- This page is about the paleontologist Michael J. Benton. For the American Foreign Service Officer see Michael L. Benton
Michael L. Benton is a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State. An attorney licensed in Maryland and the District of Columbia, Michael L. Benton has been with the Department of State since 2004. Michael L. Benton served in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as Deputy Chief of the...
Michael J. Benton is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of EdinburghThe Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. The membership consists of over 1400 peer-elected fellows, who are known as Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, denoted FRSE in official titles. It provides annual grants totalling over half a million...
and professor of
vertebrate palaeontologyVertebrate paleontology seeks to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...
in the Department of Earth Sciences at the
University of BristolThe University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876...
. His published work has mostly concentrated on the evolution of
TriassicThe Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 251 to 199 Ma . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...
reptiles but he has also worked on extinction events and faunal changes in the fossil record.
He is the author of several palaeontology text books (e.g.
- This page is about the paleontologist Michael J. Benton. For the American Foreign Service Officer see Michael L. Benton
Michael L. Benton is a Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State. An attorney licensed in Maryland and the District of Columbia, Michael L. Benton has been with the Department of State since 2004. Michael L. Benton served in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, as Deputy Chief of the...
Michael J. Benton is a Fellow of the
Royal Society of EdinburghThe Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. The membership consists of over 1400 peer-elected fellows, who are known as Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, denoted FRSE in official titles. It provides annual grants totalling over half a million...
and professor of
vertebrate palaeontologyVertebrate paleontology seeks to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...
in the Department of Earth Sciences at the
University of BristolThe University of Bristol is a university in Bristol, England. One of the so-called "red brick" universities, it received its Royal Charter in 1909, although its predecessor institution, University College, Bristol, had been in existence since 1876...
. His published work has mostly concentrated on the evolution of
TriassicThe Triassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about 251 to 199 Ma . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic. Both the start and end of the Triassic are marked by major extinction events...
reptiles but he has also worked on extinction events and faunal changes in the fossil record.
He is the author of several palaeontology text books (e.g.
Vertebrate PalaeontologyVertebrate Palaeontology is a basic textbook on vertebrate paleontology by Michael J. Benton, published by the Blackwell's. It has so far appeared in three editions, published in 1990, 1997, and 2005...
) and children's books. He has also advised on many media productions including BBC's
Walking with DinosaursWalking with Dinosaurs was a six-part documentary television mini-series that was produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the UK in 1999. The series was subsequently aired in North America on the Discovery Channel in 2000, with Branagh's voice replaced with that of...
.
Research Interests
- Diversification of life
- Quality of the fossil record
- Shapes of phylogenies
- Age-clade congruence
- Mass extinctions
- Triassic ecosystem evolution
- Basal diapsid phylogeny
- Basal archosaurs
- The origin of the dinosaurs
Journal Publications
Benton, M. J. and Emerson, B. C. 2007. How did life become so diverse? The dynamics of diversification according to the fossil record and molecular phylogenetics. Palaeontology 50: 23-40.
Book
2005
Mesozoic and Tertiary fossil mammals and birds of Great Britain by M. J. Benton, L. Cook, D. Schreve, A Currant, and J. J. Hooker
Mesozoic and Tertiary fossil mammals and birds of Great Britain by M. J. Benton, L. Cook, D. Schreve, A Currant, and J. J. Hooker
Vertebrate palaeontology (Third edition) by M. J. Benton
2003
When life nearly died: the greatest mass extinction of all time by M. J. Benton
2002
Permian and Triassic red beds and the Penarth Group of Great Britain by M. J. Benton, E. Cook, and P. J. Turner
2000
The age of dinosaurs in Russia and Mongolia , edited by M. J. Benton, D. M. Unwin, M. A. Shishkin, and E. N. Kurochkin
Walking with dinosaurs: the facts by M. J. Benton
1997
Basic palaeontology by M. J. Benton and D. A. T. Harper
Vertebrate palaeontology (Second edition) by M. J. Benton
1996
The Penguin historical atlas of the dinosaurs by M. J. Benton
The Viking atlas of evolution by R. Osborne and M. J. Benton
1995
Fossil reptiles of Great Britain by M. J. Benton and P. S. Spencer
1993
The fossil record 2 edited by M. J. Benton
1991
The rise of the mammals by M. J. Benton
The reign of the reptiles by M. J. Benton
1990
On the trail of the dinosaurs by M. J. Benton
Vertebrate palaeontology by M. J. Benton
1989
Prehistoric Animals by M. J. Benton
1988
The phylogeny and classification of the tetrapods, Volumes 1 and 2 edited by M. J. Benton