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CATHRYN R. NEWTON |
DEAN, THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCESPROFESSORMARINE MASS EXTINCTIONSENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE |
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Department of Earth Sciences Department: 315.443.2672 |
My research programs emphasize interdisciplinary approaches to marine mass extinction and environmental change. My most recent project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is an analysis of the Triassic mass extinction - one of the five largest mass extinction events in Earth history. We have discovered evidence that serial meteoric impacts were associated with the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction.
The research program on Triassic-Jurassic mass extinctions has involved three field areas thus far: Central Italy (Tuscany), where we have been studying the paleoecology and environmental stratigraphy of fossiliferous limestones, cherts, and shales; Alaska, where I have worked on Triassic-Jurassic sections for the last eleven years; and Nevada, where one of the world's most continuous sections across the Triassic-Jurassic boundary can be found. During the next two years we will continue sampling in these three important areas and will extend our work to other areas as well. The Salzburg area of Austria and the Southern Alps and Alpine foothills of northern Italy have also been recently studied by my students.
Another ongoing research project involving several students and myself is the study of oxygen-stressed (anaerobic and dysaerobic) paleocommunities through Phanerozoic time. Mike Whalen and I have been working on new paleogeographic and sedimentologic reconstructions of the Permian of western North America. Other recent Ph.D. students who conducted theses on dysaerobic communities include Joel Thompson, who studied both modern and Devonian dysaerobic systems in eastern North America, and Lauret Savoy, who used conodont biostratigraphy as a basis for reconstructing Devono-Mississippian anoxic events in the Canadian Rockies.
A third research program is a quantitative paleoecological analysis of the richly fossiliferous Hamilton Group here in central New York. The Hamilton Group has long been famous for its exquisitely preserved invertebrate fossils. We are using these exceptional fossil assemblages to test some of the basic assumptions of community paleoecology. For instance, how large a sample is needed to adequately represent the proportions of rare species in a fossil assemblage? Can biomass relations between different invertebrate groups be estimated from well-preserved Devonian fossil assemblages? Our research suggests that the beautifully preserved fossils of the Hamilton Group may yield answers to these key paleoecological questions.
1983 Ph.D. Earth Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz
1978 M.S. Geology, University of North Carolina
1976 B.A. Geology, magna cum laude, Duke University
* McRoberts, Christopher A. and Newton, Cathryn R., 1995, Selective extinction among end-Triassic European bivalves: Geology, v. 23, p. 102-104.
* Ivany, Linda C., Newton, Cathryn R., and Mullins, Henry T., 1995, Benthic invertebrates of a modern carbonate ramp: Journal of Paleontology, v. 68, p. 417-432.
* McRoberts, Christopher A., Newton, Cathryn R., and Allasinaz, Andrea, 1994, End-Triassic bivalve extinction, Lombardian Alps, Italy: Historical Biology, v. 9, p. 297-313.
* Bice, D. M., Newton, Cathryn R., McCauley, S., Reiners, P.W., and McRoberts, C., 1992, Shocked quartz at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary in Italy: Science, v. 225, p. 443-446.
* Newton, Cathryn R., 1988, Significance of "Tethyan" fossils in the American Cordillera: Science, v. 242, p. 385-391.
* Newton, Cathryn R., 1990, Paleobiogeography of the ancient Pacific: Science, v. 249, p. 681-683 (discussion paper).
* Newton, Cathryn R., and Laporte, Leo F., 1989, Ancient Environments, 3rd ed.: Prentice Hall, 178 p.
Katharine Cartwright, M.S., 1995 (B.S. College of Charleston, 1991), The Triassic Mass Extinction at Portvenere, Italy.
Christopher McRoberts, Ph.D., 1994 (B.S. Wyoming, M.S. University of Montana, 1990), Triassic-Jurassic Mass Extinction in Lombardia (Northern Italy).
Willis Newman, M.A., 1993 Quantitative Paleoecology of the Middle Devonian Hamilton Group, Central New York.
Michael Whalen, Ph.D., 1993, Environmental Stratigraphy and Paleoceanography of the Permian Park City Formation, U. S. Western Interior.
Lauret E. Savoy, Ph.D., 1990, Sedimentary record of Devonian-Mississippian carbonate and black shale systems, southernmost Canadian Rockies and adjacent Montana facies and processes: Syracuse University, 226 p.
Joel B. Thompson, Ph.D., 1989, Ecological and sedimentological processes in dysaerobic environments: Case studies from a modern freshwater lake and a Devonian marine sequence: Syracuse University, 155 p.
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