A tree in Arches National Park, Moab, Utah.

Matthew Burton-Kelly <-- Me

My professional website, aimed at letting people know more about me and what I am interested in, and just maybe getting me into a job or a Ph.D. program.

In the interest of keeping everyone up to date, I may add a "professional" blog of some sort in the future. If you want to know even more up-to-the-minute information, email me at matthew.burtonkelly@gmail.com or matthew.burton.kelly@und.nodak.edu. (Now I await the spam that comes from giving out my email addresses again.)

Research Interests <-- What you really want to know

General Interests
Paleontology, paleoecology and taxonomy. Specific research questions include:

Quantitative Paleontology
All science should strive to describe the world as accurately as possible. Using quantitative measurements and statistics to describe individual specimens and assemblages makes them easier to compare. What standards can be created to assure the most straightforward comparisons? What statistical methods are most appropriate in each situation?

Fossil Species Concepts
Although taxonomy of recent organisms can rely increasingly on molecular data, most fossil species are described and distinguished on the basis of morphology alone. Unfortunately both modern and fossil groups differ in the amount of morphological variation contained in each species. Can comparison of morphological variation in both modern and fossil groups (at the Family or Genus level) help determine the accuracy and number of species in the fossil record?

Groups
I am interested in most fossil groups and am willing to tackle any of them to answer the questions posed above.

Mollusca
My Master's project deals with determining morphological variation between poorly preserved molluscan fossils from a freshwater lake deposit in the lower Ludlow Formation* of Cretaceous age (see Publications). I have also participated in modern freshwater mussel surveys in the Adirondacks of New York State.

Arthropod Traces
My undergraduate honor's thesis described a bedding-plane exposure of multiple Protichnites in terms of paleoecology and comparitive morphology. I am currently working on a morphological method of identification of Protichnites to the species level; this work was presented in May 2007 (see Publications).

Publications <-- Things I've written

BURTON-KELLY, M.E., and J.H. HARTMAN, 2007. Discrimination of end-Cretaceous anodontine Unionoidea from North Dakota: How many taxa make sense? IN K. Jordaens, N. Van Houtte, J. Van Goethem, and T. Backeljau (eds.), World Congress of Malacology 15-20 July 2007: Antwerp, Belgium, Unitas Malacologica, p. 28-29.

HARTMAN, J.H., M.E. BURTON-KELLY, and A.R. SWEET, 2007. Interpreting the last molluscan Unionoidea from the Cretaceous of North Dakota. IN K. Jordaens, N. Van Houtte, J. Van Goethem, and T. Backeljau (eds.), World Congress of Malacology 15-20 July 2007: Antwerp, Belgium, Unitas Malacologica, p. 92.

BURTON-KELLY, M.E., 2007. Analysis of variability in Protichnites morphology and a standardized method of identification. Ichnological Applications to Sedimentological and Sequence Stratigraphic Problems, SEPM Research Conference, May 20 - 26, 2007, Price, Utah, USA.

BURTON-KELLY, M.E., 2005. An analysis of multiple trackways of Protichnites Owen, 1852, from the Potsdam Sandstone (Late Cambrian), St. Lawrence Valley, NY. Unpublished Bachelor's thesis, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, 66 p.

BURTON-KELLY, M.E., and J.M. ERICKSON, 2005. An analysis of multiple trackways of Protichnites Owen, 1852, from the Potsdam Sandstone (Late Cambrian), St. Lawrence Valley, NY. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 37(1):13.

SMRECAK, T.A., J.M. ERICKSON, J.W. HOGANSON, and M.E. BURTON-KELLY, 2005. Comparisons of megaflora assemblages between the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Hell Creek and Tertiary (Paleocene) Ludlow formations at the Stumpf Site Natural Area, Morton County, North Dakota. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, 37(7):137.

Other Projects <-- Distractions

From time to time I get involved in other paleontology-related projects.

IchnoWiki - An independent project that I am adding to sloooooowly. Ideally this Wiki will someday hold all the information an ichnologist could ever need (I can dream, can't I?).

Hypothetical UND Paleontology Specimen Database - What use is a collection without a way to know what you have? Please note that at the moment this is more of an exercise in PHP and MySQL than a fully functional database and should be treated as an Alpha release if the site is up.

Education <-- Inspiration

2008 (est.) M.S. Geology, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota.

2005 B.S. Geology, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York.