Niall Paterson

Project Leader

Contact: [email protected]

Niall Paterson received a BSc (Hons) in Earth Science from the University of Glasgow in 2005, and a PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2009. His PhD research focused on the Devonian and Carboniferous palynostratigraphy of the Appalachian Basin, USA. Later in 2009, Niall joined ExxonMobil and was employed as a Senior Geologist within the Biostratigraphy Group in Houston. In 2013, he commenced an industry-sponsored post-doc position at the University of Bergen, Norway, which was focused on the Triassic palynology of the Norwegian Arctic. This was followed by a 2 year post-doc on the source-to-sink infill dynamics of the lower Mesozoic stratigraphy in the Greater Barents Sea Basin.

Beyond his research activities, Niall is actively involved with the AASP – The Palynological Society, serving in various roles including Director-at-Large (2016–2018), Awards Committee Chair (2018–2020), Assistant Editor for the Journal Palynology (2016–2019), President-elect (2020–2021), President (2021–2023), and Past-President (2023–2024).

Niall joined CASP in May 2019 as part of the East Greenland-Norway and Barents Shelf Provenance projects. He is currently Project Leader of the Bunter Sandstone palynostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy projects.

Latest Publications

• Volcanogenic mercury and plant mutagenesis during the end-Permian mass extinction: Palaeoecological perturbation in northern Pangaea
• The age of the first pulse of continental rifting associated with the breakup of Pangea in Southwest Iberia: new palynological evidence
• The case for the Global Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the base of the Norian stage
• Triassic palynoevents in the circum-Arctic region