Paul E. Olsen

For Paul Olsen the musician, see Scrapomatic.

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

Paul E. Olsen
Born	(1953-08-04) 4 August 1953 (age 71) New Jersey, USA
Nationality	Danish-Ukrainian American
Alma mater	Yale University
Known for	Newark Supergroup
Scientific career
Fields	paleontology, geology
Institutions	Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory

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.

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.^[4]
• 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. 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.

External links

• Columbia homepage
• Curriculum Vitae of Paul E. Olsen
• Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory