New insights in Cenozoic paleoherpetology: ecometrics and enigmatic fossils from Oregon and Nebraska

Dept. of Geology & Geophysics Seminar

Presented by John J. Jacisin III, Dept. of Ecosystem Science and Management

John is a vertebrate paleontologist, working particularly on the ecology and biogeography of the fossil herpetofauna (reptiles and amphibians – snakes and newts in John’s case), and is finishing his
PhD this semester, under Michelle Lawing. His paleoecological research has focused on using morphological traits from the North American fossil record of snakes as a proxy for vegetation cover, among other paleoenviromental variables, and he recently published on the systematics and species delimitation of fossil newts from Oregon. John has done fieldwork in Wyoming, Oregon,
New Mexico, Utah, and Nebraska, primarily from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene, with a particular focus on the biostratigraphy and sedimentology of the Eocene-Oligocene interval in Nebraska, motivated by an interest in how the North American Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum
impacted terrestrial ecosystems.

In addition, John is currently serving a three year appointment as a Fulbright Specialist, having just returned from teaching GIS and remote sensing in Yerevan, Armenia, and despite all of this, graciously agreed to fill the empty seminar date for this Friday just last week. We should all applaud John’s bravery, and I hope that his talk further promotes interdisciplinary dialogue at A&M.

You can read more about John’s research interests at his website:
https://sites.google.com/site/johnjjacisiniii