William Parks (paleontologist)

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William Arthur Parks (born December 11, 1868 in Hamilton (Ontario) , † October 3, 1936 in Toronto ) was a Canadian paleontologist and geologist.

Life

Parks studied from 1888 natural sciences at the University of Toronto with a bachelor's degree in 1892. He was then a chemist at a mining company and from 1893 at the University of Toronto as a geologist. In 1900 he received his doctorate there. From 1922 he headed the Faculty of Geology there as a professor.

Parks was the founder and first director of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto in 1914 . He made many excursions to western Canada and the United States, particularly digging for late Cretaceous dinosaurs in Alberta. The dinosaur collections at the Royal Ontario Museum can be traced back to him and Levi Sternberg , the museum's chief taxidermist. Parks began collecting from 1918 and brought back specimens of Kritosaurus right from the start . Gustav Eric Lindblad (1897–1962), who with his brother-in-law Sternberg subsequently led most of the museum's expeditions, were also involved from 1920. In 1920 they found Parasaurolophus walkeri , which Parks first described in 1923 and named after the museum's patron Sir Edward Walker. Other first descriptions of dinosaurs come from Parks: Lambeosaurus 1923, Dyoplosaurus 1924, Arrhinoceratops 1925.

The dinosaur Parksosaurus was named in his honor.

He also studied Paleozoic invertebrate fossils and wrote a monograph on building blocks in Canada.

In 1927 he was President of the Paleontological Society . He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada .

Fonts

  • with AP Coleman: Elementary Geology, with special reference to Canada, 1922
  • The Building and Ornamental Stones of Canada, 5 volumes, 1912-1917

literature

  • OT Jones, Obituary Notices Fellow Royal Society, Vol. 2, 1938, 260-263

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Article Royal Ontario Museum in Philip Currie, Kevin Padian, Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs, p. 645
personal data
SURNAME Parks, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Parks, William Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian geologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamilton (Ontario)
DATE OF DEATH October 3, 1936
Place of death Toronto