Shona Margaret Bell (married name Grant-Taylor, 1924 – 7 December 2011) was a New Zealand palaeontologist. She studied the fossils of the Corbies Creek area of North Otago and the

Benmore Dam Benmore Dam is the largest dam within the Waitaki power scheme, located in the Canterbury Region of New Zealand's South Island. There are eight other power stations in the Waitaki Power Scheme. The dam is the largest earth-fill (zoned embankme ...

area. The 1954 ''Directory of New Zealand Science'' records her as an assistant palaeontologist at the

Geological Survey of New Zealand GNS Science ( mi, Te Pū Ao), officially registered as the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Limited, is a New Zealand Crown Research Institute. It focuses on geology, geophysics (including seismology and volcanology), and nuclear sc ...

. She was employed by GSNZ from 1948 to 1950, but resigned on her marriage to Tom Grant-Taylor, as was expected at the time. In 2011 a newly discovered genus of fossil in the '' Codiaceae'' family was named ''Shonabellia'' in her honour by Gregory Retallack. The type species ''Shonabellia verrucosa'' was found near Benmore Dam, an area where Bell was the first to describe fossil plants.

References

1924 births 2011 deaths New Zealand paleontologists 20th-century New Zealand women scientists New Zealand women botanists 20th-century New Zealand botanists {{NewZealand-scientist-stub