The University of New Mexico's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences presents the 5th annual Stuart A. Northrop Distinguished Lecturer featuring Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer on Friday, April 15 at 3 p.m. in Northrop Hall, Room 122. A reception and grand opening celebration of Natural History Science Center (NHSC) will follow the talk in the NHSC.

Behrensmeyer is a noted geologist and paleontologist recognized as a pioneer in the field of taphonomy. She is a research curator and senior scientist in the Department of Paleobiology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. She has worked in many different geological time periods at field sites in North America, Africa, and Pakistan. Her career has focused on building interdisciplinary understanding of ancient land ecosystems, including the paleoecology of human evolution in Africa. 

Kay Behrensmeyer
Dr. Kay Behrensmeyer

Her talk, “Nutrient Recycling, Taphonomy and the Fossil Record,” will focus on the continuing challenge paleobiologists face in reconstructing life over deep time in relying on limited samples of preserved organic remains. These consist primarily of organisms with biomineralized skeletons, leaving out most forms of life that have populated the Earth throughout its long history.

Behrensmeyer will take a fresh look at early post-mortem recycling processes and how they affect fossil preservation, using examples from taphonomic research on vertebrate remains in modern ecosystems and deep time strata. Behrensmeyer will also consider what this perspective means in terms of changes in taphonomic processes over time, with humans as a new force affecting the balance of recycling versus preservation and the future fossil record.

She will discuss the causes of incompleteness including ecological recycling, destruction after burial (diagenesis), and geological controls on sedimentary archives suitable for preserving fossils. The first of these, ecological recycling, involves powerful processes that consume and decompose organisms, converting the dead back into the living in order to maintain ecosystem function. The vast majority of organisms that lived on Earth over the past ~3.5+ billion years, including nearly all microbes and soft bodied eukaryotes, were rapidly recycled into new life.

Behrensmeyer served as New Mexico Museum of Natural History associate director for Research and Collections (1993-1996) and is currently co-director of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems and Deep Time Lead Scientist. She has authored or co-authored over 160 peer-reviewed publications and 7 edited volumes. Awards include: R.C Moore Medal (2016-SEPM), Romer-Simpson Medal (2018-Society of Vertebrate Paleontology), Paleontological Society Medal (2018), and G.K. Warren Prize (2019-National Academy of Sciences). She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020 and American Philosophical Society in 2021.

The former UNM Biology Annex underwent a renovation and is now the new "forever home" of the UNM Paleobiology Collections. The building was designed by renowned architect John Gaw Meem in 1948 and is on the New Mexico Historical Registry. The renovated NHSC includes an enlarged, climate-controlled space for paleobiology collections, a new fossil prep lab, analytical space, innovative classroom and outreach space for teaching specimen-based science, and room for students. The NHSC grand opening, delayed due to the pandemic, is part of this year's Northrop lecture.

Stuart Northrop
Professor Stuart Northrop, former UNM Department of Geology chair (1929-1961).

Launched in 2016, the Northrop lecture was created in honor of former EPS professor and Chair Dr. Stuart ‘Stu’ Alvord Northrop by UNM Alumnus and former student of Northrop, Dr. Bill Lovejoy. The lecture series serves as a venue to showcase the type of research and enthusiasm for seeking knowledge that was emblematic of Northrop himself.

Northrop’s contributions to the UNM Department of Geology during his long tenure as Chairman (1921-1961) were profound including laying the foundation of the present department by creating the MS and Ph.D. programs and building the current department’s building.

Lovejoy is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Georgia Southern University, who influenced generations of students with his own with his teaching and research. Lovejoy was born in a small Ohio town coming from four generations of coal miners and became a first-generation college graduate. After serving in the Navy, he attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio where he majored in geology. A month later, he boarded a bus for Albuquerque and UNM where he earned a master’s degree in geology.

Northrop’s contributions to the UNM Department of Geology during his long tenure as Chairman (1921-1961) were profound including laying the foundation of the present department by creating the MS and Ph.D. programs and building the current department’s building.

Lovejoy is Professor Emeritus of Biology at Georgia Southern University, who influenced generations of students with his own with his teaching and research. Lovejoy was born in a small Ohio town coming from four generations of coal miners and became a first-generation college graduate. After serving in the Navy, he attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio where he majored in geology. A month later, he boarded a bus for Albuquerque and UNM where he earned a master’s degree in geology.

The lecture series serves as a venue to showcase the type of research and enthusiasm for seeking knowledge that was emblematic of Dr. Northrop himself.