Nationality United States Name Allison Palmer | Role Paleontologist Fields Paleontology | |
Institutions US Geological Survey
Stony Brook University
University of Colorado at Boulder Notable awards Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal (1967)
Paleontological Society Medal (1998) Awards Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal Institution United States Geological Survey, Stony Brook University, University of Colorado Boulder | ||
Allison Ralph (Pete) Palmer (9 January 1927 in Bound Brook, New Jersey) is an American paleontologist and geologist. His work has focused on the Cambrian period. He has had a career of nearly fifty years as a geologist with the United States Geological Survey and universities. The author of some 137 scientific articles, his research has been important in understanding of the origin and evolution of life on Earth.
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Career
Dr. Palmer graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 1946. He received his Ph.D. in geology from the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Minnesota in 1950. He then worked at the United States Geological Survey until 1966, where he studied the stratigraphy and paleontology of the Cambrian. From 1966 to 1980 he was professor of paleontology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was on the board of the Faculty of Geosciences from 1974 to 1977. In 1980, Palmer left Stony Brook to become the centennial science program coordinator for the Geological Society of America in Boulder, Colorado. He was also the coordinator of educational programs from 1988 to 1991. He retired from the Geological Society of America in 1993 to become an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he remains in active research today.
He is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and was president of the Paleontological Society in 1983. Between 1972 and 1984 he was president of the Subcommittee for the Cambrian of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and received the 1992 the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1967 he received the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal.
Publications
Palmer was editor of the monumental “Decade of North American Geology" series, which was developed by the Geological Society of America and launched to mark its 100th anniversary in 1988. It describes the geology of North America in 30 volumes. He authored a revision of the most primitive group of Trilobites, the Olenellina, with Russian paleontologist L.N. Repina, that was the basis of the discussion of this group in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology.