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ROBERT RANDELL
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Ever since my earliest childhood when I first became aware of dinosaurs and fossils, the world of geology has fascinated me. Raised on the Sussex coast of Southern England, between the rolling chalk downland of the South Downs and the English Channel, I had easy access to the famous White Cliffs and countless abandoned farm-pits. Soon I began searching for the fossils they contain, but rather than dinosaurs I found sea-urchins, shells, starfish and ammonites, and collecting these became the focus of my spare time. I am pictured above with some prized possessions.
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I completed my undergraduate degree at Southampton (Geology B.Sc., First Class Honours) in 2001. From there I travelled to the US, studying palaeontology under Bruce Lieberman at the University of Kansas; home of the Treatise. Both campuses were satisfactorily close to a major chalk outcrop. Whilst a Jayhawk (a student of KU) I studied the Early Cambrian fauna of the Sekwi Formation, Mackenzie Mountains, Canada, rich in trilobites and unusual beasts known as chancelloriids; extinct sea creatures resembling cacti but probably related to anemones and corals. The results have just been published in the Journal of palaeontology (Randell, R., Lieberman, B., Hasiotis, S., and Pope, M. 2005. New chancelloriids from the Early Cambrian Sekwi Formation, Northwest Territories, Canada with a comment on Chancelloriid affinities, Journal of Paleontology, 79, 5, 987-996 [Manuscript text]). A typical fossil specimen and my reconstruction of the new chancelloriid species Archiasterella fletchergryllus are shown above, approximately life-size. My time at KU included a memorable field season in the Canadian Artic.
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In 2006 I completed an M.Sc. (with distinction) in Micropalaeontology at University College London. This was a very intense course and took priority over other projects, such as the chalk fossils website. My end of course project focused on nannofossils, including the Palaeogene material from Tanzania figured above. These (false colour) images were captured using a scanning electron microscope and the scale bars represent 2 µm (microns) - 2 thousandths of a millimetre. Nannofossils such as these are the skeletal remains of planktonic algae, and are the primary constituent of chalks. A number of publications are now arising from the wider Tanzania microfossil project which my M.Sc. work was based around (e.g. Bown, P.R., Dunkley-Jones, T., Lees, J.A., Randell. R., Mizzi, J.A., Pearson, P.N., Coxall, H.K., Young, J.R., Nicholas, C.J., Karenga, A., Singano, J., Wade, B.S. 2008. A Paleogene calcareous microfossil Konservat-Lägerstatte from the Kilwa Group of coastal Tanzania, GSA Bulletin, January/February 2008, 120, 1/2, 3-12).
When I began my site within Discovering Fossils I intended to create a few simple pages displaying the best finds from my own collection. With the support of Roy and Lu it has grown into a much larger project, incorporating many museum and private collections. The aim of the site now is to act as a comprehensive guide to the fossils of the Chalk, both the common and the spectacular, alongside a guide to the anatomy and terminology of the animal groups encountered.
Painting is another big interest of mine. Not missing a chance to incorporate a little palaeontology, I tend to paint prehistoric scenes; here is my light-hearted reconstruction of Jurassic Dorset.
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In May 2004 I married Denise; here we are on honeymoon on the Isle of Thassos, Greece. She has always been very supportive of my interests, so it seemed fair to name a fossil species after her (A. fletchergryllus above).
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A recent picture of Denise (March 2008), and a wedding-day portrait at Highdown Gardens, West Sussex (May 2004).
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Recent addition - Harry Randell born November 2007.
