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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, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum.

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.

Awards and honours

• 1999 – Fellow of the Royal Society
• 2000 – Premio Capo d'Orlando (Italian prize for palaeontology)
• 2000 – Lyell Medal, Geological Society of London
• 2001 – Boyle Medal, Royal Dublin Society/Irish Times
• 2002–2004 – President, Palaeontological Association
• 2003 – Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy
• 2006–2008 – President, Paleontological Society
• 2008 – Humboldt Research Award
• 2009 – Bownocker Medal, Ohio State University
• 2015 – Paleontological Society Medal
• 2019 – Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2019 – Lapworth Medal, Palaeontological Association

His nomination for election to the Royal Society reads:

Professor Briggs has made several remarkable discoveries of exceptionally preserved fossils. His researches have elucidated their evolutionary significance, resulting in a significant shift in the focus of palaeontology toward these important windows on the life of the past. His work on the arthropods from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia has altered our perception of the nature of the Cambrian radiation. He demonstrated that morphological disparity among living arthropods is similar to that in the Cambrian, indicating that the functional and developmental constraints on form were operative from the earliest stages of metazoan evolution. He described the first evidence of the soft-tissues of conodonts, which resolved the vexed question of their affinities, with the recognition that these important fossils are the earliest known vertebrates. More recently he has pioneered a combination of new experimental approaches to the process involved in fossilization of the 'soft parts' of animals. His chemical and mineralogical investigations have demonstrated how soft tissues can be replicated at the cellular level in minerals such as apatite (the Medusa effect).

References

1. ^ "EC/1999/04: Briggs, Derek Ernest Gilmor". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 29 September 2018.
2. ^ Boyle Medal Laureates Royal Dublin Society
3. ^ "BRIGGS, Prof. Derek Ernest Gilmor". Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press.(subscription required)
4. "Curriculum vitae: Derek E.G. Briggs" (PDF). people.earth.yale.edu. Yale University. 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
5. Briggs, Derek E. G. (2014). "Adolf Seilacher (1925–2014) Palaeontologist who pioneered analysis of trace fossils". Nature. 509 (7501): 428. Bibcode:2014Natur.509..428B. doi:10.1038/509428a. PMID 24848054.
6. Derek Briggs's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
7. Briggs, D. E. G. (2003). "The role of decay and mineralization in the preservation of soft-bodied fossils". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 31 (31): 275–301. Bibcode:2003AREPS..31..275B. doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.31.100901.144746.
8. Briggs, D. E. G.; Kear, A. J. (1993). "Fossilization of Soft Tissue in the Laboratory". Science. 259 (5100): 1439–42. Bibcode:1993Sci...259.1439B. doi:10.1126/science.259.5100.1439. PMID 17801278. S2CID 43188896.
9. Briggs, D. E. G.; Fortey, R. A.; Wills, M. A. (1992). "Morphological Disparity in the Cambrian". Science. 256 (5064): 1670–3. Bibcode:1992Sci...256.1670B. doi:10.1126/science.256.5064.1670. PMID 17841089.
10. Stankiewicz, B. A. (1997). "Preservation of Chitin in 25-Million-Year-Old Fossils". Science. 276 (5318): 1541–1543. doi:10.1126/science.276.5318.1541.
11. Briggs, D. E.; Fortey, R. A. (1989). "The early radiation and relationships of the major arthropod groups". Science. 246 (4927): 241–3. Bibcode:1989Sci...246..241B. doi:10.1126/science.246.4927.241. PMID 17839017. S2CID 35322293.
12. Orr, P. J.; Briggs, D. E. G.; Kearns, S. L. (1998). "Cambrian Burgess Shale Animals Replicated in Clay Minerals". Science. 281 (5380): 1173–1175. Bibcode:1998Sci...281.1173O. doi:10.1126/science.281.5380.1173. PMID 9712577.
13. Briggs, D. E. G. (1999). "Molecular taphonomy of animal and plant cuticles: selective preservation and diagenesis". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 354 (1379): 7–17. doi:10.1098/rstb.1999.0356. PMC 1692454.
14. Briggs, D. E. G. (2013). "A mosquito's last supper reminds us not to underestimate the fossil record". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (46): 18353–18354. Bibcode:2013PNAS..11018353B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1319306110. PMC 3832008. PMID 24187151.
15. Bryson, Bill (2004). A short history of nearly everything. London: Black Swan. p. 397. ISBN 978-1-40909-548-4.
16. Briggs, Derek Ernest Gilmour (1976). Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge.
17. Morris, Simon Conway (1998). The Crucible of Creation : the Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. vii. ISBN 978-0-1985-0256-2.
18. Bhushan A (27 November 2007). "'Visionary' Briggs to lead, expand Peabody". yaledailynews.com. Yale Daily News. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
19. Yale News (20 November 2007). "Derek Briggs Appointed Next Director of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History". news.yale.edu. Yale University. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
20. Yale News (8 February 2011). "Derek Briggs is named the Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics". news.yale.edu. Yale University. Retrieved 13 July 2013.
21. Derek E. G. Briggs, D. H. Erwin, and F. J. Collier. The fossils of the Burgess Shale. ISBN 156098659X
22. Derek E. G. Briggs, C. Bartels, and G. Brassel. The fossils of the Hunsrück Slate. ISBN 0521117070
23. Derek E. G. Briggs and Peter R. Crowther, eds. (2003). Palaeobiology II. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-632-05147-7 and ISBN 0-632-05149-3.
24. Derek E.G. Briggs, Nicholas H. Barton, Jonathan A. Eisen, David B. Goldstein, and Nipam H. Patel. Evolution. ISBN 9780879696849
25. "Medal and Award Winners List". Palaeontological Association. Retrieved 29 April 2020.

• Living people
• Irish paleontologists
• Academics of Goldsmiths, University of London
• Fellows of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
• Fellows of the Royal Society
• Lyell Medal winners
• Taphonomists
• 1950 births
• Alumni of Trinity College Dublin
• Yale University faculty
• 20th-century Irish biologists
• 21st-century Irish scientists