New Fossil Genus Named After Trinity College Dublin Geologist
Posted on: 12 July 2013
Associate Professor of Geology and Curator of the Geological Museum at Trinity College Dublin, Patrick Wyse Jackson, has been honoured in having the fossil bryozoan genus Wysejacksonella named after him in a paper recently published in the prestigious German palaeontological journal. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie – Abhandlungen. The 285 million-year-old bryozoan fossil is found in rocks of Permian age (299 – 250 million years) in northwest China and central Iran, and may also occur in Tibet.
Professor Wyse Jackson was also recently inaugurated as President of the International Bryozoology Association at its 16th International Conference held in Sicily. A member of the association since 1987, he will serve a three-year term as President and preside over the next conference to be held in 2016.
Fossil bryozoan genus Wysejacksonella
Professor Wyse Jackson’s research interests are on the taxonomy, functional morphology and biology of Palaeozoic bryozoans, particularly those from the Ordovician (440 – 490 million years ago) and Mississippian (318 – 360 million years ago) geological time periods. With a number of American colleagues, he is currently working on aspects of some Ordovician bryozoan faunas, and on the revision of the Order Fenestrata for the forthcoming edition of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology.