DIRT home page ... Denman Institute for Research on Trilobites

Welcome to DIRT's homepage which is dedicated to chronicling the arts and sciences of trilobites. You will find interesting items about these long-extinct arthropods -- their paleobiology, ecology, evolution, extinction, history of study, classification, etc. On these pages you will also come across artwork, songs, poems, cartoons that deal with trilobites. Trilobites are sought after by paleontologists and fossil collectors because they are among the most beautiful of fossils. The intrinsic beauty of many trilobites justifies their inclusion in the DIRT homepage.

Rolf Ludvigsen

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The Lower Silurian limestones and shales of Anticosti Island contain spectacularly preserved trilobites. Here, the encrinurid Wallachia is nudged aside by an Acernaspis (from Chatterton and Ludvigsen, 2004).

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Click link below for more information

DIRT Publications
Research

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In 1993, I helped to establish the British Columbia Paleontological Alliance as an umbrella group of amateur and professional paleontologists in regional societies in the province. I served as its Chair for the first four years. The Alliance has now over 200 members in six regional societies across the province.

     After leaving the University of Toronto for Denman Island, I established the Denman Institute for Research on Trilobites (DIRT) in 1989 as a "home" for my continuing work on trilobites and on fossils in general. Denman Island is a small island located just off the east coast of Vancouver Island, about half way up.
     A wide range of books on fossils and their meaning is available in libraries and bookstores. Some deal with broad themes, such as living fossils or mass extinctions. Others focus on the paleobiology, paleoecology, and evolution of various animal groups -- ammonites, trilobites or, the perennial favourites, dinosaurs.
     Until a few years ago, no book for a general audience has dealt with the fossils to be found in the rocks of any region in British Columbia. In an attempt to rectify this, I have written a popular book (with Graham Beard) on the fossils of Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands (Ludvigsen and Beard, 1994, second edition 1998, Harbour Publishing) and edited another one on the fossils of British Columbia (Ludvigsen, 1996, UBC Press). Right now, along with Brian Chatterton of the University of Alberta, I am writing a book on Canadian fossils, fossil sites and paleontologists. The manuscript will be submitted for publication in 2005.
     In 2004, the Denman Institute for Research on Trilobites moved north to Moberly Lake in the Peace River country of British Columbia. I considered, but rejected, a name change because the acronym DIRT is too stylish and too euphonious to let go. In any case, MIRT has no class!

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Back to trilobites. In the spring of 1989 at the Murchison Symposium in Keele, England, I discussed, with as many trilobite workers as I could, the possibility of establishing an international newsletter for trilobite paleontologists. Everyone thought it was a great idea, so in October 1989 I assembled the first issue of The Trilobite Papers and distributed it to about 150 trilobite workers on five continents. The annual compilation of The Trilobite Papers has become a major endeavour here at the Denman Institute for the Research on Trilobites. Eighteen issues of the newsletter have now been published, and TP-19 will be distributed in October, 2007.

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University of Toronto trilobite paleontologists at the Canadian Paleontology and Biostratigraphy Seminar in Albany, New York, September, 1986. From left: Graham Young (M.Sc., 1984), Steve Westrop (Ph.D., 1984), Brian Pratt (Ph.D., 1988)
and Rolf Ludvigsen.

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