About

Derek Briggs is the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Yale University and a Curator at the Yale Peabody Museum. His primary research interest is in the preservation and evolutionary significance of exceptionally preserved fossil biotas. His work involves a range of approaches, including experimental studies on decay and fossilization processes, studies of early diagenetic mineralization and organic preservation, and field work on extraordinary fossil occurrences. Briggs has contributed significantly to understanding the conditions that lead to exceptional preservation, demonstrating that many types of such fossils are not confined to unique settings and applying chemical and mineralogical analyses to investigate soft-tissue fossilization. His research has revealed insights into the fossilization of soft tissues, the preservation of organic compounds like melanin, and the modes of biomineralization, providing critical information on the evolutionary history of various groups. Briggs has also explored the diversity of Cambrian to Silurian fossils, including Burgess Shale-type deposits, and has developed novel methods for interpreting fossil color and ecology. His work has expanded knowledge of early animal evolution, the conditions of fossilization, and the diversity of ancient life, making him a leading figure in paleontology and fossil preservation.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Zoology
• Paleontology
• Evolutionary biology

Selected publications

• Richard Fortey obituary: palaeontologist, author and TV presenter who traced continents through fossils

  Nature · 2025-04-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• New Silurian aculiferan fossils reveal complex early history of Mollusca

  Nature · 2025-01-08 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Mollusca is the second most species-rich animal phylum, but the pathways of early molluscan evolution have long been controversial 1–5 . Modern faunas retain only a fraction of the past forms in this hyperdiverse and long-lived group. Recent analyses 6–8 have consistently recovered a fundamental split into two sister clades, Conchifera (including gastropods, bivalves and cephalopods) and Aculifera 9 , comprising Polyplacophora (‘chitons’) and Aplacophora. Molluscan evolution in toto is characterized by plasticity in body-plan characters 10 , but historically aculiferans have been interpreted as more conservative 10,11 . The few completely preserved aculiferan or aculiferan-like fossils from the early Palaeozoic 12–19 have been largely regarded as transitional forms that inform questions of character polarity between the extant polyplacophoran and aplacophoran body forms 20,21 . The history of early aculiferans, and the morphological and ecological range that they occupied, remain inadequately sampled. Here we describe two new three-dimensionally preserved aculiferan species from the Silurian Herefordshire Lagerstätte 22,23 , which substantially extend the morphological and ecological range of the clade. Phylogenetic analyses indicate positions within a complex nexus of taxa and suggest reversals in the states of fundamental characters such as the presence of valves and the nature of the foot. In contrast to previous hypotheses of morphological conservatism, evolution in early aculiferans generated a profusion of unusual forms comparable to the diversification of other crown-group molluscs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• DOUSHANTUO-TYPE MICROFOSSILS IN EARLIEST CAMBRIAN ROCKS OF MONGOLIA

  Abstracts with programs - Geological Society of America · 2025-01-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Preserved appendages in a Silurian binodicope: implications for the evolutionary history of ostracod crustaceans

  Biology Letters · 2024-05-01 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Ostracod crustaceans originated at least 500 Ma ago. Their tiny bivalved shells represent the most species-abundant fossil arthropods, and ostracods are omnipresent in a wide array of freshwater and marine environments today and in the past. Derima paparme gen. et sp. nov. from the Herefordshire Silurian Lagerstätte (~430 Ma) in the Welsh Borderland, UK, is one of only a handful of exceptionally preserved ostracods (with soft parts as well as the shell) known from the Palaeozoic. A male specimen provides the first evidence of the appendages of Binodicopina, a major group of Palaeozoic ostracods comprising some 135 Ordovician to Permian genera. The appendage morphology of D. paparme , but not its shell, indicates that binodicopes belong to Podocopa. The discovery that the soft-part morphology of binodicopes allies them with podocopes affirms that using the shell alone is an unreliable basis for classifying certain fossil ostracods, and knowledge of soft-part morphology is critical for the task. Current assignment of many fossil ostracods to higher taxa, and therefore the evolutionary history of the group, may require reconsideration.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The La Voulte-sur-Rhône Konservat-Lagerstätte reveals the male and female internal anatomy of the Middle Jurassic clawed lobster Eryma ventrosum

  Scientific Reports · 2024-07-31 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The biology of extinct animals is usually reconstructed from external morphological characters and comparison with present-day analogues. Internal soft organs are very rarely preserved in fossils and require high-tech approaches for visualization. Here, we report the internal anatomy of a female and male of the ~ 162 Myr-old lobster Eryma ventrosum from the Jurassic La Voulte-sur-Rhône Konservat-Lagerstätte in France using X-ray synchrotron tomography. The Erymidae is an extinct, species-rich, widespread and ecologically important Mesozoic family of decapod crustaceans. Our investigation revealed the anatomy of the locomotory, respiratory, circulatory, excretory, digestive, nervous and sensory, and reproductive systems at a resolution resembling low-magnification histology. Particularly notable is the detailed preservation of the small brain and the fragile hepatopancreas, the main metabolic organ of decapods that decays rapidly post-mortem. The remarkable preservation shows that the internal anatomy of Eryma ventrosum is closer to that of Nephropidae (clawed lobsters) than Astacidae (freshwater crayfish), their closest living relatives based on skeletal morphology. The microanatomy of the gonads and hepatopancreas indicates that the two specimens investigated were a young, well-nourished female and male prior to sexual maturity. The analysis of the soft anatomy reveals remarkable conservatism over 160 Myr and offers new insights into feeding, reproduction, life history and lifestyle of an important component of the macrozoobenthos of Middle Jurassic seas.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• MORPHOTYPE MATTERS: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF THE MORPHOLOGICAL FIDELITY OF GASTROPOD STEINKERNS

