Paleoecologist Robert Gastaldo will lead a presentation titled “Back to the Beginnings: The Devonian Plants of Baxter State Park” in an online webinar hosted by Merryspring Nature Center on Tuesday, February 15, at 12 p.m.

In this program, Dr. Gastaldo will speak about his research looking across the paleobiological, paleoecological, and geological spectra to better understand plant fossil records and what they can tell us about “deep time” Earth history, including how the fossil records of Baxter State Park illustrate Maine’s distant past.

Gastaldo has led research efforts all over the world, including projects ranging in time from the Devonian (~410 million years ago) rocks of Maine, through the forest ecology of the Carboniferous coal swamps (320 mya) and late Permian mass extinction (251.9 mya) of the Late Paleozoic, to terrestrial ecosystem response to climate flux during the Tertiary (33-20 mya), and surveys of modern coastal swamp environments in tropical Kalimantan and Sarawak, and temperate Gulf Coast of the USA. Currently, his research includes wildfire as a consequence of our planet's early atmospheric oxygenation and the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems preserved in South Africa and western China in response to the "Mother of Mass Extinctions" of the latest Permian crisis. Research efforts have been supported by the National Science Foundation of the United States.

Prof. Robert Gastaldo was first introduced to fossil plants as an undergraduate during an independent study at Gettysburg College, and completed both his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Botany at Southern Illinois University in Carboniferous paleobotany. Prior to his appointment as Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology at Colby in 1999, he held an Alumni Professorship in the Department of Geology, Auburn University, Alabama.

He is a Centennial Fellow of the Paleontological Society, a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and was awarded a Forschungspreis by the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung, Bonn, Germany, and the recipient of the Gilbert H. Cady award from the Energy Division of GSA for his contributions to coal geology. He has served as a Fulbright Scholar and Educator in The Netherlands and South Africa, and continues as a visiting scientist at the US Natural History Museum, Smithsonian Institution.

He has authored or co-authored more than 175 peer-reviewed journal articles, worked as either editor or associate editor for several societal publications, and served as Councillor for the Paleontologial Society and the Society for Sedimentary Geology.

Currently, he is afforded "active" retired status at Colby College.

This talk is part of the Online Winter Talk series at Merryspring Nature Center, sponsored by Allen Insurance & Financial.

Access to a computer or smart device is required to attend. Please email info@merryspring.org to register for this program. Zoom links will be sent on the morning of the program.

Attendance is free for all.

Merryspring is your community nature center offering walking trails, cultivated gardens, wildlife, and ecology and horticulture educational programs all year round. The park is located at the end of Conway Road, just off of Route 1 in Camden, behind Hannaford Shopping Plaza. For more information on this program, please contact info@merryspring.org or call 207-236-2239.