Department of Earth Sciences

People > Staff > Prof Mike Benton

Position | Departmental responsibilities | Research Interests | Publications | Further information

Position

Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology

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Departmental responsibilities

Head of Joint School of Geology and Biology, Head of MSc in Palaeobiology, Outreach co-ordinator

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Research Interests

My interests include the diversification of life through time, quality of the fossil record, shapes of phylogenies, age-clade congruence, mass extinctions, Triassic ecosystem evolution, basal diapsid phylogeny, basal archosaurs and the origin of the dinosaurs.

Current research projects focus on the end-Permian mass extinction, the greatest mass extinction of all time, and especially its effects on terrestrial organisms. This involves fieldwork in Russia. I am also working on large-scale aspects of dating the tree of life, and the use of phylogenetic means to assess the quality of the rock and fossil records.

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Publications

Link to Prof Mike Benton on the University's on-line database of research outputs (opens in a new window); see also CV and list of publications, including link to downloadable pdfs of recent papers.

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Further information

Pro Mike Benton leads the Palaeobiology and Biodiversity Research Group at Bristol.