Derek Briggs | |
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| Born | Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (1950-01-10)10 January 1950 (age 75)[3] Ireland |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology |
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| Thesis | Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada (1976) |
| Doctoral advisor | Harry Whittington |
| Website | |
Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irishpalaeontologist andtaphonomist based atYale University.[3] Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along withHarry Blackmore Whittington andSimon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of theBurgess Shale. He is theYale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale'sPeabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
Briggs was educated atTrinity College Dublin where he graduated with aBachelor of Arts degree inGeology in 1972. He went on to theUniversity of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologistHarry Blackmore Whittington.[15] He was awarded aPhD in 1976 onArthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada.[16]
While at theUniversity of Cambridge, Briggs worked on thefossils of theMiddle CambrianBurgess Shale ofBritish Columbia alongside a fellow studentSimon Conway Morris, both under the supervision of Harry Whittington, on theexceptionally well-preserved Burgess Shale fauna.[17] The Burgess Shale project subsequently became one of the most celebrated endeavours in the field ofpalaeontology in the latter half of the 20th century. On 1 July 2008 he took over as Director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.[18][19] He became the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale in 2011.[20]
Briggs's research is on the taphonomy, or preservation, and evolutionary significance of the exceptionally preserved fossil biotas known asKonservat-Lagerstätten – fossil formations that include evidence of faunal soft tissue. His work involves a range of approaches from experimental work on the factors controllingdecay and fossilisation, through studies of early diageneticmineralisation andorganic preservation, tofield work on a range of fossil occurrences.[21][22][23][24]
| Date | Position |
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| 1974–1977 | Postdoctoral research Fellow,Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge[citation needed] |
| 1977–1985 | Department of Geology,Goldsmiths College, University of London |
| 1985–2002 | Department ofEarth Sciences,University of Bristol (Chair 1997–2001) |
| 2001–2002 | Visiting professor, Department of Geophysical Sciences,University of Chicago |
| 2003– | Professor in the Department of Geology andGeophysics and Curator in charge ofInvertebratePaleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University |
| 2004–2007 | Director of theYale Institute for Biospheric Studies |
| 2008–2014 | Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University |
| 2011– | G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Yale University |
His nomination for election to theRoyal Society reads:
Professor Briggs has made several remarkable discoveries of exceptionally preserved fossils. His researches have elucidated their evolutionary significance, resulting in a significant shift in the focus of palaeontology toward these important windows on the life of the past. His work on thearthropods from theBurgess Shale ofBritish Columbia has altered our perception of the nature of theCambrian radiation. He demonstrated that morphological disparity among living arthropods is similar to that in the Cambrian, indicating that the functional and developmental constraints on form were operative from the earliest stages ofmetazoanevolution. He described the first evidence of the soft-tissues ofconodonts, which resolved the vexed question of their affinities, with the recognition that these important fossils are the earliest knownvertebrates. More recently he has pioneered a combination of new experimental approaches to the process involved in fossilization of the 'soft parts' of animals. His chemical and mineralogical investigations have demonstrated how soft tissues can be replicated at the cellular level in minerals such as apatite (the Medusa effect).[1]
