Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska

Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (25 April 1925 – 13 March 2015) was a Polish paleobiologist. In the mid-1960s Kielan-Jaworowska led a series of Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert. Kielan-Jaworowska was the first woman to serve on the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences.^[1][2][3]

Early life and education

Zofia Kielan- Jaworowska was born in Sokolow Podlaski, Poland, on April 25, 1925. However, in 1928 her father, Franciszek Kielan, was offered a job for the Association of Agriculture and Trade Cooperatives in Warsaw. Her family then moved to Warsaw for 5 years in order to accommodate her father’s new job. Zofia and family then returned to Warsaw in 1934 and lived in the small town of Zoliborz. Zofia began her studies in Warsaw, following the destruction after the war. The Nazis attempted to completely destroy the city, resulting in the Department of Geology joining the ruins. Zofia then attended lectures instead given by the Polish paleontologist, Roman Kozlowski, in his own home. This is her where her passion began. 15 years later, Zofia organized the first Polish-Mongolian paleontological quest to the Gobi Desert, and returned 7 more times following the first. She continued on to become the first woman to serve on the committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences. Zofia’s findings remain arguably unmatched by any living expert because they have yet to be trumped. ^{[4] [5]}

Kielan-Jaworowska's studies began in the aftermath of the Second World War: as Warsaw University's department of geology had been destroyed in 1939, she attended lectures in Roman Kozłowski's apartment.^[4] She subsequently earned a master's degree in zoology and a paleontology doctorate at Warsaw University, where she later became a professor.

Career and research

Kielan-Jaworowska was employed by the Instytut Paleobiologii of the Polska Akademia Nauk. She held a number of functions in professional organizations in Poland and the United States, and was the first woman to serve on the executive committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences.^[1]

Kielan-Jaworowska's work included the study of Devonian and Ordovician trilobites from Central Europe (Poland and Czech Republic), leading several Polish-Mongolian paleontological expeditions to the Gobi Desert, and the discovery of new species of crocodiles, lizards, turtles, dinosaurs (notably Deinocheirus), birds and multituberculates. She is author of the book Hunting for Dinosaurs, and a coauthor of the book Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs.

Her work was published widely in peer reviewed scientific journals, books and monographs.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]}

During her time at The University of Warsaw, she started her journey of completing her master’s research. This allowed her to join in on expeditions with other paleontologists during this time and make various contributions. Kielan-Jaworowska participated in her first paleontological excavation in 1947 along with a group of researchers from the Museum of Earth and the National Geological Institute. The excavations, led by geologist Jan Czarnocki, took place in Poland’s Świętokrzyskie Mountains in exposures of Middle Devonian strata. The work being performed by the group involved digging for soft rock and rinsing away the sediment, consisting of yellow marl, in running water while using a sieve to collect any fossils that were present. Kielan-Jaworowska remained with the group for two months and specifically sought trilobite fossils, which would become the focus of her master’s thesis. She returned to specific sites in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains over the next three summers to continue developing her collection, which grew to over one hundred trilobite specimens. ^[5]

Kielan-Jaworowska was awarded her master’s degree in 1949 and had been employed as an assistant in the University of Warsaw’s Department of Paleontology since the fall of 1948. She worked there until 1952, teaching classes in paleontology for biology and geology students.^[5]

During her expeditions from 1963 to 1971 to the Gobi Desert, she unearthed many dinosaurs and mammals from the Cretaceous and early Tertiary. Her findings were so extensive that in 1965, her team had shipped over 20 tons of fossils back to Poland. One of her most notable finds was in 1971, when she discovered a Protoceratops and a young Velociraptor tangled in a struggle. The fossilization process of how these two in this position was intact is still debated. Although her findings were mainly dinosaurs, she did not focus all her research on them. She concentrated on Paleozoic invertebrates from 1949 to 1963, especially three-lobed water bugs called trilobites. They were among the oldest fossils commonly found. This led her to shift her focus on researching Mesozoic mammals in 1963. ^[4][5]

Kielan-Jaworowska has added a great deal of contribution to monographs that detail findings of fossils, along with that, she also wrote her own book, Hunting for Dinosaurs, which give brief descriptions of her paleontological endeavors to the Gobi Desert. Her book was first written in Polish, but was then translated to English and published in 1969. The book notes of her exchange with the Mongolian people, as well as the hardships she faced to achieve her great success in her life’s work. Also, in her research she explored the asteroid theory regarding the mass extinction of dinosaurs. Kielan-Jaworowska concluded the book with noting how the research of the mass extinctions could promote awareness for future decades. Kielan-Jaworowska and her book gained international attention and fame. ^[25]

From 1960 to 1982, Zofia was appointed as Director of the Institute of Paleobiology. In 1982, Zofia stepped down from her position in order to undertake a visiting professorship at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, which lasted for two years. Soon after her return to Warsaw, Zofia was appointed Professor of Paeleontology at the University of Oslo, which lasted from 1986 to 1995 when she was appointed Professor Emerita in the institute of Paleobiology.^[26]

Awards and honours

She was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.^[27] Her book Mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs won her the prestigious Prize of the Foundation for Polish Science, in 2005. She was also awarded the Romer-Simpson Medal in 1996, Zofia became the 8th recipient of the Society of Vetebrate Paleontology’s Romer-Simpson Medal, which honors sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence in the discipline of Vertebrate Paleontology.^[26]

