Chester Arnold

Chester Arthur Arnold (born June 25, 1901 in Leeton , Missouri , † November 19, 1977 in Ann Arbor , Michigan ) was an American paleobotanist and botanist . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " CAArnold ".

Life

Chester Arnold studied at Cornell University , where he received his doctorate in paleobotany in 1929 with a dissertation on the flora of the Devonian under Loren Petry . From 1928 he taught at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was there at the Museum of Paleontology curator for fossil plants. In 1947 he was given a full professorship there.

He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Paleobotany Section of the Botanical Society of America in 1977 . From 1959 to 1964 he was President of the International Organization of Paleobotany . In 1958/58 he was a visiting scientist at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in Lucknow , India , where he received the silver medal in 1972.

He published fundamental studies on archaeopteris , the classification of gymnosperms (1948), on the flora of the Michigan coal basin (1949), Eocene ferns from Oregon (especially the aquatic fern Azolla primaeva), tertiary conifers from British Columbia (1955) and on prototaxites . He wrote a textbook on paleobotany that has long been a standard work in the USA. He wrote around 120 scientific articles.

In 1941, during excavations with Alonzo W. Hancock in Oregon, he found the most complete skull of Zygolophodon (a mastodon ) to date .

Fonts

• An Introduction to Paleobotany, McGraw Hill 1947, Archives

literature

• Richard A. Scott: Chester A. Arnold (1901–1977): Portrait of an American paleobotanist, in: William Culp Darrah, Paul C, Robert Herman Wagner (editors), Historical perspective of early twentieth century Carboniferous paleobotany in North America, Geological Society of America Memoir 185, 1995, pp. 215-224.

Web links

• Obituary by Charles B. Beck, University of Michigan