13:15, Lecture hall C.011

Dr. Jörg Maletz (FU Berlin)

Research on Graptolites and Palaeontology in general

Abstract: The supposedly extinct groups of the graptolites have been in the center of my research for more than 40 years, thus dominating my scientific career. Now, around my official retirement, I will look back at my scientific career, showing that even though graptolites were the main focus of my research, radiolarian and sponge research and a few other points widened my horizon. Graptolites are used for biostratigraphy and dating rock successions. In recent years my Chinese colleagues even used them for the exploration of shale gas and oil, especially in the Sichuan Basin of the Yangtze Platform. Cladistic interpretations, evolutionary history, ecological interpretations, and most recently the understanding that some graptolites are still around us are further important aspects of my graptolite research. Palaeontology is not an isolated topic in the Geosciences, but provides valuable data for many geoscientific interpretations.

Vita: Jörg Maletz is known for his paleontological research on graptolites and other Palaeozoic fossils. He studied geology and palaeontology in Göttingen and moved to Berlin for his Ph.D. thesis in 1987. The habilitation in Greifswald (1996-2001) was the next step before a 10 year intermezzo as lecturer at SUNY Buffalo (State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, USA). In October 2001, he returned to Berlin to fill a position as Senior Research Associate in DFG Forschergruppe 736 (The Precambrian-Cambrian Ecosphere (R)evolution: Insights from Chinese microcontinents). Since 2014 he is involved in projects on the Cambrian/Ordovician boundary section in North China and on the late Ordovician to early Silurian graptolitic successions in drill cores on the Yangtze Platform of China with colleagues from Nanjing and Wuhan.

Invited by: Jan Pleuger