fossil Tracks of Eastern North America: Columbia University Press

References

  1. ^ Kleiman, Miriam (2009). "Amateur Teenage "Dinosaur Hunter's" Find Ends up in the National Archives". National Archives. Archived from the original on 2011-11-26. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  2. ^ "Essex Fossil Site Now a Landmark". The New York Times. July 22, 1973. Retrieved 2009-03-09.
  3. ^ Staff. Foot Forward, Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, March 31, 2009. Accessed February 24, 2011. "In 1968, 14-year-old Paul Olsen of suburban Livingston, N.J., and his friend Tony Lessa heard that dinosaur tracks had been found in a nearby quarry. They raced over on their bikes. 'I went ballistic,' Olsen recalls. Over the next few years, the boys uncovered and studied thousands of tracks and other fossils there, often working into the night. It opened the world of science to Olsen; he went on to become one of the nation’s leading paleontologists."
  4. ^ Peyer, Karin; Carter, Joseph G.; Sues, Hans-Dieter; Novak, Stephanie E.; Olsen, Paul E. (12 June 2008). "A new suchian archosaur from the Upper Triassic of North Carolina". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 28 (2): 363–381. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2008)28[363:ANSAFT]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0272-4634. Retrieved 8 January 2025 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
  5. ^ Colbert, Edwin H.; Olsen, Paul E. (22 June 2001). "A New and Unusual Aquatic Reptile from the Lockatong Formation of New Jersey (Late Triassic, Newark Supergroup)". American Museum Novitates. 3334: 1–24. doi:10.1206/0003-0082(2001)334<0001:ANAUAR>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0003-0082. Retrieved 8 January 2025 – via BioOne Digital Library.
  6. ^ Sues, Hans-Dieter; Olsen, Paul E.; Carter, Joseph G. (14 June 1999). "A Late Triassic traversodont cynodont from the Newark Supergroup of North Carolina". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 19 (2): 351–354. doi:10.1080/02724634.1999.10011146. ISSN 0272-4634. Retrieved 8 January 2025 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
  7. ^ Sues, Hans-Dieter; Shubin, Neil H.; Olsen, Paul E. (7 September 1994). "A new sphenodontian (Lepidosauria: Rhynchocephalia) from the McCoy Brook Formation (Lower Jurassic) of Nova Scotia, Canada". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 14 (3): 327–340. doi:10.1080/02724634.1994.10011563. ISSN 0272-4634. Retrieved 14 February 2025 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
  8. ^ a b Sues, Hans-Dieter; Olsen, Paul E. (23 September 1993). "A new procolophonid and a new tetrapod of uncertain, possibly procolophonian affinities from the Upper Triassic of Virginia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 13 (3): 282–286. doi:10.1080/02724634.1993.10011510. ISSN 0272-4634. Retrieved 8 February 2025 – via Taylor and Francis Online.
  9. ^ Olsen, Paul (2019). "Mapping Solar System chaos with the Geological Orrery". PNAS. 116 (22): 10664–10673. Bibcode:2019PNAS..11610664O. doi:10.1073/pnas.1813901116. PMC 6561182. PMID 30833391.