Professor of Earth Sciences, University of New England
John Paterson is a Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale, New South Wales. He graduated with a BSc (Hons I; 2001) and PhD (2005) from Macquarie University in Sydney, and completed postdoctoral studies at the South Australian Museum (2005) and Macquarie University (2006) before his appointment as a Lecturer at UNE in 2007. John has served as Secretary of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists (2006–2010), and is currently a Corresponding Member of the International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy. He was also a recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2014–2018), and was awarded the 2016 Anton Hales Medal by the Australian Academy of Science for distinguished research in the Earth Sciences.
Professor Paterson is one of Australia’s leading researchers on Cambrian (541 to 485 million-year-old) marine fossils, using them to answer major questions relating to evolution, biogeography and palaeoecology during the biggest animal radiation in the history of life, the Cambrian Explosion. He has also used these fossils in the relative dating and correlation of Cambrian rocks around the globe in order to refine the geologic timescale.
Life quickly finds a way: the surprisingly swift end to evolution's big bang
Feb 19, 2019 16:56 pm UTC| Insights & Views Science
The Cambrian explosion more than 500 million years ago is often considered biologys big bang. Virtually all the major kinds of animals evolved in lifes greatest ever burst of evolution, rapidly populating a weird and...
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