Senior Lecturer in Palaeobiology

Palaeobiology Group

Direct contact:

Tel: 0116 252 3636 Email:sg21@le.ac.uk

Research interests include

I am particularly interested in the evolution of life as interpreted from the fossil record. This work includes understanding the processes that result in the preservation of soft bodied fossils in deposits such as the Cambrian Chengjiang and Burgess Shales and the Ordovician Soom Shale. I am interested in early vertebrate evolution and this research involves experimental taphonomy and interpreting highly-controversial stem-vertebrate fossils. More recently I have started to investigate the detailed textural and chemical make-up of mudrocks that host Lagerstätten and shale gas.

For more details please see my research pages.

Four recent publications

• GABBOTT, S. E., Zalasiewicz, J., Aldridge, R. A. and Theron, J. N. 2010. Eolian input into the Late Ordovician post-glacial Soom Shale, South Africa. Geology, 38, 1103-1106.

• Sansom, R., GABBOTT, S.E., and Purnell, M.A. Decay of vertebrate characters in hagfish and lamprey (Cyclostomata) and the implications for the vertebrate fossil record. In press, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.164.

• Sansom, R., GABBOTT, S.E., and Purnell, M.A. 2010. Non-random decay of chordate characters causes bias in fossil interpretation. Nature, 463, 797-800.

• GABBOTT, S. E., Zalasiewicz, J. and Collins, D. 2008. Sedimentation of the Phyllopod Bed within the Cambrian Burgess Shale Formation of British Columbia. The Journal of the Geological Society of London, 165, 307-318.

Full Listing

Teaching

• GL1018 Geology and Society
• GL1024 Planetary Geology
• GL2044 Aspects of Palaeontology
• GL3000 Evolution of the Global Environment
• GL3066 Palaeobiology