Richard Aldridge

Richard John Aldridge (16 December 1945 – 4 February 2014) was a British palaeontologist and academic, who was Bennett Professor of Geology at the University of Leicester.[1][2]

Richard John Aldridge
Born16 December 1945
Died4 February 2014(2014-02-04) (aged 68)
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Southampton
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsPalaeontology
Institutions
Doctoral advisorRonald Leyshon Austin
Doctoral studentsPhilip Donoghue
M. Paul Smith

Academic career

Aldridge's career began at Southampton University before moving to a temporary lectureship at University College London. He then joined the University of Nottingham where he remained until 1989, having reached the rank of Reader in Palaeontology. Following the Oxburgh Review of Earth Sciences, he moved to the University of Leicester. He served two terms as Head of Department, and was F.W. Bennett Professor of Geology from 2002 until he retired in 2011.[1]

Aldridge's research has been focused primarily on the conodont biostratigraphy [3][4] and palaeobiology and one of his seminal contributions has been to uncover the vertebrate nature of the long-enigmatic conodont animal, principally in collaboration with Derek Briggs and Euan Clarkson. This was achieved through careful analysis of skeletal remains, but also through analysis of rare soft tissue remains of conodonts.[5][6][7] This led naturally to Aldridge's later research focus which was fossil Lagerstätten.[8]

Aldridge was awarded the Pander Medal of the Pander society in 2006. He was President of the Palaeontological Association and of the British Micropalaeontological Society (1995-1998).

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gollark: It's simultaneously extremely smart and really stupid.
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gollark: That looks bad.
gollark: Try not doing that.

References
  1. "Professor Richard Aldridge". University of Leicester. 7 February 2014. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  2. "Richard John Aldridge 1945 - 2014". Geolsoc.org.uk. 2014-02-04. Retrieved 2014-05-13.
  3. Aldridge, R. J. 1972. Llandovery conodonts from the Welsh Borderland. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History), Geology 22: 125-231
  4. Aldridge, R. J. 1975. The stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the British Silurian. Journal of the Geological Society, London 131: 607-618
  5. Briggs, D. E. G., Clarkson, E. N. K. and Aldridge, R. J. 1983. The conodont animal. Lethaia 16: 1-14
  6. Aldridge, 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: 405-421
  7. Donoghue, P. C. J., Forey, P. L. and Aldridge, R. J. 2000. Conodont affinity and chordate phylogeny. Biological Reviews 75: 191-251
  8. 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
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