John Russell Foster (born November 3, 1966) is an American

paleontologist 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 ...

. Foster has worked with

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

remains from the Late Jurassic of the

Colorado Plateau The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of ...

and

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

, as well as working on Cambrian age trilobite faunas in the southwest region of the American west. He named the crocodiliform

trace fossil A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil (; from el, ἴχνος ''ikhnos'' "trace, track"), is a fossil record of biological activity but not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils, ...

'' Hatcherichnus sanjuanensis'' in 1997 and identified the first known occurrence of the theropod trace fossil '' Hispanosauropus'' in North America in 2015.

Career

* Born November 3, 1966, San Diego, California. * High School, Los Gatos High School, Los Gatos, California. 1985 * A.B. Geology,

Occidental College Occidental College (informally Oxy) is a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887 as a coeducational college by clergy and members of the Presbyterian Church, it became non-sectarian in 1910. It is one of the oldes ...

, Los Angeles, California. 1989 * M.S. Paleontology,

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (South Dakota Mines, SD Mines, or SDSM&T) is a public university in Rapid City, South Dakota. It is governed by the South Dakota Board of Regents and was founded in 1885. South Dakota Mines offers ba ...

, Rapid City, South Dakota. 1993 * Ph. D.

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

, Boulder, Colorado. 1998 He is adjunct faculty of

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

Colorado Mesa University Colorado Mesa University is a public university in Grand Junction, Colorado. The university's other locations include Bishop Campus, which houses Western Colorado Community College in northwestern Grand Junction, and a regional campus in Mont ...

, Grand Junction,

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. From 2014-2018 he was the Director of th
Museum of Moab
He served for thirteen years as Curator of Paleontology at the Museums of Western Colorado from 2001 to 2014. He is currently a curator at the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum in Vernal, Utah.

Professional Work

An expert on the

Late Jurassic The Late Jurassic is the third epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time from 163.5 ± 1.0 to 145.0 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic strata.Owen 1987. In European lithostratigraphy, the name ...

, he has spent more than twenty-five years excavating fossils across the western United States, authoring and coauthoring more than 55 professional papers, ranging from Triassic to Cretaceous, with a few Cambrian and Cenozoic studies appearing as well. In addition to dinosaurs, he has spent over a decade working in the

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

shales of the western United States.

Triassic

In December 2017, he and coauthors Xavier A. Jenkins of Arizona State University and Robert J. Gay of Colorado Canyons Association formally published their study on the oldest known dinosaur from Utah, a

neotheropod Neotheropoda (meaning "new theropods") is a clade that includes coelophysoids and more advanced theropod dinosaurs, and is the only group of theropods that survived the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. All neotheropods became extinct by the e ...

that is likely an animal similar to ''

Coelophysis ''Coelophysis'' ( traditionally; or , as heard more commonly in recent decades) is an extinct genus of coelophysid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 228 to 201.3 million years ago during the latter part of the Triassic Period from t ...

''.

Jurassic

His researches in the Late Jurassic of the

and Rocky Mountains includes the geographic and environmental distributions of microvertebrates and

s. He served as the lead researcher at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in western Colorado for 14 years, and continues to work in the Late Jurassic of eastern Utah and western Colorado. His current work includes the excavation of the first known dinosaur from the western United States, "

Dystrophaeus ''Dystrophaeus'' is the name given to an extinct genus of eusauropod dinosaur from the early Kimmeridgian stage of the Late Jurassic that existed around 154.8 Ma.Turner, C.E. and Peterson, F., (1999). "Biostratigraphy of dinosaurs in the Upper Ju ...

," on

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

lands in San Juan County,

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Foster had a

ceratosaurid Ceratosaurs are members of the clade Ceratosauria, a group of dinosaurs defined as all theropods sharing a more recent common ancestor with ''Ceratosaurus'' than with birds. The oldest known ceratosaur, ''Saltriovenator'', dates to the earliest ...

ceratosaur Ceratosaurs are members of the clade Ceratosauria, a group of dinosaurs defined as all theropods sharing a more recent common ancestor with ''Ceratosaurus'' than with birds. The oldest known ceratosaur, ''Saltriovenator'', dates to the earliest ...

theropod dinosaur, ''

Fosterovenator ''Fosterovenator'' (meaning "Foster's hunter") is a genus of ceratosaur dinosaur known from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of Wyoming. The holotype is YPM VP 058267A, B, and C, a tibia with an articulated astragalus. An additional specime ...

