J. Mark Erickson
St. Lawrence University
Submitted by meri on Tue, 11/11/2008 - 15:23.
Professor of Geology
Courses I teach regularly:
Evolving Earth--Historical Geology.
Invertebrate Paleontology.
Paleoecology
Stratigraphy
Micropaleontology
Dinosaurs
Senior Honors Thesis
My research interests:
I have several areas of research and I remain active in them all. I am a broadly and deeply trained paleontologist, paleoecologist and stratigrapher which means at first that I have teaching and research responsibilities for understanding the geologic history of all fossil groups on Earth including their identities, ecologies, evolution and biostratigraphies as well as the organization of the rocks in which they are found. At St. Lawrence there are students who like to learn about all of these areas. My research with students and my independent study courses are field-based and specimen-based, meaning that students work with real fossils that they have collected in the field, processed in the lab and about which they have developed hypotheses to be examined - most often in discussion with me. I believe in doing science more often than simply talking about it.
Research areas in which I am actively involved include the topics mentioned below:
Paleotemperatures derived from fossil Chironomidae at Glovers Pond, NJ for past 18,000 years.
Unionoid mussel distribution in the St. Lawrence Lowlands and geomorphic history of drainages.
Paleoenvironmental information from Late Ordovician bryozoan colony morphologies.
Functional morphology of Cincinnatian bryozoan colonies.
Taxonomy and paleoecology of Late Cretaceous mollusks.
Sandstone Stratigraphy, Cretaceous, midcontinent; concept of Dakota Isthmus.
Fossil invertebrates, vertebrates, chondrichthyans and paleobotany of the Fox Hills Fm.
Paleogeography of the Maastrichtian Western Interior Seaway.
Scanning Electron Microscopy of fossil oribatid mites in Pleistocene deposits.
Oribatid mite paleoecology and utility as paleoclimate proxies.
Ecology of larval Sphingidae.
Ordovician bryozoan colony morphologies, functions and paleoecologies.
Taxonomy of Cannonball Fm. (Paleocene) gastropods.
Taxonomy of the bivalve genus Arctica.
Cambrian trace fossils and stratigraphy of the Potsdam Fm.
Sample student projects I have supervised:
Kate Zubin-Stathopoulos and Maggie Simmons. 2008. Paleotemperatures through the Younger Dryas Interval at Glovers Pond, Northern N J, Derived from Fossil Chironomidae.
Daniel Peppe. 2003. Fox Hills I, a new Late Maastrichtian megafloral zone from the Missouri Valley Region, demonstrating eastward diachroneity of the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota
Tim Bouchard. 2001. Boring morphology of a newly described domichnium in Ordovician, in situ, branching bryozoan colonies
David Waugh. 1999. Functional morphology of the foliose coalescing growth form in Heterotrypa frondosa (D'Orbigny) (Bryozoa:Trepostomata) from the Cincinnatian (Ordovician) of Ohio.
Matthew Burton-Kelly. 2005. An Analysis of Multiple Trackways of Protichnites Owen, 1852, from the Potsdam Sandstone (Late Cambrian), St. Lawrence Valley, NY
Rob Menard. 2006. Postglacial Drainage Evolution of the Adirondack North-flowing Tributaries to the St. Lawrence River, Northern New York.
Tricia Smrecak. 2005. Comparisons of megaflora assemblages between the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Hell Creek and Tertiary (Paleocene) Ludlow Formations at the Stumpf Site Natural Area, Morton County, North Dakota
Wade T. Jones. 2008. Origins of Cincinnatian calcareous silts in the type area: contributions by skeletal organisms boring and mining in Bryozoa.
Joanne Cavallerano. 2005. Growth of the Dead Creek Distributary of the Missisquoi River, Lake Champlain, Vermont, between 1950 and 2003.
Examples of presentations, exhibitions, performances and published work:
Erickson, J.M. and A.M. Solod. 2007 [2008]. Recognition of postglacial cold intervals by quantitative biozonation of fossil oribatid mites. In : Acarology XI: Proceedings of the International Congress. Morales-Malacara, J. B., Behan-Pelletier, V., Ueckermann, E., Pérez, T. M., Estrada, E., Gispert, C. and Badii M. (Eds.). Instituto de Biología, UNAM; Facultad de Ciencias, UNAM; Sociedad Latinoamericana de Acarología. México, p. 9-16.
Peppe, D.J., J.M. Erickson and L.J. Hickey. 2007. Fossil leaf species from the Fox Hills Formation (Upper Cretaceous: Maastrichtian: North Dakota, USA) and their paleogeographic significance: Journal of Paleontology, 83:3:550-567.
