Allison R. Palmer

Allison Ralph (Pete) Palmer (January 9, 1927 – October 24, 2022) was an American paleontologist and geologist. His work focused on the Cambrian period. He had a career of nearly fifty years as a geologist with the United States Geological Survey and universities. The concept has been influential and has since been used widely in assessing shoreline geological deposits. Others have documented biomeres in other geographic and geological regions.

From 1966 to 1980, he was professor of paleontology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was on the board of the Faculty of Geosciences from 1974 to 1977. In 1980, Palmer left Stony Brook to become the centennial science program coordinator for the Geological Society of America in Boulder, Colorado. He was also the coordinator of educational programs from 1988 to 1991. He retired from the Geological Society of America in 1993 to become an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder where he remained active in research.

Awards and honors He was a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and was president of the Paleontological Society in 1983. In 1967 he received the Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal. Between 1972 and 1984 he was president of the Subcommittee for the Cambrian of the International Commission on Stratigraphy. He was a fellow of the Geological Society of America and received the 1992 Distinguished Service Medal. In 1998 he was awarded the Paelontological Society Medal.

Publications Palmer was author or co-author of over 137 publications. These include several major monographs. He authored a revision of the most primitive group of Trilobites, the Olenellina, with Russian paleontologist L.N. Repina, that was the basis of the discussion of this group in the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology.