Renowned Paleontologist Dies

David Raup, whose contributions to paleontology fundamentally changed the field, has passed away at 82.

Written byAmanda B. Keener
| 1 min read

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JUDITH YAMAMOTO

Paleontologist David Raup died last week (July 9) as a result of complications from a surgery he underwent to remove a subdural hematoma, The New York Times reported. He was 82.

Raup, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, was one of the first scientists to utilize the fossil record to ask basic biological questions that challenged prior dogmas about diversity, animal form, and life history.

“David Raup ushered in a renaissance in paleontology,” Charles Marshall, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked with Raup as a student and a colleague, told the University of Chicago. “Before Dave, much of the discipline was centered on describing what was. Dave taught the discipline to think about the processes that might have generated ...

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