,'' named after him in 2014

Cambrian

His researches in the Cambrian of the

Great Basin The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic basin, endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California ...

and

, includes the study of

taphonomy Taphonomy is the study of how organisms decay and become fossilized or preserved in the paleontological record. The term ''taphonomy'' (from Greek , 'burial' and , 'law') was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Soviet scientist Ivan Efremov t ...

and

biostratinomy Biostratinomy is the study of the processes that take place after an organism dies but before its final burial. It is considered to be a subsection of the science of taphonomy, along with necrology (the study of the death of an organism) and diage ...

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...

s, and what this information indicates about the

paleoenvironmental Paleoecology (also spelled palaeoecology) is the study of interactions between organisms and/or interactions between organisms and their environments across geologic timescales. As a discipline, paleoecology interacts with, depends on and informs ...

conditions on the shallow shelf of western North American during the early

Paleozoic 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 ' ...

Popular books

Foster is the author of '' Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World'', followed by his second book '' Cambrian Ocean World''.

References

Bibliography

*Foster, J. R., and McMullen, S. K. 2017. Paleobiogeographic distribution of Testudinata and neosuchian Crocodyliformes in the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of North America: Evidence of habitat zonation? Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 468:208–215. *Lockley, M. G., Gierlinski, G., Matthews, N. A., Xing, L., Foster, J. R., and Cart, K. 2017. New dinosaur track occurrences from the Upper Jurassic Salt Wash Member (Morrison Formation) of southeastern Utah: Implications for thyreophoran trackmaker distribution and diversity. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 470:116–121. * Foster, J. R., and Peterson, J. E. 2016. First report of Apatosaurus (Diplodocidae: Apatosaurinae) from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Utah: Abundance, distribution, paleoecology, and taphonomy of an endemic North American sauropod clade. Palaeoworld 25:431–443. * Foster, J. R., and Gaines, R. R. 2016. Taphonomy and paleoecology of the “Middle” Cambrian (Series 3) formations in Utah’s West Desert: Recent finds and new data. Utah Geological Association Publication 45:291–336. * Foster, J. R., McHugh, J. B., Peterson, J. E., and Leschin, M. F. 2016. Major bonebeds in mudrocks of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), northern Colorado Plateau of Utah and Colorado. Geology of the Intermountain West 3:33–66. * D’Emic, M. D., and Foster, J. R. 2016. The oldest Cretaceous North American sauropod dinosaur. Historical Biology 28:470–478. * Hunt-Foster, R. K., Lockley, M. G., Milner, A. R. C., Foster, J. R., Matthews, N. A., Breithaupt, B. H., and Smith, J. A. 2016. Tracking dinosaurs in BLM Canyon Country, Utah. Geology of the Intermountain West 3:67– 100. * Foster, J. R. 2015. Theropod dinosaur ichnogenus Hispanosauropus identified from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic), western North America. Ichnos 22:183–191. * Foster, J. R., and Hunt-Foster, R. K. 2015. First report of a giant neosuchian (Crocodyliformes) in the Williams Fork Formation (Upper Cretaceous: Campanian) of Colorado. Cretaceous Research 55:66–73. * Foster, J. R., Trujillo, K. C., Frost, F., and Mims, A. L. 2015. Summary of vertebrate fossils from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) at Curecanti National Recreation Area, central Colorado. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 67:77–84. * Foster, J. R. 2014. Cambrian Ocean World: Ancient Sea Life of North America. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 416 p. * Foster, J. R., and Wedel, M. J. 2014. Haplocanthosaurus (Saurischia: Sauropoda) from the lower Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) near Snowmass, Colorado. Volumina Jurassica 12(2):197–210. * Woodruff, D. C., and Foster, J. R. 2014. The fragile legacy of Amphicoelias fragillimus (Dinosauria: Sauropoda; Morrison Formation – latest Jurassic). Volumina Jurassica 12(2):211–220. * Trujillo, K. C., Foster, J. R., Hunt-Foster, R. K., and Chamberlain, K. R. 2014. A U/Pb age for the Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Mesa County, Colorado. Volumina Jurassica 12(2):107–114. * Lockley, M. G., Buckley, L. G., Foster, J. R., Kirkland, J. I., and Deblieux, D. D. 2014. First report of bird tracks (Aquatilavipes) from the Cedar Mountain Formation (Lower Cretaceous), eastern Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 420:150–162. * Lockley, M. G., Hunt-Foster, R. K., Foster, J. R., Cart, K., and Gerwe, D. S. 2014. Early Jurassic track assemblages from the Granite Creek area of eastern Utah. