John Callomon
John Hannes Callomon (born April 7, 1928 in Berlin ; † April 1, 2010 ) was a British paleontologist and chemist . He was considered one of the leading experts on ammonites, especially from the Jura .
Life
Callomon's father was an engineer at AEG, and the family fled to England in 1937 for political reasons from the National Socialists. Callomon went to school in Birmingham and studied chemistry at Oxford University with a scholarship, graduating in 1950. He did his doctorate in infrared spectroscopy with Harold Warris Thompson and was a post-doctoral student with Gerhard Herzberg in Ottawa . From 1957 he was at University College London , where he became professor of chemistry in 1981 and retired in 1993.
Callomon was also a student of law specialist William Joscelyn Arkell at Oxford . He researched the stratigraphy of the Jura (Dogger, Malm) and received the Danish Steno Medal in 1993 for his work with Tove Birkelund in Greenland. He is considered one of the discoverers of the sexual dimorphism of ammonites (for example, females are generally much larger than males) , along with the Pole Henryk Makowski , who published a little earlier (1962 ). He published on this as early as 1955, but his main work, completed in 1958, met with rejection in the peer review in the leading journals (Journal of Paleontology, Paleontology, Journal of Zoology, Biological Reviews), so that he "only" in the Transactions of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society . He was co-author of an ammonite book in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology (with Claud W. Wright , who was also a formal amateur paleontologist).
He was an honorary member of the Palaeontological Association .
Fonts
- The Measurement of Geological Time, Proceedings of the Royal Institution of London, 56, 1984, pp. 65-99
- Raymond C. Moore (founder), Roger L. Kaesler (ed.): Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. Part L: Mollusca 4th vol. 4: Claud W. Wright , John H. Callomon, Michael K. Howarth : Cretaceous Ammonoidea. Revised edition. Geological Society of America et al., Boulder, CO et al. 1996,
- Sexual dimorphism in Jurassic ammonites, Trans. Leicester lit. phil. Soc. 57, 1963, 21-56.
- Dimorphism in ammonoids, The Systematics Association Special Volume. 18, 1981, 257-273.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Callomon, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Callomon, John Hannes (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British paleontologist and chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 7, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 1, 2010 |