Elga Mark-Kurik

Elga Mark-Kurik (before 1964 Elga Mark; 26 December 1928 Tartu – 6 November 2016) was an Estonian geologist and paleontologist. With over 130 articles published, Mark-Kurik is particularly known for the discovery of Livoniana, a fossil sometimes described as "missing link" between fish and tetrapods.

Biography Elga Mark was born on 26 December 1928 in Tartu, Estonia. Her father, Julius Mark, was vice-president of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and a professor of Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Tartu. Her mother and sister were artists, daughters of the navigator and hydrographer Johan Mey. The family was threatened with deportation by the KGB in 1941.

In 1947 she began her degree, graduating in 1952 with a degree in Geology from the University of Tartu, This included roles as a senior scientist in 1989 and a lead scientist in 1992. Her particular interest included turtles and crustaceans in the third and fourth periods of the Paleozoic Era (the Silurian and Devonian periods)

In 1964, she discovered the jawbone of Livoniana multidentata, a 375 million year old fossil which is considered the "missing link" between fish and tetrapods. Although she published her findings at the time, the Soviet regime required scientific research to be published in Russian, and so it was missed by Western sources. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the fossil resurfaced as part of a project Mark-Kurik was working on, comparing fossils between Scotland and the Baltics.