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 62:205–210. * Foster, J. R. 2013. Ecological segregation of the Late Jurassic stegosaurian and iguanodontian dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation in North America: pronounced or subtle? PalArch’s Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 10(3):1–11. * Foster, J. R. 2011. Trilobite taphonomy of the Latham Shale (Lower Cambrian; Dyeran), Mojave Desert, California: an inner detrital belt Burgess Shale-type deposit of western Laurentia. In Johnston, P. A., and Johnston, K. J., eds., International Conference on the Cambrian Explosion, Proceedings, Palaeontographica Canadiana 31:119–140. * Foster, J. R. 2011. Bonnima sp. (Trilobita; Corynexochida) from the Chambless Limestone (Lower Cambrian) of the Marble Mountains, California: first Dorypygidae in a cratonic region of the southern Cordillera. PaleoBios 30:45–49. * Foster, J. R. 2011. Trilobites and other fauna from two quarries in the Bright Angel Shale (Middle Cambrian, Series 3; Delamaran), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. In Hollingsworth, J. S., Sundberg, F. A., and Foster, J. R., eds., Cambrian Stratigraphy and Paleontology of Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada: The 16th Field Conference of the Cambrian Stage Subdivision Working Group, International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 67:99–120. * Foster, J. R. 2011. A short review of the geology and paleontology of the Cambrian sedimentary rocks of the southern Marble Mountains, Mojave Desert, California. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 53:38–51. * Foster, J. R. 2011. Trilobite taphonomy in the lower Pioche Formation (Dyeran; Global Stage 4) at Frenchman Mountain, Nevada. In Hollingsworth, J. S., Sundberg, F. A., and Foster, J. R., eds., Cambrian Stratigraphy and Paleontology of Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada: The 16th Field Conference of the Cambrian Stage Subdivision Working Group, International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 67:282–283. * Foster, J. R., and Heckert, A. B. 2011. Ichthyoliths and other microvertebrate remains from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of northeastern Wyoming: a screen-washed sample indicates a significant aquatic component to the fauna. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 305:264–279. * Foster, J. R., and Hunt-Foster, R. K. 2011. New occurrences of dinosaur skin of two types (Sauropoda? and Dinosauria indet.) from the Late Jurassic of North America (Mygatt-Moore Quarry, Morrison Formation). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 31:717–721. * Lockley, M. G., and Foster, J. R. 2010. An assemblage of probable crocodylian traces and associated dinosaur tracks from the lower Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of eastern Utah. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 51:93–97. * Farlow, J. O., Coroian, I. D., and Foster, J. R. 2010. Giants on the landscape: modeling the abundance of megaherbivorous dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation (Late Jurassic, western USA). Historical Biology 22:403–429. * Foster, J. R. 2009. Preliminary body mass estimates for mammalian genera of the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic, North America). PaleoBios 28:114–122. * Foster, J. R. 2009. Taphonomic characteristics of a quarry in the Bright Angel Shale (Middle Cambrian), Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona: a preliminary look. In Baltzer, E., ed., American Institute of Professional Geologists, Conference Proceedings, Rocky Mountains and the Colorado Plateau: Canyons, Resources, and Hazards, p. 77–80. * Foster, J.R. 2007. "Jurassic West: The Dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation and Their World. Indiana University". Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 387 p.'. * Foster, J. R. 2006. The mandible of a juvenile goniopholidid (Crocodyliformes) from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic) of Wyoming. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36:101–105. * Foster, J. R., and Chure, D. J. 2006. Hindlimb allometry in the Late Jurassic theropod dinosaur Allosaurus, with comments on its abundance and distribution. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 36:119–122.

External links

John Foster.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, John Living people 1966 births American paleontologists