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Two lives lived through a paleontological window
Published: 14 April 2020
Two people connected to the Redpath Museum died on听April 8, 2020: Robert 鈥淏ob鈥� Lynn Carroll, vertebrate paleontologist, aged 81 years old and Joan Clark, patent lawyer, aged 90 years old.
These two people lived about 4 blocks from each other, knew of each other鈥檚 life and work and were linked to each other through Joan鈥檚 father: Thomas Henry Clark. Both Thomas Clark and Bob Carroll were paleontologists who came to 平特五不中 as young postdoctoral students. Both went on to be part of the Faculty for most of their professional lives: Bob in the Dept. of Biology and Thomas Clark in Geology (now the Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences). Thomas Clark and Bob Carroll co-authored (with Colin Stearn) the three editions of the standard textbook for university and college geology courses: Geological Evolution of North America. Thomas Clark and Bob Carroll were both Directors of the Redpath Museum; the former from 1932 鈥� 1952 and the latter from 1985 鈥� 1991.
Bob Carroll was an American-Canadian vertebrate paleontologist who specialized in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles. You can watch for science.ca in 2009.听
You can read about his life听on his 听Bob's 听was written by his colleagues and friends in the field of fossil research. They considered him the grandfather of Canadian paleontology.
Joan Clark was the only child of Thomas Clark and of Olive Pritchard, a 平特五不中 science graduate (1925). Joan Clark obtained a B.A. from 平特五不中, then听pursued a law degree in French at the Universit茅 de Montr茅al. As a woman she was a pioneer in the choices she made for herself. You can .
In 2017 Joan Clark was honoured with an award from the Law Graduates Association (ADDUM) of the University of Montreal. At the award ceremony she shared a story about reading to her father just before his death at the age of 102. She read a passage from the 1995 book The Sixth Extinction by Richard Leakey. Leakey talks about looking at the past through a window, in his case a paleontological window, but this can apply to a window through which one looks at anything in the past.
Leakey wrote:
鈥淚f there is one single impression you gain from what is to be seen through this window it is encapsulated in the simple word change. Life鈥檚 flow is in a constant dynamic change. Life seen through a paleontological window is like a kaleidoscopic image, where change is not only natural but inevitable.鈥