Hoganson, J.W., J.M. Erickson and F.D. Holland, Jr. 2007. Amphibian, reptilian and avian remains from the Fox Hills Formation (Maastrichtian):Shoreline and estuarine deposits of the Pierre Sea in south-central North Dakota. Pp. 239-256 in Martin, J. E. and D. C. Parris, eds., The Geology and Paleontology of the Late Cretaceous Marine Deposits of the Dakotas. Geological Society of America Special Paper 427.
Carpenter, S.J., J.M. Erickson and F.D. Holland, Jr., 2003. Migration of a Late Cretaceous fish. Nature. 423:70-74.
Eppler, D.B., Allen, C., Allen, J., Clanton, U., Condit, C., Erickson, J.M., Feustel, A., Griffin, G., Gruener, J., Hodges, K., Hörz, F., Head, J., Keszthelyi, L., Kring, D., Lofgren, G., Love, S., Morrison, D., Muehlberger, W., Phinney, W., Rice, J., Ross, D., Snoke, A., Spudis, P., Swann, G., Tewksbury, B., Ulrich, G., Young, J.W. 2008. (submitted) Apollo/Constellation Geologic Training Workshop: Reviewing Apollo’s Accomplishments and Preparing a New Generation of Geologic Explorers for Lunar Field Geology. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 40
Erickson, J.M. 2007. Cincinnatian escargot: Gastropod – bryozoan taphonomy demonstrates presence of an undefined, Late Ordovician, shell—peeling predator. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 39(6):402.
Erickson, J.M. and R.B. Platt, Jr. 2007. Oribatid Mite Studies, p. 1547 – 66, In Scott Elias, ed., Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science, Elsevier, London.
Hoganson, J.W. and J.M. Erickson. 2005. A new species of Ischyodus (Holocephali:Callorhynchidae) from upper Maastrichtian shallow marine facies of the Fox Hills and Hell Creek formations, Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA. Palaeontology. 48(4):709-721.
Erickson, J.M. and T.D. Bouchard. 2003. Description and interpretation of Sanctum laurentiensis, new ichnogenus, new ichnospecies, a domichnium mined into Late Ordovician (Cincinnatian) ramose bryozoan colonies. Journal of Paleontology, 77(5):1002-1010.
Waugh, D.A., J.M. Erickson, and R. Crawford. [2004] 2005. Two growth forms of Heterotrypa Nicholson, 1879, (Bryozoa: Trepostomata) from the type-Cincinnatian: Putting the pieces back together. The Compass, 78(3):95-110.
Erickson, J.M., and D.A. Waugh. 2002. Colony morphologies and missed opportunities during the Cincinnatian (Late Ordovician) bryozoan radiation: examples from Heterotrypa frondosa and Monticulipora mammulata, p. 101 – 108, In Wyse-Jackson, P. N., Bryozooan Studies 2001: Proceedings of the 12th International Bryozoology Association Conference, Swets and Zeitlinger Publ., Netherlands
Aspects of my teaching that students find most effective and interesting:
These are things one does not really know accurately when teaching, although there are lots of hunches. Students like that I have a sense of humor most of the time and that I can use it to be straight with them about their positive and their less positive academic performances. They appreciate that I am actually trying teach them something as opposed to simply getting them to "feel" something, thus there is obvious applicable mission in my discussions, lab work or field work with them. They like that I am willing to answer their questions, and that I am willing to digress on those topics at length at times. Students appreciate that I have real experience with the subjects I teach and that I am well informed broadly in this science. They appreciate, in higher level courses, that I like to involve them in real hands-on professional problem solving in paleontology and geology and I am effective at doing so. Of course most of these things are aspects students find immediate to them, but they are not the aspects that are my objectives, rather they are means for reaching my objectives. My objectives are not realized until students are graduated and have time to put their educations into the perspectives of their lives after SLU. I have many examples of input from our alumni that suggest this too has been effective, and I also have input from some for whom it has not. So far I think I am still in positive territory.
Some ways I connect with students outside the classroom:
We do field work together a lot and we do a great deal of lab work together weekends and evenings in pursuit of new knowledge. This may sound like the classroom, but it most certainly is not. A lot of water goes over the dam on all those occasions, especially when camping in North Dakota for 5 or 10 weeks at a time! In general, I treat students as equals and people who can be trusted. I have suffered some significant losses with this trust, usually due to theft, but these occasions better tell me who is trustworthy and who I can be comfortable recommending to others. Of course, we recreate now and then at a movie, making (and eating) chili, or going fishing, or at the pool table.
