Philip Reese Bjork is an American geologist and paleontologist known for his work in unearthing dinosaur species in America.
Bjork received his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan. Bjork's Master's thesis was on the vertebrate fossils of the Slim Buttes. He was a professor at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota, as well as serving as director of their Museum of Geology from 1975 to 2000. His academic focus was on Cretaceous dinosaurs and mammals from the Cretaceous and early Cenozoic.
1975Bjork described a fossil of
Proscalops tertius, an extinct
insectivoran, that he had found in
Oligocene deposits in the
Badlands National Park.
1985He announced the find of remains of at least ten duck-billed dinosaurs in western
South Dakota.
1989Bjork reported the discovery of
Dakotadon, originally believed to be the first remains of
Iguanodon found in North America, in the
Lakota Formation of South Dakota; the remains included the skull, partial
mandible, and incomplete caudal and dorsal vertebrae.
Bjork, Philip R. (January 1967). "Latest Eocene Vertebrates from Northwestern South Dakota". Journal of Paleontology. SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology. 41 (1): 227–236. ISSN 0022-3360. JSTOR 1301919. Bjork, Philip R. (1970). "The Carnivora of the Hagerman Local Fauna (Late Pliocene) of Southwestern Idaho". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. American Philosophical Society. 60 (7): 3–54. JSTOR 1006119. doi:10.2307/1006119. 