I’ve been very fortunate in that some of my work has received press coverage. Some of it has been in local news outlets, but some have found their way into (sometimes international) mass media. Check out some highlights here:
Preservation of fossil internal organs
Researchers Watch Fish Rot, for Science (The Scientist)
Scientists uncover how organs fossilise by analysing rotting fish (Chemistry World)
Media comments:
310-million-year-old fossil blobs might not be jellyfish after all (Science News)
Video Games Need Better Dinosaurs. Paleontologists Can Help (Wired)
Fossil of Vampire Squid’s Oldest Ancestor Is Named for Biden (NY Times)
Researchers Name Fossilized Vampire Squid After Joe Biden (Gizmodo)
The Ammonite that lost its shell (NYTimes)
Newly discovered fossil ferns (AGGNET)
Squid eat squid world (NewsWeek)
Taphonomic biases in the Cephalopod fossil record
My paper on the how the decay of squids and octopus can explain their patchy fossil record made the Guardians top papers of 2016!
“Why are there no fossil squid?” FAU blog post (in German).
EGU blog
An article written my work on what decaying fish can tell us about the fossilisation process: EGUBlog
Solving the Tullimonstrum mystery
My work on the weird and wonderful state fossil of Illinois got a fair amount of press! Here are some of the best bits:
Deposits Magazine: The Tully Monster: is this the world’s most mysterious fossil?
Nature’s news and views:Getting the measure of a monster
Live Science article: Jeepers, Peepers! Tully Monster’s Eyes Prove It’s a Vertebrate
UoLeicester press release: Prehistoric peepers provide vital clue in solving ancient ‘Tully Monster’ mystery
Local Illinois news story: Burpee Museum fossils help solve mystery of the ‘Tully Monster’
Daily Mail story: Prehistoric peepers unlock more secrets of the weird Tully monster: Pigment cells prove the 300-million-year-old ‘sea alien’ had eyes on stalks and a backbone
Biosphere Link: The eyes have it: solving the mystery of the ‘Tully Monster’
Story: 300 million year old ‘Tully Monster’ was a vertebrate, researchers identify
Science Daily: Prehistoric peepers give vital clue in solving 300-million-year-old ‘Tully Monster’
A response to a rebuttal by Sallen et al. (2017):
Laboratory News: ‘Tully monster debate reignited’
The Palaeontological Association Newsletter #96 (2016)
The Palaeontological Association Newsletter #90 (2016)
Click here: #fossilsinthefield competition
“This past Northern Hemisphere summer field season we asked you to share your field photos on social media using the hashtag #fossilsinthefield (Newsletter 89), and we had an excellent response…
…Our favourite was from Thomas Clements (@Thomas_Clements) who is researching the exceptional preservation of soft tissues in the Mazon Creek Carboniferous Lagerstätte in the USA. We felt that it captured the essence of fieldwork, with wet feet and the effort required to retrieve fossils in fairly treacherous circumstances. The image shows locals Daniel Holm (left) and his father, Adam Holm, hunting for nodules, using hoes to extract them from riverbed. The Holms are experts at finding fossil-bearing nodules, and can tell if they are fossiliferous often by sight or shape alone. Nodules collected by Thomas are destined for geochemical analysis in order to determine how the nodules formed and if fossil preservation is linked to their chemical composition.”
Thomas Clements 