Ivan Sansom (born

Prestatyn Prestatyn is a seaside town and community in Denbighshire, Wales. Historically a part of Flintshire, it is located on the Irish Sea coast, to the east of Rhyl. Prestatyn has a population of 19,085, History Prehistory There is evidence that the ...

) is a British

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, Senior Lecturer in

Palaeobiology Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactio ...

at the

University of Birmingham , mottoeng = Through efforts to heights , established = 1825 – Birmingham School of Medicine and Surgery1836 – Birmingham Royal School of Medicine and Surgery1843 – Queen's College1875 – Mason Science College1898 – Mason Univers ...

. His research primarily has focused on the

conodont Conodonts (Greek ''kōnos'', "cone", + ''odont'', "tooth") are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, which ...

palaeobiology and the early

Palaeozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and '' ...

radiation of

vertebrates Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

.http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/staff/sansomij.shtml University of Birmingham: Ivan Sansom (Accessed April 2011) Sansom is an editor of the

Journal of the Geological Society The ''Journal of the Geological Society '' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Geological Society of London. It covers research in all aspects of the Earth sciences. References External links * Proceedings of the Geologica ...

. In 2001 Sansom was a recipient of the Palaeontological Association's ''Hodson Award'' conferred on palaeontologists who have made a ''notable early contribution to the science''.http://www.palass.org/modules.php?name=palaeo&page=119&sec=awards The Palaeontological Association: Hodson Award (Accessed April 2011)

Selected publications

* Sansom, I. J., Smith, M. P., Armstrong, H. A. and Smith, M. M. 1992. Presence of the earliest vertebrate hard tissues in conodonts. Science 256: 1308-1311.] * Sansom, I. J., Smith, M. P. and Smith, M. M. 1994. Dentine in conodonts. Nature 368: 591. * Sansom, I. J., Smith, M. P. and Smith, M. M. 1996. Scales of thelodont and shark-like fishes from the Ordovician. Nature 379: 628-630. * Smith, M. P., Sansom, I. J. and Repetski, J. E. 1996. Histology of the first fish. Nature 380: 702-704. * Coates, M. I., Sequeira, S. E. K., Sansom, I. J. and Smith, M. M. 1998. Spines and tissues of ancient sharks. Nature 396: 729-730. * Sansom, I. J., Donoghue, P. C. J. and Albanesi, G. L. 2005. Histology and affinity of the earliest armoured vertebrate. Biology Letters 2: 446-449.

References

External links

Sansom's home page
British palaeontologists Conodont specialists Academics of the University of Birmingham Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Paleobiologists People from Prestatyn Alumni of Aston University Alumni of Durham University Graduate Society {{UK-scientist-stub