Mark Norell

Mark Allen Norell (* 26 July 1957 in Saint Paul , Minnesota ) is an American vertebrate - paleontologist .

Norell graduated from California State University in Long Beach with a bachelor's degree in 1980, from San Diego State University with a master's degree in 1983, and received his PhD from Yale University in 1988 (Cladistic Approaches to Evolution and Paleobiology as Applied to the Phylogeny of alligators). He became Assistant Curator in 1989, Associate Curator in 1994 and Curator in the Paleontology Department of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in 1999 . From 1990 he led the renovation of the Hall of Vertebrate Paleontology and is head of the paleontology department there.

With expeditions of the AMNH under his leadership and Michael J. Novacek, the rich Cretaceous dinosaur site in Ukhaa Tolgod in the Gobi desert was discovered in the early 1990s. He also led expeditions to Patagonia, the Chilean Andes, Cuba, the Sahara and West Africa as well as northern China. He works on new methods of fossil investigation with computed tomography and computer image processing.

He is mainly concerned with the phylogeny of the theropods and especially the ancestry of birds. He discovered and first described the small feathered dinosaur Shuvuuia from Mongolia with Luis M. Chiappe and James Matthew Clark . The interpretation of the finds made by Chiappe, Norell, A. Perle , JM Clark and Rinchen Barsbold in Mongolia of the small, bird-like alvarez dinosaur Mononykus as a sideline of the birds did not prevail. Further first descriptions from the finds in Mongolia are the Upper Cretaceous bird Apsaravis (the first such find of a modern bird in the Upper Cretaceous since the seabirds Ichthyornis and Hesperornis ), Byronosaurus and new Oviraptors ( Citipati ) including nests, which the reputation of the Oviraptor as an egg robber ( so the meaning of his name) and also showed breeding behavior like birds. The first finding of a theropod embryo was also found in the Oviraptor clutches. The expeditions to Mongolia also produced rich finds on lizards and champsosaurs (from the group of the Choristodera ).

Norell examined the newly discovered feathered dinosaurs from Liaoning in China ( Jehol group ), where he and colleagues found evidence of feathers in Velociraptor (see also Feathered Dinosaurs ). With colleagues he described a small basal dromaeosaur Mahakala from Mongolia and they concluded that the common ancestors ( paraves ) of birds of the Archeopteryx line, dromaeosaurs, deinonychosaurs and troodontids in general were very small. After the rich finds in Mongolia, he subjected the systematics of the Coelurosauria and various of their subgroups to a revision.

With Xing Xu he described a primitive tyrannosaurid, Dilong paradoxus , also found in Liaoning , which had feathers. Norell therefore also suspects feathers in the later descendants such as Tyrannosaurus rex, at least in young animals and later a residual fletching with down-like feathers. Further evidence of the relationship between birds and dinosaurs (and a form of warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs) was provided by the discovery of a sleeping dinosaur, with its head between its forelimbs like birds, where this is used to maintain body heat. The associated species Mei long was first described by Norell and Xing Xu. and is also from 130 million year old layers in Liaoning Province. The animal presumably died from volcanic gases and was buried under volcanic ash shortly afterwards. However, no traces of feathers were found on the specimen.

He also deals theoretically with cladistic analysis and the recognition of evolutionary patterns in the phylogenetic tree.

In 1998, The New York Times named him New York City Leader of the Year .

He has been married to Vivian Pan since 1991 and has one daughter.

Fonts

• with JM Clark, PJ Makovicky Cladistic Approaches to the Relationships of Birds to Other Theropod Dinosaurs , in LM Chiappe, LM Witmer Mesozoic Birds - Above the Heads of Dinosaurs , University of California Press 2002, 31-61.
• with Peter J. Makovicky: Important features of the dromaeosaurid skeleton II: information from newly collected specimens of Velociraptor mongoliensis . In: American Museum Novitates. 3282, 1999, pp. 1-45
• with Peter J. Makovicky Troodontidae and Dromaeosauridae , in DB Weishampel, P. Dodson, H. Osmolska (eds.), The Dinosauria , 2nd edition, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004
• with Lowell Dingus : Barnum Brown: The Man Who Discovered Tyrannosaurus rex , University of California Press 2011
• with Dingus, Gaffrey Discovering dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History , Knopf 1995
• with Michael J. Novacek , MC McKenna , JM Clark Fossils of the Flaming Cliffs , Scientific American 271, 1994, No. 6, pp. 60-69.
• with JM Clark Birds are Dinosaurs , Science Spectra, 8, 1997, 28-34

For children and teenagers:

• with Dingus, Eugene S. Gaffney Discovering Dinosaurs: evolution, extinction and the lessons of prehistory , A. Knopf 1995 (received the Scientific American's Young Readers Book of the Year Award)
• with dingus: Searching for Velociraptor , Harper Collins 1997
• with Dingus A nest of dinosaurs: the story of Oviraptor , Doubleday / Random House 1999 (received the Orbis Pictus Award from the National Council of Teachers)

Web links

• Website at the AMNH

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
2. ↑ Chiappe, Norell, Clark "The skull of a relative of the stem-group bird Mononykus" Nature, 392, 1998, 275-278
3. ↑ Julia A. Clarke, Norell Fossil that fills a critical gap in avian evolution , Nature 409 (2001): 181-184, abstract
4. ↑ Discussion on this in Evo Wiki ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Norell, P. Makovicky, J. Clark A new troodontid theropod from Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 20, 2000, pp. 7-11
6. ^ Rinchen Barsbold , JM Clark, Norell Two new oviraptorids (Theropoda: Oviraptorosauria), upper Cretaceous Djadokhta Formation, Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia . In: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 21, No. 2, 2001, pp. 209-213
7. ↑ James M. Clark, Mark A. Norell, Timothy Rowe: Cranial Anatomy of Citipati osmolskae (Theropoda, Oviraptorosauria), and a Reinterpretation of the Holotype of Oviraptor philoceratops . In: American Museum Novitates. No. 3364, American Museum of Natural History, 2002
8. ↑ JM Clark, MA Norell, LM Chiappe: An oviraptorid skeleton from the Late Cretaceous of Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia, preserved in an avianlike brooding position over an oviraptorid nest . In: American Museum Novitates. 3265, American Museum of Natural History, New York 1999
9. ↑ Norell, JM Clark, LM Chiappe, D. Dashzeveg A nesting dinosaur , Nature 378, 1995, 774-776
10. ↑ Norell, JM Clark, LM Chiappe. An Embryo of an Oviraptorid (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the Late Cretaceous of Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia , American Museum Novitates 3315 (2001)
11. ^ AH Turner, PJ Makovicky, MA Norell Feather quill knobs in the dinosaur Velociraptor , Science 317, 2007, p. 1721, pdf
12. ^ Alan H. Turner, Diego Pol, Julia A. Clarke, Gregory M. Erickson, Mark Norell: A basal dromaeosaurid and size evolution preceding avian flight. In: Science. 317, 2007, pp. 1378-1381
13. ^ Xing Xu, Mark Norell et al. a. Basal tyrannosauroids from China and evidence for protofeathers in tyrannosauroids . In: Nature. 431, 2004, pp. 680-684
14. ↑ Newly discovered primitive Tyrannosaur found to be feathered , AMNH
15. ^ Xing Xu, Mark A. Norell: A new troodontid dinosaur from China with avian-like sleeping posture , In: Nature 431 (2004), pp. 838-841
16. ^ "Sleeping Dragon" Fossil May Link Dinosaurs, Birds, National Geographic News, October 28, 2010