Email: bclemens@berkeley.edu

Phone: (510) 642-6675

Web page: http://ib.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/person_detail.php?person=45

His research: "Currently I am studying two phases of mammalian evolution. One involves a curious primitive mammal found in Early Jurassic fissure fillings in southern Wales. It might be involved in the origin of the docodonts, a group including a recently discovered beaver-like form that cavorted in Jurassic streams. The other project concerns the history and processes involved in the evolution of the mammalian faunas of the western interior of North America after the mass extinction used to mark the end of the Cretaceous."

Burning question: "Was the recovery of mammalian faunas after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction simply a matter of evolutionary radiations of a few locally surviving lineages or did immigration of mammals from other areas play a significant role?"

Fossils that particularly interest him: "Fossil vertebrates from the Late Cretaceous and Early Paleocene of Wyoming, Montana, and adjacent areas. Since the early 1970s our field work has focused on sites in northeastern Montana. These collections now form the most comprehensive samples documenting vertebrate evolution across the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary."

His path to science: "I became interested in vertebrate paleontology because of my grandfather's dislike of trees. Forsaking an opportunity to settle in forested Oregon, he homesteaded in Goshen Hole, eastern Wyoming, an area with only a few cottonwood trees along the ephemeral streams but extensive and very fossiliferous exposures of the Chadron Formation. There, searches for the blue enamel of titanothere teeth and other fossils caught my interest, and I was hooked."

Clemens, W.A. 2008. Review of Amniote Paleobiology: Perspectives on the evolution of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles. Edited by M.T. Carrano, T.J.Gaudin, R.W. Blob and J.R. Wible. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 15:281-283.

Goodwin, M.B. and W.A. Clemens. Mesozoic continental vertebrates from the Northwestern Plateau, Ethiopia. International conference on paleoanthropology, paleontology, and archaeology in Ethiopia. Jan. 12-14, 2008. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Program with abstracts, pp. 18.

Clemens, W.A. 2007. Early Jurassic allotherians from South Wales (United Kingdom). Fossil Record 10:50-59.

Clemens, W.A. 2007. Eutriconodonta (Triconodonta), McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, 10th Edition, p. 728-729. Online McGraw-Hill AccessScience.  

Clemens, W.A., M.B. Goodwin, J.H. Hutchison, C.R. Schaff, C.B. Wood, and M.W. Colbert. 2007. First record of a Jurassic mammal (?"Peramura") from Ethiopia. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 52(3):433-439.  

Anantharaman, S., G. P. Wilson, D. C. Das Sarma, and W.A. Clemens. 2006. A possible Late Cretaceous "Haramiyidan" from India. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26(2):488-490.

Clemens, W. A. 2006. Ecological diversification of mammals during the Mesozoic, the Age of Dinosaurs. Retrieved December 1, 2006, from McGraw-Hill AccessScience  

Clemens, W. A. 2006. Early Paleocene (Puercan) peradectid marsupials from northeastern Montana, North American Western Interior. Palaeontographica, Abt. A. 277:19-31.

Goodwin, M. B., W. A. Clemens, J. R. Horner, and K. Padian. 2006. The smallest known Triceratops skull: New observations on ceratopsid cranial anatomy and ontogeny. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26(1):103-112.  

Clemens, W.A., and T.E. Williamson. 2005. A new species of Eoconodon (Triisodontidae, Mammalia) from the San Juan Basin, New Mexico. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25(1):208-213.