Derek Briggs

Updated on Jan 27, 2024

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Nationality Irish Fields Paleontology Name Derek Briggs		Role Palaeontologist Awards Lyell Medal

Born Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs 10 January 1950 (age 74) Ireland ( 1950-01-10 ) Residence New Haven, Connecticut, United States Institutions Peabody Museum of Natural HistoryGoldsmiths, University of LondonUniversity of BristolYale University Alma mater Trinity College, DublinSidney Sussex College, Cambridge Thesis Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada (1976) Known for Burgess ShaleCambrian explosionHunsruck Slate Books FOSSILS OF BURGESS SHALE PB, Visions of a Vanished World: The Extraordinary Fossils of the Hunsruck Slate
Education University of Cambridge Doctoral advisor Harry B. Whittington

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Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics; former Director, Peabody Museum of Natural History; and presently Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

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Education

Briggs was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology in 1972. He went on to the University of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington. He was awarded a PhD in 1976 on Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada.

Research and Career

While at the University of Cambridge, Briggs worked on the fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia alongside a fellow student Simon Conway Morris, both under the supervision of Harry Whittington, on the exceptionally well-preserved Burgess Shale fauna. The Burgess Shale project subsequently became one of the most celebrated endeavours in the field of palaeontology in the latter half of the 20th century. On 1 July 2008 he took over as Director of the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He became the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics at Yale in 2011.

Briggs's research is on the taphonomy, or preservation, and evolutionary significance of the exceptionally preserved fossil biotas known as Konservat-Lagerstätten – fossil formations that include evidence of faunal soft tissue. His work involves a range of approaches from experimental work on the factors controlling decay and fossilisation, through studies of early diagenetic mineralisation and organic preservation, to field work on a range of fossil occurrences.