Thomas JM Schopf

Thomas Joseph Morton Schopf (born August 26, 1939 in Urbana (Illinois) , † March 18, 1984 ) was an American paleontologist.

Schopf studied at Oberlin College (Bachelor 1960) and received his doctorate in paleontology from Ohio State University in 1964 , when he was there assistant at the Orton Museum. As a post-doctoral student , he conducted research at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole until 1967 . In 1967 he became an assistant professor and in 1969 an associate professor of paleontology and oceanography at Lehigh University . From 1978 he was a professor of paleobiology at the University of Chicago and was there at the Field Museum of Natural History. He was visiting scholar at Caltech and visiting professor at the University of Hamburg .

Schopf transferred concepts from modern population biology to paleobiology.

He was the founder (with Ralph Gordon Johnson ) and editor of the journal Palaeobiology in 1974 . He was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 1976 he received the Charles Schuchert Award .

He was the brother of J. William Schopf .

Fonts (selection)

• Paleoceanography . Harvard University Press, 1980.
• Models in Paleobiology . Freeman 1972. - as editor
• Conodonts of the Trenton group (Ordovician) in New York, Southern Ontario, and Quebec . University of the State of New York, Albany 1966.

Web links

• Portrait at the University of Chicago
• Thomas JM Schopf Papers, Smithsonian Archives