Examples of connections between my research and my teaching:
My discoveries and descriptions of new species inform my courses in paleontology and paleoecology on a daily basis with examples of systematics and morphological detail as well as with preparation techniques and curatorial methods that are applicable to labs.
Research on the functional morphology of fossil Bryozoa at the colony level has provided new insight into the paleoecology and evolution of these geologically important organisms. That work gave one student the opportunity to attend an international conference at which our results were presented. In Paleoecology, these ideas form an important series of lab studies and interpretations particularly allowing comparisons with modern reef-building corals. They also enhance the field portion of the Invertebrate Paleontology class.
Stratigraphic studies provide detail for explanation of the Rules of Stratigraphic Nomenclature, the applications of stratigraphic principles and they raise the questions that are part of basin analysis of the entire semester's lab work. I have named new stratigraphic units and analyzed subsurface stratigraphic systems as part of my reseaerch.
For many summers when not in the field in North Dakota, I have taught a course on Ecology of Freshwater Mussels of the Adirondack Region - a field ecology course in which all students are engaged in hands-on collection of data on the local fauna. I have been responsible for documenting that fauna throughout the North Country through this activity and my own studies. They resulted in publication of a key to the mussels of the region with one of my students as well as several theses and published papers that serve as course materials. Now those same mussels are being analyzed in a set of interdisciplinary studies with faculty and students in biology who are applyuing DNA data to the geographjic distribution data I have collected with intent to understand mussel migration routes into the North Country after glaciation. My data have also served as the basis for several student research projects involving decsriptive, statistical analytic and GIS work, all of which is interdisciplinary in nature.
I have developed and published the concept of the Dakota Isthmus, a land bridge between the eastern and western subcontinents of the North American latest Cretacesous at the time of the dinosaur extinction. This study has served as a significant example of the importance for understanding paleogeography when studying the History of the Earth, dinosaur extinction, paleoclimate and evolution all of which are major concepts in several of my courses. It informs student understandings of the importance of paleobiogeography and it raises challenging questions for futher student resaerch about Late Cretaceous plants and animals.
All of these ideas, and many more, have served to make my courses current and pertinant. They also form the substance of many senior thesis studies of which there have been more than seventy so far.
My teaching philosophy:
"Know yourself, know your stuff, know your students" is an accurate way of summarizing my teaching philosophy as it applies to me. It is the motto I developed and try adhere to. The ways in which this applies to my classes and students is probably best appreciated by browsing some of the other dialogue on this page so one gets a flavor for my actions. Otherwise, my practises are rather existential, but they are summarized in a 1969 paper with F. D. Holand, Jr., titled "Paleontology can be fun!" that appeared in the Earth Science Teacher Preparation Project Newsletter, no. 21, pg. 1-2. I realize that may seem an ancient reference but on the other hand that's what scholarship is all about -- knowing the literature -- or at least it should be.
Ways I offer service to my discipline and/or the University:
I have in the past chaired the Student Grants Comittee of the Paleontological Society which selects awardees of funding for student reseaerch projects.
I presently serve on the Visitation Committee of the Arthur Lakes Library at the Colorado School of Mines. We meet annually to evaluate and inform the direction and operation of the library at that well known institution.
At St. Lawrence I have served on and chaired the Library Committee, Priorities and Planning Committee, Architecture and Physical Plant Committee. I have been elected to Faculty Council. I serve on many other ad hoc committees.
I am a Board Member of the Friends of the Owen D. Young and Launders Libraries and currently serve as Editor of the FODYLL Bulletin.
I am a member of the University Honors Comittee and of the Canton Initiative Advisory Board.
I am the Geology Department Newsletter Editor, the primary alumni contact person and the on-campus organizer of the triennial SLU Geology Alumni Conference (SLUGAC), which brings our alumni to campus to interact with current students.
Examples of my work as a visiting scholar or guest at another institution:
I serve in an informal, adjunct capacity at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck where, as a member of the "Corridor of Time" Exhibits Committee ,I have worked with the State Paleontologist to establish research collections that form the basis for elements of new geological and paleontological exhibits that are being created there. The newest one will open January 10, 2009.
My hobbies and/or personal interests:
I enjoy fishing, gardening, photography, and philately.
I also enjoy writing and am developing some long-term writing interests. As these progress I am sure I will have more to say about them.
My current projects:
Fossil sharks, skates and rays of the Fox Hills Formation with colleagues.
Protichnites trackways on the Potsdam Sandstone with alumnus Matthew Burton-Kelley
Paleobotany of the Cretaceous-Tertiary strata in the Missouri Valley of North Dakota with State Paleontologist John Hoganson and alumni Daniel Peppe and Tricia Smrecak
Photos:
