Blastoid Taxonomy
To understand the diversity of life in different periods of geologic time, we have to know how many species and genera of different organisms were alive. Without this information, we can’t determine times of extinction and times of diversification in ecosystems. Blastoids are an extinct class of echinoderms and lived from the Silurian to the Permian periods of the Paleozoic.
I am currently working on two very large blastoid taxonomy projects. The first is a comprehensive monograph of the blastoids with Brad Macurda. We have been working on this project for three years and have a manuscript of more than 600 pages. We hope to have the manuscript submitted for publication in the next year. The second project is a joint effort with Brad Macurda and Jan Bohaty from Germany. We are describing Devonian blastoids from Germany. The manuscript is more than 200 pages long and is almost ready to submission to a journal for publication.
Links to previous papers on blastoid taxonomy are below.
Late Devonian blastoids and crinoids from northwestern China (15mb)