Luc Bulot (July 23, 1963 – July 27, 2022) was a French

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

mainly known for his work on the biostratigraphy of West Africa and on the determination of

Lower Cretaceous Lower may refer to: * ''Lower'' (album), 2025 album by Benjamin Booker * Lower (surname) * Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) * Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also * Nizhny {{Disambiguation ...

GSSP A Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), sometimes referred to as a golden spike, is an internationally agreed upon reference point on a stratigraphic section which defines the lower boundary of a stage on the geologic time scale. ...

Personal life

Luc Georges Bulot was born in Cavaillon,

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.

, France on July 23, 1963. On October 17, 2015, he married Elsa Schnebelen in Saint-Privat-de-Champclos (

Gard Gard () is a department in Southern France, located in the region of Occitanie. It had a population of 748,437 as of 2019;University of Dijon A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

and obtained a PhD at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

of Paris in 1995. Chairman of the "''Working group on the

Valanginian In the geologic timescale, the Valanginian is an age or stage of the Early or Lower Cretaceous. It spans between 137.05 ± 0.2 Ma and 132.6 ± 0.2 Ma (million years ago). The Valanginian Stage succeeds the Berriasian Stage of the Lower Cretac ...

"'' within the

International Commission on Stratigraphy The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), sometimes unofficially referred to as the International Stratigraphic Commission, is a daughter or major subcommittee grade scientific organization that concerns itself with stratigraphy, strati ...

, he worked for a long time on the definition of the Lower Cretaceous

. From 2020 to 2022, he held various simultaneous positions: lead biostratigraphy expert within the ''North Africa Research Group,'' co-leader of an LCO/

IFREMER The or Ifremer is an oceanographic institution in Brest, France. A state-run and funded scientific organization, it is France’s national integrated marine science research institute. Scope of works Ifremer focuses its research activities in ...

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

consortium based in Brest and investigating the links between

biostratigraphy Biostratigraphy is the branch of stratigraphy which focuses on correlating and assigning relative ages of rock strata by using the fossil assemblages contained within them.Hine, Robert. "Biostratigraphy." ''Oxford Reference: Dictionary of Biology ...

sedimentology Sedimentology encompasses the study of modern sediments such as sand, silt, and clay, and the processes that result in their formation (erosion and weathering), transport, deposition and diagenesis. Sedimentologists apply their understanding of m ...

and

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

, lecturer at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

; and editor of the ''Arabian Journal of Geosciences'' (AJGS). Notable areas of work included: * Reconstruction of the

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era is the Era (geology), era of Earth's Geologic time scale, geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous Period (geology), Periods. It is characterized by the dominance of archosaurian r ...

paleogeography of

Provence Provence is a geographical region and historical province of southeastern France, which stretches from the left bank of the lower Rhône to the west to the France–Italy border, Italian border to the east; it is bordered by the Mediterrane ...

. * Definition of the marine biostratigraphic framework of West Africa. * Definition of

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

stage limits (for the International Chronostratigraphic Chart) leading in particular to the definition of the

of the Valanginian-Hauterivian transition at La Charce. * Discovery of new species of

ammonites Ammonoids are extinct, (typically) coiled-shelled cephalopods comprising the subclass Ammonoidea. They are more closely related to living octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (which comprise the clade Coleoidea) than they are to nautiluses (family N ...

Death and tributes

In July 2022, Luc Bulot died of cancer in

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, United Kingdom at the age of 59. In 2023, many researchers paid tribute, in a special edition of the ''Journal of African Earth Science'', to the extent of his work which redefined a significant part of the stratigraphy of West Africa.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bulot, Luc 1963 births 2022 deaths Evolutionary biologists French paleontologists People from Cavaillon