Scott D. Evans

Assistant Curator, Invertebrate Paleontology

Assistant Professor, Richard Gilder Graduate School

Assistant curator Scott D. Evans sits inside a shallow pit in a desert, holding a paleontology tool in one hand.
Email:
[email protected]
Phone:
(212) 769-5756
Download Curriculum Vitae

Education

  • University of California, Riverside, PhD 2019
  • University of California, Riverside, MS 2015
  • State University of New York, Geneseo, BA 2013

Research Interests

Dr. Evans is broadly interested in exceptionally preserved invertebrate fossils through time. This primarily involves soft-bodied taxa, rare as fossils given their lack of mineralized parts (i.e. shells and bones). These organisms are commonly enigmatic, requiring quantitative field- and museum-based examinations of morphology, ecology and preservation to reconstruct individual organisms and communities. Researchers in this lab uses a holistic approach, including aspects of sedimentology and geochemistry, to fully leverage the available information in the geologic record in understanding ancient life on this planet.

A major focus of Dr. Evans’s research program is the Ediacara Biota, a group of fossils that includes the oldest fossil animals. These taxa primarily existed before the evolution of hard parts, so they are almost entirely soft-bodied and rare. Thus, field expeditions include remote locations such as Death Valley, USA, the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, and localities throughout Western Canada. The goals of this work are widespread, ranging from understanding the biology and ecology of individual taxa, to determining their evolutionary and developmental implications, to investigating changes in diversity and the possible drivers of such variation. Ultimately, this work aims to inform how an Earth system that was dominated for billions of years by single-celled, microscopic organisms transitioned to the one we know today, teaming with complex life.

Publications

(Select, last 5-years):

Boan, P.C., Evans, S.D., and Droser, M.L., 2024. And now for something completely random: Spatial distributions of Dickinsonia on the Ediacaran seafloor. Global and Planetary Change, v. 238, 104467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104467.

Evans, S.D., Hughes, I.V., Hughes, E.B., Dzaugis, P.W., Dzaugis, M.P., Gehling, J.G., García-Bellido, D.C. and Droser, M.L., 2024. A new motile animal with implications for the evolution of axial polarity from the Ediacaran of South Australia. Evolution & Development, e12491. https://doi.org/10.1111/ede.12491.

Evans, S.D., Smith, E.F., Vayda, P., Nelson, L.L., and Xiao, S. 2024 The Ediacara Biota of the Wood Canyon Formation: Latest Precambrian macrofossils and sedimentary structures from the southern Great Basin. Global and Planetary Change, v. 238, 104547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2024.104547.

Hughes, I.V., Evans, S.D., and Droser, M.L., 2024. Discovery of an Ediacaran bilaterian with an ecdysozoan affinity from South Australia. Current Biology. Doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.030. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.030.

Evans S.D., Hunt, G., Gehling, J.G., Sperling, E.A., and Droser, M.L. 2023. Species of Dickinsonia Sprigg from the Ediacaran of South Australia. Palaeontology, e12635. https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12635.

Droser, M.L., Evans, S.D., Trahan, L.G., Surprenant, R.L., Hughes, I.V., Hughes, E.B., and Gehling, J.G. 2022. What happens between depositional events, stays between depositional events: The significance of Organic Mat Surfaces in the capture of Ediacara communities and the sedimentary rocks that preserve them. Frontiers in Earth Science, v. 10, 826353. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.826353.

Evans S.D., Tu, C., Rizzo, A., Surprenant, R.L., Boan, P.C., McCandless, H., Marshall, N., Xiao, S., and Droser, M. L. 2022. Environmental drivers of the first major animal extinction across the Ediacaran White Sea-Nama transition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, v.119, e2207475119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2207475119.

Mitchell, E.G., Evans, S.D., Chen, Z., and Xiao, S., 2022. A new approach for investigating spatial relationships of ichnofossils: A case study of Ediacaran-Cambrian animal traces. Paleobiology, v.48, 557-575. https://doi.org/10.1017/pab.2022.16.

Boyer, D.L., Martinez, A.M., Evans, S.D., Cohen, P.A., Hadaad, E.E., Pippenger, K.H., Love, G.D., and Droser, M.L., 2021. Living on the Edge: The impact of protracted oxygen stress on life in the late Devonian. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 566, 110226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110226.

Evans, S.D., Droser, M.L., and Erwin, D.H., 2021. Developmental processes in Ediacara macrofossils. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biology, v. 288, 20203055. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.3055.

Evans, S.D., Hughes, I.V., Gehling, J.G., and Droser, M.L., 2020. Discovery of the oldest bilaterian fossil from the Ediacaran of South Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, v. 117, 78445-7850. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001045117.

Xiao, S., Gehling, J.G., Evans, S.D., Hughes, I.V., and Droser, M.L., 2020. Probable benthic macroalgae from the Ediacara Member, South Australia. Precambrian Research, v. 350, 105903. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.precamres.2020.105903.