FROM EDIACARAN TAPHONOMY TO PLEISTOCENE MAMMOTHS: FIFTY YEARS OF RESEARCH IN PALEONTOLOGY AT UNLV

The research interests of UNLV paleontologists have been highly variable―taxonomically and stratigraphically. During most of our 50-year history there has been only one paleontologist on our faculty. These were W.A. McClellan, C. Kent Chamberlain, and Steve Rowland. For a few years we were lucky to have a second paleontologist on the faculty for short intervals: Russell Shapiro, Ben Dattilo, and Josh Bonde. Fourteen M.S. students, two M.A. students, and six PhD students have completed theses and dissertations on paleontological topics, with three grad students currently in progress. Many undergraduates have also been involved.

Published papers, theses, and dissertations produced by UNLV paleontologists have spanned a very wide spectrum of topics and ages, including Quaternary foraminifera (McClellan), invertebrate trace fossils (Chamberlain and grad students Kirk Hardy and Zach Jensen), taphonomy of Ediacaran non-skeletalized bilaterians (grad student Michael Strange), Ediacaran algae (Rowland and undergrad Margarita Rodriguez), Paleozoic reef studies (Rowland, Dattillo, Shapiro, grad students Melissa Hicks, Lynn Oliver, Xiaoing Zhou, Jeff Donovan, and undergrad Stephanie Mrozek), Cambrian biostratigraphy (Rowland and grad student Slava Korolev), trilobite morphological analysis (grad student Marty Erwin), and brachiopod functional morphology (Dattilo),

In the past two decades our primary research focus has shifted to studies in vertebrate paleontology, with projects involving dinosaurs (Bonde and grad student Becky Hall), frogs (Bonde), Pleistocene taphonomy (grad student Susie Hertfelder), isotope studies (grad students Lael Vetter, Fabian Hardy, Aubrey Bonde, and Lauren Parry), and trackway studies. This shift began in the early 2000s with a Miocene trackway project by grad student Michele Kissell-Jones and the study of a Pleistocene sloth skeleton by grad student Jeff Gromny. We continue to work on Miocene trackways (Rowland and grad students AnnMarie Jones and Eric Chameroy), as well as Paleozoic and Mesozoic trackways (Rowland and grad students Eric Chameroy, Zach Jensen, Heather Stoller, Sarah Grove, Becky Hall, and undergrad Drew Clark), and paleoecology of Pleistocene mammoths (Rowland, grad student Lauren Parry, and undergrads Esmeralda El Srouji and Mihaela Genova).