John Paterson is a professor of Earth Sciences at the University of New England (UNE) in Armidale, New South Wales. Professor Paterson is one of Australia’s leading researchers on Cambrian (541 to 485 million-year-old) marine fossils, using them to answer major questions relating to evolution, biogeography, and paleoecology during the biggest animal radiation in the history of life, the Cambrian Explosion. He has also used these fossils in the relative dating and correlation of Cambrian rocks around the globe in order to refine the geologic timescale.
