(Vertebrate evolution has led to the convergent appearance...)
Vertebrate evolution has led to the convergent appearance of many groups of originally terrestrial animals that now live in the sea. Among these groups are familiar mammals like whales, dolphins, and seals. There are also reptilian lineages (like plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, thalattosaurs, and others) that have become sea creatures. Most of these marine reptiles, often wrongly called "dinosaurs", are extinct. This edited book is devoted to these extinct groups of marine reptiles. These reptilian analogs represent useful models of the myriad adaptations that permit tetrapods to live in the ocean. First book in more than 80 years devoted exclusively to fossil marine reptiles Documents the most current research on extinct marine reptiles.
Elizabeth Nicholls was a American-Canadian paleontologist, scientist, researcher and author. She specialized in Triassic marine reptiles.
Background
Elizabeth Nicholls was born on January 31, 1946 in Oakland, Alameda Country, California, United States. She was a daughter of Robert M. Roberts, a university professor at University of California Berkeley, and Margaret (Reid) Roberts. When Betsy was ten, the Nicholls family left the United States and moved to Melbourne, Australia, where she experienced a very different culture.
Education
Elizabeth L. Nicholls' father initiated her interest in palaeontology when he took her to visit his colleague Sam P. Welles (1909-1997) in her ninth year. Betsy looked at the fossils around his room and is reputed to have said want to be a palaeontologist. In 1964 Elizabeth Nicholls attended University of Melbourne. In 1968 she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1973 Nicholls gained a Master of Science degree from the University of Calgary and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1989.
In 1969 Elizabeth L. Nicholls moved to Calgary when her husband was hired as assistant professor in the Department of Geology at the University of Calgary. Here she completed a Master of Science degree on Campanian turtles in 1972 whilst raising two daughters. She began her career in Canada by discovering, collecting and studying the oldest known plesiosaur from North America, remains of which were found in mountains Southwest of Calgary. During this time she became increasingly involved with dinosaur extraction at Dinosaur Park. She raised funds herself, collecting and preparing a Liassic plesiosaur from near Crowsnest Pass in South West Alberta, an omithomimid dinosaur from Dinosaur Park, and a hadrosaur-prosaurolophid skull and skeleton, now on display in the University of Calgary and at the Royal Tyrrell Museum (RTM), Drumheller, Alberta, respectively.
From 1973 to 1990 Elizabeth Nicholls was a research associate at the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta. In 1989 Betsy completed her doctoral thesis on marine reptiles from Morden, Manitoba, under the supervision of Anthony Russell of the University of Calgary's Biology Department. The following year she started work as RTM's marine reptile specialist, then Curator of Marine Reptiles in 1991, continuing to focus on Triassic marine reptiles from Northeast British Columbia. She lived in Calgary and made the daily trek to Drumheller, a journey of 170 km.
In 1997 Jack M. Callaway and Nicholls edited an important book on Ancient Marine Reptiles that summarizes end-of-twentieth-century knowledge on many groups and posed the questions for the coming millennium. Nicholls died from cancer on October 8, 2004.
(Vertebrate evolution has led to the convergent appearance...)
1997
Membership
Elizabeth Nicholls was a member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, of the Paleontological Society, and of the Geological Association of Canada.
Connections
On March 17, 1968 Elizabeth Roberts married James W. Nicholls. They have two daughters: Jennifer, Katherine.