University of Washington ESS Home

Short Biography

Portrait of Peter Ward

Peter Ward
  Professor
  Office: KIN-162
     ESS Mailing Address
  Phone: 206-543-2962, 685-3825
  Fax: 206-543-0489 (shared)
  E-Mail: ward@ess.washington.edu
  Homepage:

  Research Groups: Isotope Geochemistry, Astrobiology, Paleontology

Areas of Interest:
Paleontology

Current Research Interests:
Peter Ward is currently examining the nature of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event with studies in France and Spain involving detailed field work which concentrates on ammonites and bivalves. Ward is also researching speciation patterns and ecology of the living cephalopods Nautilus and Sepia. A final field of research is examining the stratigraphic history of West Coast Cretaceous basins through detailed biostratigraphy and basin analysis.

Graduate Students:
Ken MacLeod: Worldwide extinction patterns in inoceramid bivalves

David Backus: Extinction patterns in Cambrian trilobites

Lynn Catlin: Mass extinctions of ammonites

Bruce Crowley: Middle Cretaceous ammonites from the North Cascades

Selected Publications:
Ward, P., 1987, The Natural History of Nautilus. Allen and Unwin, London, 267 p.

Ward, P., 1990, The Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary in the marine realm: a 1990 perspective, GSA Special Paper, v. 247, p. 425-431.

Ward, P., 1991, On Methuselah's Trail: Living Fossils and the Great Extinctions, W. H. Freeman and Company, New York, 212 p.