Kielan-Jaworowska’s co-author Zhe-Xi Lou describes her contribution to paleontology as unmatched by any living experts, and that “in the whole of Mesozoic mammalian studies for the last 100 years, only the late American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson would be her equal.” ^[4] “She is the rarest among the rare – she has been a leader in making important scientific contributions, and also a gregarious and charismatic figure, both of which have made paleontology a better science, and paleontologists worldwide a better community.”^[4]

Personal life

She married Zbigniew Jaworowski, a professor of radiobiology, in 1958.^[1]

Featured scientific work

• Kielan, Zofia (1954). "Les trilobites Mésodévoniens des Monts de Sainte-Croix" (PDF). Palaeontologia Polonica (in French). 6.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (January 1968). "Scolecodonts versus jaw apparatuses". Lethaia. 1 (1): 39–49. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1968.tb01726.x.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (14 June 1969). "Discovery of a multituberculate marsupial bone". Nature. 222 (5198): 1091–2. doi:10.1038/2221091a0. PMID 5815073.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Sochava, Andrey V. (1969). "The first multituberculate from the Uppermost Cretaceous of the Gobi Desert (Mongolia)" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 14 (3): 355–367.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (6 June 1970). "Unknown structures in multituberculate skull". Nature. 226 (5249): 974–6. doi:10.1038/226974a0. PMID 5445884.
• Butler, P. M.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Z. (14 September 1973). "Is Deltatheridium a marsupial?". Nature. 245 (5420): 105–106. doi:10.1038/245105a0.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Benthe, H.F.; Haberland, G. (26 June 1975). "Possible occurrence of marsupial bones in Cretaceous eutherian mammals". Nature. 255 (5511): 698–699. doi:10.1038/255698a0.
• Crompton, A. W. and Kielan-Jaworowska, Z. 1978. Molar structure and occlusion in Cretaceous therian mammals. In Butler , P. M. and Joysey, K. A. (eds.), Studies in the Development, Function and Evolution of Teeth: 249—289. Academic Press, London and New York.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (1 February 1979). "Pelvic structure and nature of reproduction in Multituberculata". Nature. 277 (5695): 402–3. doi:10.1038/277402a0. PMID 399323.
• Lillegraven, Jason A.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Clemens, William A., eds. (1979). Mesozoic mammals : the first two-thirds of mammalian history. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520039513.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (April 1980). "Absence of ptilodontoidean multituberculates from Asia and its palaeogeographic implications". Lethaia. 13 (2): 169–173. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1980.tb01047.x.
• Fosse, G.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Z.; Skaale, S.G. (August 1985). "The microstructure of tooth enamel in multituberculate mammals". Palaeontology. 28 (3): 435–449.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Presley, R.; Poplin, Cecile (27 October 1986). "The cranial vascular system in taeniolabidoid multituberculate mammals". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 313 (1164): 525–602. doi:10.1098/rstb.1986.0055.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Dashzeveg, Demberlyin; Trofimov, Boris A. (1987). "Early Cretaceous multituberculates from Mongolia and a comparison with Late Jurassic forms" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 32 (1–2): 3–347.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Crompton, A. W.; Jenkins, Farish A. (30 April 1987). "The origin of egg-laying mammals". Nature. 326 (6116): 871–873. doi:10.1038/326871a0.
• Hopson, James A.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Allin, Edgar F. (30 June 1989). "The cryptic jugal of multituberculates". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 9 (2): 201–209. doi:10.1080/02724634.1989.10011754. JSTOR 4523255.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Nessov, Lev A. (January 1990). "On the metatherian nature of the Deltatheroida, a sister group of the Marsupialia". Lethaia. 23 (1): 1–10. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1990.tb01776.x.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Z.; Ensom, P.C. (January 1992). "Multituberculate mammals from the Upper Jurassic Purbeck Limestone Formation of southern England". Palaeontology. 35 (1): 95–126.
• Krause, David W.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Bonaparte, José F. (3 September 1992). "Ferugliotherium Bonaparte, the first known multituberculate from South America". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 12 (3): 351–376. doi:10.1080/02724634.1992.10011465. JSTOR 4523458.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Z.; Ensom, P.C. (April 1994). "Tiny plagiaulacoid multituberculate mammals from the Purbeck Limestone Formation of Dorset, England". Palaeontology. 37 (1): 17–31.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (September 1996). "Characters of multituberculates neglected in phylogenetic analyses of early mammals". Lethaia. 29 (3): 249–266. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1996.tb01658.x.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Cifelli, Richard L.; Luo, Zhexi (29 March 2007). "Alleged Cretaceous placental from down under". Lethaia. 31 (3): 267–268. doi:10.1111/j.1502-3931.1998.tb00516.x.
• Luo, Zhe-Xi; Cifelli, Richard L.; Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia (4 January 2001). "Dual origin of tribosphenic mammals". Nature. 409 (6816): 53–57. doi:10.1038/35051023. PMID 11343108.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Hurum, Jorn H. (May 2001). "Phylogeny and systematics of multituberculate mammals". Palaeontology. 44 (3): 389–429. doi:10.1111/1475-4983.00185.
• Kielan-Jaworowska, Zofia; Cifelli, Richard L.; Luo, Zhe-Xi. Mammals from the age of dinosaurs : origins, evolution, and structure. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-11918-6.

External links

• Professor Kielan-Jaworowska's Web-page on PAN Server

References