David M. Raup is a University of Chicago paleontologist. Raup studied the fossil record and the diversity of life on Earth. Raup contributed to the knowledge of extinction events along with his colleague Jack Sepkoski. They suggested that the extinction of dinosaurs 65 mya was part of a cycle of mass extinctions that may have occurred every 26 million years.

In addition to his time at the University of Chicago, Raup has taught at Caltech, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Rochester. He was also a curator and Dean of Science at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago as well as a visiting professor in Germany at Tuebingen and on the faculty of the College of the Virgin Islands . Raup was heavily involved through his career in joint programs with biology and in promoting training of paleontologists in modern marine environments. In 1994, he retired to Washington Island in northern Lake Michigan. Currently, he assists the Santa Fe Institute to develop methods and approaches to dealing with the evolutionary exploration of morphospace.

Early life

Born to naturalists and raised in Boston, Raup's interest in the fossil record did not begin at a young age, having had very little contact with such things until later in life. He focused instead on leisure activities such as skiing and camping. His first mentor was John Clark, a vertebrate paleontologist and sedimentologist at the Univesity of Chicago while starting his education.

Raup began his academic career at Colby College in Maine before transferring two years later to the University of Chicago where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. From there, he went to Harvard for graduate studies where he majored in geology while focussing on paleontology and biology; he earned his MA and PhD degrees there.

Selected publications

Books

• Raup, David & Stanley, Steven M. 1978. Principles of Paleontology : Second Edition [1]
• Raup, D.M. 1985. Patterns and Processes in the History of Life: Report of the Dahlem Workshop on Patterns and Processes in the History of Life. Berlin, June 16-21. David Jablonski (Editor). [2]
• Raup, David 1992. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? [3]
• Raup, David 1999. The Nemesis Affair: A Story of the Death of Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science. [4]

Periodicals

• Raup, D.M., 1962. Computer as aid in describing form in gastropod shells. Science, 138:150-152.
• Raup, D.M. 1966. Geometric analysis of shell coiling: general problems. Journal of Paleontology 40: 1178-1190.
• Raup, D.M. and Sepkoski, J.J. Jr. 1982. Science. 215, 1501-1503.
• Raup, D.M. and Sepkoski, J.J. Jr. 1984. Periodicity of Extinctions in the Geologic Past. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 81(3): 801- 805. [5]

External links

• 1997 Interview with David M. Raup
• What Factors May Lead to Periodic Mass Extinctions?