Dr. David D. Gillette
Title: Research Professor
Degree: Ph.D., Southern Methodist University
Specialty: Vertebrate Paleontology
Research Interests: My research involves paleontology from grave to cradle: excavations, laboratory preparation and conservation, and technical studies on Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates. My research team has focused most recently on Cretaceous biodiversity of southern Utah, in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. The fossil record there spans nearly 30 million years of the Late Cretaceous, from shoreline to shallow marine and back to shoreline and fully terrestrial depositional settings. We have discovered a variety of marine vertebrates in the Tropic Shale, including plesiosaurs, turtles, fish, sharks, and a strange new dinosaur that belongs in the therizinosaur clade. We also have discovered the rear half of a hadrosaur skeleton in the Kaiparowits Formation, with ossified tendons and detailed impressions of the skin. In addition, I have on-going research projects on the supergiant sauropod dinosaur, Seismosaurus; the oldest known sauropod dinosaur, Barapasaurus, from the Early Jurassic of India; and several projects on Pleistocene vertebrates including mammoths and glyptodonts. My international experience has included projects in Mexico, Argentina, India, and Egypt.
Museum of Northern Arizona,
3101 N. Fort Valley Road,
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
Office: To be determined
Cell: 928-853-5441
Work: 928-608-6272
e-mail: David.Gillette@NAU.edu
