From the Ooze –
Speaker: Dr. Robert R. Gaines, Edwin F. and Martha Hahn Professor of Geology, Pomona College
In what has been hailed as the world’s most important fossil discovery in decades, Robert Gaines was a member of the team that discovered a stunning new Burgess Shale fossil site in Canada’s Kootenay National Park in 2014. His recent research at Burgess Shale sites has also offered a likely solution to one of biology’s greatest riddles, the preservation of soft-tissue fossils from the Cambrian Explosion, the flowering of complex life on Earth during the Late Neoproterozoic and Cambrian Periods some 570 to 500 million years ago. His hypothesis that a combination of calcium carbonate deposits and lower levels of oxygen and sulfur in the Cambrian seas prevented the degradation of the fossils by microbes was validated by a startlingly consistent pattern in the geochemical data he collected from around the world. He earned a BS from the College of William and Mary, MS from the University of Cincinnati, and PhD from UC Riverside. Among his various honors is Pomona College’s Wig Distinguished Professorship Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2007 and 2013.
Introduction: Bill Waggener
Fellowship: Georgia McManigal
Greeters: Larry Wicksted, Tom Helliwell