Draft:Gorden L. Bell, Jr.
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Gorden L. Bell, Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of Alabama at Birmingham University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D., 1993) |
| Known for | Dallasaurus turneri Russellosauurus coheni |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology Evolutionary Biology |
| Institutions | Red Mountain Museum Museum of Geology, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology |
Gorden L. Bell, Jr. is a paleontologist most notable for his work on mosasaurs, though his research has extended to such diverse subjects as fossil sponges, pyconodont fishes, and the Cambrian-aged Conasauga Formation. In 2015, the extinct myliobatid ray Pseudaetobatus belli was named in his honored, based in part of a specimen he collected.
Early work
[edit]Bell began his career at the now-defunct Red Mountain Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. From 1977 until 1987, Bell served as the museum's chief paleontologist, and his many accomplishments during his time at Red Mountain included discovery and mounting for display a very complete specimen of the mosasaur Clidastes, collecting and mounting of a giant Cretaceous pcynodontid fish (Hadrodus sp), excavation of Pleistocene-aged ground slothes (Megalonyx jeffersoni) from caves in northwest Alabama, and excavation of the holotype specimen of the basal tyrannosaurian dinosaur Appalachiosaurus. Bell left Red Mountain Museum in 1987 to pursue a Ph.D. at University of Texas at Austin. The museum folded in 1994, and its collections, including the material Bell collected and curated, eventually formed the core of the collection at the McWane Science Center. While at the Red Mountain Museum, Bell cofounded the Birmingham Paleontological Society, with Caitlín R. Kiernan and James P. Lamb, which remains active.
Mosasaur Research
[edit]Bell is notable as the author of the first attempt to examine the evolution of the mosasaurs usually phylogenetic systematics (cladistics), first in his 1997 Ph.D and then later in a published account based on his Ph.D (Bell 1997). As noted by Palci et al. (2020), Bell's initial analysis has form the "framework of almost all subsequent analyses of mosasauroids." With Dr. Michael J. Polcyn, Bell described the remains of two of the earliest mosasaurs then known, Dallasaurus and Russellosaurus, both from the Upper Cretaceous of Texas. These two studies led Bell and Polcyn (2005) to posit that hydrdopedeal limbs adapted for aquatic locomotion had evolved from plesiopedal limbs not once, but at least twice, during the development for mosasaurs from terrestrial ancestors. However, this conclusion remains controversial (see Dutchak and Caldwell 2009 and Simoes et al. 2017). Bell also pioneered the study of mosasaur reproduction and ontogeny, utilizing histology, based largely on exceptionally well-preserved juvenile and newborn material collected from the Mooreville Chalk Formation of Alabama.
Sponge Research
[edit]References
[edit]- Two new species of Pseudaetobatus Cappetta, 1986 (Batoidei: Myliobatidae) from the southeastern United States. Palaeontologia Electronica 18.1(15A) 2015:1-17
- Gorden L. Bell, Jr. "A pycnodont fish from the Upper Cretaceous of Alabama. Journal of Paleontology. 60: 1120-1126.
- Gorden L. Bell, Jr. "A phylogenetic revision of North American and Adriatic Mosasauroidea. Ancient Marine Reptiles Academic Press, 1997. 293-332.
- G.L. Bell, Jr. and Sheldon, M.A. 1986. Description of a very young mosasaur from Greene County, Alabama. Journal of the Alabama Academy of Science, Vol. 57, No. 2: 76-82.
- G.L. Bell, Jr., Sheldon, M.A., Lamb, J.P. and Martin, J.E. 1996. The first direct evidence of live birth in Mosasauridae (Squamata): Exceptional preservation in Cretaceous Pierre Shale of South Dakota. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 16(suppl. to 3):21A.
- Jun Ebersole and Lewis S. Dean. "The History of Late Cretaceous Vertebrate Research in Alabama" University of Alabama, 2013. ISSN 0196-1039
- Allesandro Palci, Takuya Konishi, and Michael Caldwell. "A comprehensive review of the morphological diversity of the quadrate bone in mosasauroids (Squamata; Mosasauroidea), with comments on the homology of the infrastapedial process. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 40(6):
- Richard C. Jones. The Greene County Mosasaur. Red Mountain Museum Press, 1979.
- J. Keith Rigby, Gorden L. Bell Jr, and Kirsten Thompson. Hexactinellid and associated sponges from the upper Reef Trail Member of the Bell Canyon Formation, southern Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas. Journal of Paleontology 81(6): 1241 - 1256.
- J. Keith Rigby and Gorden L. Bell Jr. A new hexactinellid sponge from the reef trail member of the Upper Guadalupian Bell Canyon Formation, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas. Journal of Paleontology. 79(1): 200 - 204.
- Sharon Elizabeth Holte. "Description of Jefferson’s Ground Sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii) from Acb-3 Cave, Colbert County, Alabama, with Comments on Ontogeny, Taphonomy, Pathology, and Paleoecology." East Tennessee State University, 2012
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