We use the Museum's fossil invertebrate, micropalaeontology and palaeobotany collections to unravel the origins and evolution of these groups.
Our research focuses on the origins of land-dwelling plants during the Palaeozoic Era, and the co-evolution of plants and animals during the Mesozoic Era.
The Museum's huge microfossil collection is helping us to reconstruct past environments and locate hydrocarbon reserves buried deep underground.
We are studying arthropod phylogeny, the palaeobiology, systematics, evolution and biogeography of trilobites, ostracod taxonomy and palaeobiology, and centipede systematics.
Our research on centipedes (Chilopoda) includes studies on deep phylogeny and phylogeography, the taxonomy of most major groups, comparative morphology, and palaeontology, including amber fossils from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
Marine invertebrate research
Our vast collections are supporting a range of research projects on bryozoans, molluscs, echinoderms and corals in the fossil record.
Investigating the timing of a switch towards aragonite skeletons in certain Late Cretaceous bryozoans, and the relationship of this switch to changing seawater chemistry.
Investigating the response of organisms to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), the most rapid and significant climatic warming pulse of the past 65 million years.