From the Aurora Fossil Museum

 

The Fossil Festival Committee is very proud to announce this years’ Fossil Master. After many decades of study here, Robert Winfield “Bob” Purdy can almost call Aurora his second home.

The New Jersey native began collecting fossils as a child and continued that interest as an adult, graduating from George Washington University in 1972 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geology. He began working at the Smithsonian Institution in 1969 where he became Collections Manager of the fossil vertebrate collection. Bob later began to focus his attention on the fossil fish collections, in particular the fossil sharks and rays.

Aurora’s vast shark and ray fossil resources offered unlimited opportunities for study and Bob took full advantage of those opportunities. In addition, it was Bob who first saw the importance of Smithsonian participation in area fossil fairs as a way to bring the Smithsonian to the people. Since the first Fossil Festival in Aurora, Bob has organized a Smithsonian team to help the public identify their fossils, assist the Aurora Fossil Museum and study amateur’s collections. For the public seeking information, even the most humble water-worn tooth gets his full attention. Bob is also responsible for the popular boxes of handouts, which SI crew uses to identify fossils. Whenever Bob saw a useful illustration, he made multiple copies, and filed them, so they could be given to collectors when their fossils were identified.

Among the many scientific papers written or co-authored by Bob, a few are of particular interest to Aurora fossil aficionados….

1996. A Key to the Common Genera of Neogene Shark Teeth [Revised]. http://www.nmnh.si.edu/departments/paleo.html. Pp. 1-24.

2001. (with VP Schneider, JH McLellan, SP Applegate, RL Meyer & R. Slaughter). Preliminary Study of the Neogene Fish Faunas from the Texasgulf, Inc., Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, Beaufort County, North Carolina. Contributions to Paleobioloty, N. 90

1992. (with James C Tyler and Karl H Oliver. A New Species of Sphoeroides Pufferfish (Teleostei: Tetraodontidae) with Extensive Hyperostosis from the Pliocene of North Carolina. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, v. 105, n. 3, pp 462-482

Bob retired in 2008, but still goes into the Smithsonian almost every week to continue his research.