M. Paul Smith


M. Paul Smith is a British palaeontologist, head of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and professor in Kellogg College. Previously he was Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, head of the university's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Director of its Lapworth Museum of Geology. He received his BSc from the University of Leicester and his PhD from the University of Nottingham.
Smith's research primarily has focused on the conodont palaeobiology and the early Palaeozoic radiation of vertebrates. He is known for discovering that conodont teeth were made of bone cells, such as are found only in vertebrates. This dated the origin of the vertebrates to 515 million years before the present, 40 million years earlier than had been previously thought.
He was also involved in the geological mapping of northeastern Greenland.
He is Chair of the Publications Board of The Palaeontological Association, and joint editor of the Systematics Association special volume, Donoghue, Philip C. J., and M. Paul Smith. Telling the Evolutionary Time: Molecular Clocks and the Fossil Record.'' Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2004..

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