Ed Landing

Ed Landing (born August 10, 1949 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin ) is an American paleontologist and geologist .

Ed Landing grew up in Port Washington and studied at the University of Wisconsin at Madison with a bachelor's degree in geology in 1971 and the University of Michigan , where he received his master's degree in 1975 and received his doctorate in 1978 with a dissertation in paleozoic paleontology and stratigraphy . As a post-doctoral student he was at the University of Waterloo , where he studied Ordovician conodonts from Devon Island , and at the United States Geological Survey in Denver , where he studied conodonts from the late Cambrian and early Ordovician of the Bear River Range in Utah and Idaho dealt. In 1980/81 he was at the University of Toronto , where he did field studies in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. From 1981 he was with the Geological Survey of the state of New York and became a state paleontologist there. In 1996 he became a Principal Scientist there . He is an adjunct professor at the State University of New York in Albany .

He is best known for his work in establishing the stratigraphic boundary of the Cambrian and Precambrian . Landing is a voting member of the Cambrian Sub-Commission of the International Stratigraphic Commission and a member of the Ordovician Commission. Together with colleagues, he determined the reference locality (GSSP) Fortune Head for the Precambrian-Cambrian border in eastern Newfoundland (part of Avalonia ). He worked with Samuel Bowring on isotope dating (uranium-lead) . The transition from Precambrian to Cambrian marked a decisive step in the development of life ( Cambrian explosion , transition from the soft-body fauna of Ediacara to the first animals with shells and armor).

He also deals with the Takonian formations in the northern Appalachian Mountains . He examined conodonts, trilobites and graptolites in the shelf sediments from the Cambrian to Ordovician, which were postponed when Avalonia was attached to Laurasia, as well as the deep-sea sediments, whose black slate he assigned to global warm periods and whose green slate he assigned to cold periods with lower sea levels. He also found a unique paleozoic snail reef there.

Fonts

• with SA Bowring, K. Davidek, AWA Rushton, RA Fortey , WAP Wimbledon: Cambrian-Ordovician boundary age and duration of the lowest Ordovician Tremadoc Series based on U-Pb zircon dates from Avalonian Wales. Geological Magazine, Volume 137, 2000, pp. 485-494.
• with Gerd Geyer , W. Heldmaier: Faunas and depositional environments of the Cambrian of the Moroccan Atlas regions, Beringeria Special Issue, Volume 2, 1998, pp. 47-120.
• with SR Westrop: Cambrian faunal sequence and depositional history of Avalonian Newfoundland and New Brunswick. New York State Museum Bulletin, 492, 1998, pp. 7-75.
• Avalon - Insular continent by the latest Precambrian, in: RD Lance, M. Thompson (Eds.), Avalonian and Related Peri-Gondwanan Terranes of the Circum-North Atlantic. Geological Society of America, Special Paper 304, 1996, pp. 27-64.
• with KE Bartowski: Oldest shelly fossils from the Taconic allochthon and late Early Cambrian sea-levels in eastern Laurentia. Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 70, 1996, pp. 741-761.
• with SR Westrop, L. Knox: Conodonts, stratigraphy, and relative sea-level changes of the Tribes Hill Formation (Lower Ordovician), east-central New York. Journal of Paleontology, Volume 70, 1996, pp. 652-676.
• Cambrian-Ordovician boundary in the Taconic allochthon, eastern New York, and its interregional correlation. Journal of Paleontology, Volume 67, 1993, pp. 1-19.
• Upper Lower Cambrian (upper Placentian-Branchian Series) of the northern Antigonish Highlands, Nova Scotia: faunas, depositional environments, and revised stratigraphy. Journal of Paleontology, Volume 68, 1995, pp. 475-495.
• Precambrian-Cambrian global stratotype ratified and a new perspective of Cambrian time. Geology, Vol. 22, 1994, pp. 179-182.
• with P. Myrow, AP Benus, and GM Narbonne. 1989. The Placentian Series: appearance of the oldest skeletalized faunas in southeastern Newfoundland. Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 63, 1989, pp. 739-769.

literature

• Alexander E. Gates: Earth Scientists from A to Z, Facts on File, 2003

Web links

• Homepage, SUNY Albany