Preserving Earth’s first complex life – Dr Ross Anderson

Blurb:
Fossils have been used to track the history of life on Earth from trilobites, through to dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, and eventually humans. Yet, most fossils only preserve skeletons or shells, the hard parts of organisms. Soft tissues, like skin and internal organs, are rare in the fossil record. So how do we understand the early history of life before skeletons evolved? In this talk, we will see how antibacterial clay-rich rocks hold the key. Their exceptionally preserved fossils illuminate life on Earth before 500 million years ago when multicellular organisms were first evolving.

Bio:
Dr Ross Anderson is a palaeontologist studying how multicellular life first evolved on our planet over 500 million years ago. His research uses innovative techniques to examine fossils and their host rocks, focusing on the interactions between microbes and minerals. This research is key to improving our understanding of how ancient fossils are preserved and what they can reveal about the original biology and chemistry of early life.

Ross received a bachelor’s degree (2012) in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University, before master’s (2014) and doctoral (2017) degrees in Geology and Geophysics from Yale University. At Yale, his doctoral work was funded by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. He was elected a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Life Sciences at All Souls College, University of Oxford in 2017. In 2022, he was awarded a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Oxford’s Department of Earth Sciences and began his position as Senior Researcher in Natural History at the University Museum of Natural History in 2024. He continues as a Fifty-Pound Fellow at All Souls College. Ross was a recipient of the President’s Prize of the Palaeontological Association in 2017.

To view the event flyer please click here.

Register in advance to attend virtually:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/OgX3WYBuRmuidRpSMn6gWA

Venue:
St Francis Of Assisi RC Church, 110 Warwick Rd, Kenilworth CV8 1HL
https://maps.app.goo.gl/9CGWRNdgFfttDKtd7