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Richard John Aldridge (16 December 1945 – 4 February 2014) was a British
palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
and academic, who was Bennett Professor of
Geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...
at the
University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_la ...
.


Academic career

Aldridge's career began at
Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...
before moving to a temporary lectureship at
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...
. He then joined the
University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...
where he remained until 1989, having reached the rank of
Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ca ...
in
Palaeontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
. Following the Oxburgh Review of Earth Sciences, he moved to the
University of Leicester , mottoeng = So that they may have life , established = , type = public research university , endowment = £20.0 million , budget = £326 million , chancellor = David Willetts , vice_chancellor = Nishan Canagarajah , head_la ...
. He served two terms as Head of Department, and was F.W. Bennett Professor of Geology from 2002 until he retired in 2011. Aldridge's research has been focused primarily on the
conodont Conodonts ( Greek ''kōnos'', " cone", + ''odont'', " tooth") are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, w ...
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 Bio ...
Aldridge, R. J. 1972. Llandovery conodonts from the Welsh Borderland. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), ''Geology'' 22: 125-231Aldridge, R. J. 1975. The stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the British Silurian. ''Journal of the Geological Society, London'' 131: 607-618 and
palaeobiology Paleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an interdisciplinary field that combines the methods and findings found in both the earth sciences and the life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactio ...
and one of his seminal contributions has been to uncover the vertebrate nature of the long-enigmatic
conodont Conodonts ( Greek ''kōnos'', " cone", + ''odont'', " tooth") are an extinct group of agnathan (jawless) vertebrates resembling eels, classified in the class Conodonta. For many years, they were known only from their tooth-like oral elements, w ...
animal, principally in collaboration with
Derek Briggs Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in t ...
and
Euan Clarkson Euan N.K. Clarkson FRSE (born 1937) is a British palaeontologist and writer. Career Euan Clarkson studied geology at the University of Cambridge and had a long career as a palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Clarkson's most no ...
. This was achieved through careful analysis of skeletal remains, but also through analysis of rare soft tissue remains of conodonts.Briggs, D. E. G., Clarkson, E. N. K. and Aldridge, R. J. 1983. The conodont animal. Lethaia 16: 1-14Aldridge, R. J., Briggs, D. E. G., Smith, M. P., Clarkson, E. N. K. and Clark, N. D. L. 1993. The anatomy of conodonts. ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B'' 340: 405-421Donoghue, P. C. J., Forey, P. L. and Aldridge, R. J. 2000. Conodont affinity and chordate phylogeny. ''Biological Reviews'' 75: 191-251 This led naturally to Aldridge's later research focus which was fossil Lagerstätten.Hou, X. G., Aldridge, R. J., Bergström, J., Siveter, D. J., Siveter, D. J. and Feng, X. H. 2004. ''The Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China: the flowering of animal life''. Blackwell Science Ltd, London Aldridge was awarded the Pander Medal of the Pander society in 2006. He was President of the
Palaeontological Association The Palaeontological Association (PalAss for short) is a charitable organisation based in the UK founded in 1957 for the promotion of the study of palaeontology and allied sciences. Publications The Association publishes two main journals: ' ...
and of the British Micropalaeontological Society (1995-1998).


References

1945 births 2014 deaths British palaeontologists Conodont specialists Academics of the University of Leicester Academics of the University of Nottingham Alumni of the University of Southampton Academics of University College London {{UK-academic-bio-stub