Lecturers on 1st IMERP-XIV EJIP: Mauricio Antón

Workshop "Tertiary ecosystems: evolution and palaeoenvironments" lecturers.

Mauricio Antón has been a professional paleoartist since 1987. He works in collaboration with the Paleobiology department at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid. His illustrations are exhibited in museums in several countries, including the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (Madrid), The National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D. C.) and the American Museum of Natural History (New York) among many others. He is the author and/or illustrator of many books, including “Sabertooth”, “El Secreto de los Fósiles”, “The Big Cats and Their Fossils Relatives”, “Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids”, “Evolving Eden”, “La Especie Elegida”, and “The National Geographic Book of Prehistoric Mammals”, among others. He has collaborated with the BBC, National Geographic and Discovery Channel in the production of documentary films, including “Wild New World”, “Sabretooth” and “Walking with Beasts”. He also keeps the blog “Chasing Sabretooths”. He works in the application of 3D modelling and animation to the reconstruction of past life, and has created animated films in collaboration with the Madrid-based studio “The Fly Factory”.His research on the evolution and anatomy of carnivorans and other mammals has resulted in many academic papers in journals including the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and Journal of Human Evolution. And Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences among others. He has given lectures in Spain, Denmark, the UK and the USA. He travels extensively to wildlife areas in order to observe extant wild mammals in their environments, and has led several art-training trips to Botswana.

Lecturers on 1st IMERP-XIV EJIP: Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia

Workshop "Palaeodiversity and evolution in the Mesozoic world" lecturers

Fabio Marco Dalla Vecchia (born 1964) graduated in Geological Sciences at the University of Bologna (Italy), obtained a Ph.D. title in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Modena (Italy) with a dissertation on the Triassic pterosaurs (1994). 

He did post-doctoral work at the University of Padua (Italy) on the Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrates of the northern Adriatic region (1995-97).

He has been Honorary Curator of the Paleontological section of the Museum of Monfalcone (Gorizia, Italy) since1994. He worked at the Institut Català de Paleontologia of Sabadell (Spain) from 2009 to 2013.

He is consultant of the Museo Friulano di Storia Naturale di Udine (Italy) and Ispettore Onorario for Palaeontology for the Soprintendenza Archeologica of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region (Italy). He was field work director at the Cretaceous fossil site of Polazzo (Gorizia) from 1996 to 2014, and scientifical director of the field work at the Villaggio del Pescatore dinosaur site (Trieste, Italy) in 1998-1999. He participated to several field expeditions and surveys in Italy and abroad (Croatia, Romania, Lebanon, Brazil, Iran and Spain).

Author of 32 technical papers on journals with IF, 52 peer-reviewed articles on journals that were without IF at the time of publication, 20 technical articles on journals without peer-review, six peer-review chapters/articles about paleontology in books, 11 non peer-review chapters/articles about paleontology in books, 38 published abstracts, eight books about paleontology and more than 100 divulgative papers.

He was author of scientific projects and texts of several exhibitions on geological and palaeontological matter.

His main scientific interest regards pterosaurs, above all the evolution of the earliest (Triassic) pterosaurs, other Mesozoic sauropsids (mainly Triassic, and in particular archosauriforms - crocodylomorphs included -, protorosaurs, placodonts, eusauropterygians and ichthyosaurs), and the terrestrial ecosystems of the European Archipelago during the Cretaceous, with focus on the hadrosauroid dinosaurs and palaeoichnology. He worked also on dinosaur remains from Northern Africa and Middle East, footprints and nesting structures of Carnian terrestrial reptiles, Miocene mammal footprints, Palaeozoic and Mesozoic chondrichthyes, Mesozoic osteichthyes, Triassic arthropods, and Mesozoic Fossil-Lagerstätten.

He named four new dinosaur species (two as single author -Histriasaurus boscarollii and Tethyshadros insularis- and two as coauthor - Sauroniops pachytholus and Canardia garonnensis); three pterosaur species ('Cearadactylus' ligabuei, Austriadactylus cristatus and Carniadactylus rosenfeldi); a marine reptile (Bobosaurus forojuliensis, the most basal plesiosaur); and one spider and one crustacean species.

Lecturers on 1st IMERP-XIV EJIP: Jim Kirkland

Workshop "Palaeobiodiversity and evolution in the Mesozoic world" lecturers.

Dr. Jim Kirkland (born, August 24, 1954) following receiving Ph.D. at University of Colorado, spent  two years teaching at the University of Nebraska and nine years as paleontologist with the Dinamation Int’l Soc. He has spent the last 17 years as the Utah State Paleontologist with the Utah Geological Survey.  He issues permits for paleontological research on Utah state lands, keeps tabs on paleontological research and issues across the state, and promotes Utah’s paleontological resources for the public good.


An expert on the Mesozoic, he has spent forty years excavating fossils across the southwestern US and Mexico authoring and coauthoring more than 80 professional papers.  The reconstruction of ancient marine and terrestrial environments, biostratigraphy, paleobiogeography, paleoecology, and mass extinctions are some of his interests.  He has discovered and described numerous new dinosaurs including several new armored dinosaurs, bipedal plant-eaters, the oldest truly horned-dinosaur, North America’s first sickle-clawed therizinosaurid, and the giant dromaeosaur Utahraptor.  His researches in the middle Cretaceous of Utah indicate that the origins of Alaska and the first great Asian-North American faunal interchange occurred about 100 million years ago, which his numerous trips to China and Mongolia have substantiated.


This lecture is possible thanks to Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel - Dinópolis. We are very thankful to them.

II Somosaguas Prize

Dear participants,

We are glad to announce the second edition of the Somosaguas Prize to the best work by a novel researcher. This award is sponsored by the Somosaguas Team, from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

The requirements for the candidates are:

• Younger than 25 years old (included).
• 1st or 2nd participation on the EJIP.
• 1st or 2nd author of a work for an oral presentation.

The works will be evaluated by the organizing committee, based on their scientific quality.

The prize includes:

• Shirt and pins with paleontological logos.
• Several books and journals dealing with palaeontology and geology.
• Prize winner certificate.

For those interested in participating, please fill in the form attached in this entry.

1st IMERP - XIV EJIP in the world

Researches from all those countries come to 1stIMERP-XIV EJIP!! We are waiting for you! See you in Alpuente!

Lecturers on 1st IMERP-XIV EJIP: Susan Turner

Let us with the presentation of the differents lecturers. Now it is the turn of the second lecturer of te workshop about Paleozoic.

Workshop "Life in Palaeozoic: an overview of land and sea ecosystems" lecturers.

Susan Turner (Geoscience consultant and editor; Honorary Research Fellow at several institutions including Queensland and New Brunswick museums, Curtin and Monash universities) is one of the world authorities on agnathan and chondrichthyan fishes and especially their early evolution, with special interest in thelodonts (Thelodonti), basal sharks (e.g. Doliodus, Protodus, Mcmurdodus), and certain other groups (e.g. gyracanths, xenacanths). She has produced an extensive amount of work in her nearly 50 years of research. Her PhD (begun when in Reading University under Bev Halstead) focused on understanding the British thelodonts then known with special reference to their applied biostratigraphy and palaeogeography (with a first paper on the closure of Iapetus in Nature in 1970) she continued that work worldwide over the years, pioneering Palaeozoic microvertebrate research in Gondwana, collaborating on the Handbook of Paleoichthyology on the clade and is now concerned with the origins as well as palaeobiology. Migrating to Australia in 1980, she began to discover new taxa notably mid-Palaeozoic sharks based on microfossils and this has led, especially with her students and colleagues in international research projects, to finding out more about the evolution of basal agnathans and gnathostomes.  One important work challenged the hypothesis that conodont animals were vertebrates (they are not!). Discovery and recognition of the first Carboniferous tetrapod in the southern hemisphere and the youngest-known dicynodont led to new avenues of research and inclusion as a "Wizard of Oz". Field experience includes work on four continents, with description of fossils from many countries besides. Working always in a museum environment, she created a major geology gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne and assisted in the re-structuring of the Queensland Museum. She co-ran UNESCO:IUGS IGCP 328 and was a member of the Paleobiological Fund, the IGCP Board and Global Geoparks Expert Committee (helping to create the Australian Geopark Kanawinka and assessing ones in China and Iran), and is on the current Australian IGCP Committee.

Lecturers on 1st IMERP-XIV EJIP: Christian Klug

Today we can announce exciting news about our congress: the differents lecturers of the workshops are confirmed!. During next days, we will present every one of them.

Workshop "Life in Palaeozoic: an overview of land and sea ecosystems" lecturers.

Christian Klug (curator of the Palaeontological Museum of the University of Zurich, Switzerland) grew up in Southern Germany. Already at the age of 10, he became interested in nature, particularly botany and geology. Some years later, he began collecting Triassic fossils in the area around his hometown Schwabisch Hall (Germany). After school, he studied palaeontology in Tuebingen. Both his MSc- and his PhD-thesis focused on Devonian ammonoids based in materials from Morocco. After a scientific internship at the Staatliches Museum fuer Naturkunde in Stuttgart (Germany), he received a part time position as research associate at the Palaeontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich. Since 2014, he is now curator of the museum. In his research, he focuses on the palaeobiology of cephalopods and macroecological changes in the Palaeozoic.