  Palaios · 2024-07-24 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Gastropods are commonly preserved as steinkerns (internal casts), a mode of fossilization that leads to loss of external morphological features. This loss of information is problematic for taxonomic identification and ecological inference in evaluating assemblages where original shell material is not preserved. We seek to quantify how closely gastropod steinkerns represent the morphology of their original shells. We investigated this relationship experimentally by fabricating steinkerns in silicone from modern gastropod shells and comparing their geometry to that of the shells we used to create them. In addition to recording traces of ornamentation such as ribs and spines, we used a theoretical morphospace framework to evaluate the fidelity of shell-coiling parameters in steinkerns. Our results show that some morphotypes reflect their taxonomic identification more accurately than others, indicating that steinkern fidelity is highly variable. Experimental steinkerns consistently cluster less reliably by morphotype than their original shell counterparts. Additionally, we find that shell thickness is an important factor in determining steinkern fidelity. The fidelity of the high-spired Duplicaria duplicata, for example, is significantly lower than the average value for the morphotypes investigated whereas the fidelity of planispiral Haplotrema concavum and open-coiling Epitonium is significantly higher, a trend related to shell thickness. Thus, taxonomic identification and subsequent analyses, such as community composition, of steinkern assemblages must recognize this differential fidelity to counter preservational biases.

  PublisherDOI

• Genital Appendages of the Giant Pterygotid Eurypterid Acutiramus from the Silurian (Pridoli) Bertie Group of North America

  Bulletin of the Peabody Museum of Natural History · 2024-10-25 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  Pterygotid eurypterids are known for their large size and elongate chelicerae. The Silurian Bertie Group of upper New York State has yielded complete and fragmentary specimens of giant individuals of the pterygotid Acutiramus macrophthalmus indicating maximum body lengths over 2 m. Here we describe and illustrate large, isolated examples of the otherwise poorly documented genital appendages (type A and B, generally interpreted as female and male respectively) of this pterygotid. The rarity of complete specimens of Acutiramus affording a ventral view of the body compromises attempts to infer body length from the dimensions of the genital appendages. These appendages provide useful evidence of the interrelationships of pterygotids when used in combination with other characters.

  PublisherDOI

• Controls on authigenic mineralization in experimental Ediacara‐style preservation

  Geobiology · 2024-07-01 · 13 citations

  article

  The earliest evidence of complex macroscopic life on Earth is preserved in Ediacaran-aged siliciclastic deposits as three-dimensional casts and molds, known as Ediacara-style preservation. The mechanisms that led to this extraordinary preservation of soft-bodied organisms in fine- to medium-grained sandstones have been extensively debated. Ediacara-style fossilization is recorded in a variety of sedimentary facies characterized by clean quartzose sandstones (as in the eponymous Ediacara Member) as well as less compositionally mature, clay-rich sandstones and heterolithic siliciclastic deposits. To investigate this preservational process, we conducted experiments using different mineral substrates (quartzose sand, kaolinite, and iron oxides), a variety of soft-bodied organisms (microalgae, cyanobacteria, marine invertebrates), and a range of estimates for Ediacaran seawater dissolved silica (DSi) levels (0.5-2.0 mM). These experiments collectively yielded extensive amorphous silica and authigenic clay coatings on the surfaces of organisms and in intergranular pore spaces surrounding organic substrates. This was accompanied by a progressive drawdown of the DSi concentration of the experimental solutions. These results provide evidence that soft tissues can be rapidly preserved by silicate minerals precipitated under variable substrate compositions and a wide range of predicted scenarios for Ediacaran seawater DSi concentrations. These observations suggest plausible mechanisms explaining how interactions between sediments, organic substrates, and seawater DSi played a significant role in the fossilization of the first complex ecosystems on Earth.

  PublisherDOI

• MORPHOLOGY AND PRESERVATION OF <i>GAOJIASHANIA</i>, AN ENIGMATIC TUBULAR FOSSIL FROM THE UPPER EDIACARAN DUNFEE MEMBER, DEEP SPRING FORMATION, NEVADA, USA

  Palaios · 2024-12-19 · 5 citations

  article

  Abstract The upper Ediacaran stratigraphic record hosts fossil assemblages of Earth’s earliest communities of complex, macroscopic, multicellular life. Tubular fossils are a common and diverse, though frequently undercharacterized, component of many of these assemblages. Gaojiashania cyclus is an enigmatic tubular fossil and candidate index fossil found in upper Ediacaran strata globally and is best known from the Gaojiashan Lagerstätte of South China. Here we describe a recently discovered assemblage of Gaojiashania fossils from the Ediacaran Dunfee Member of the Deep Spring Formation of Nevada, USA. Both body and trace fossil affinities have been proposed for Gaojiashania; we present morphological and biostratinomic evidence for a body fossil affinity for the Dunfee specimens. Additionally, previous studies have highlighted that Ediacaran tubular fossils are characterized by a wide range of preservational modes, including association with pyrite, apatite, or clay minerals and preservation as carbonaceous compressions. Petrographic, SEM, and EDS data indicate that the Dunfee Gaojiashania specimens are preserved as ‘Ediacara-style’ external, internal and composite molds, in siltstone and sandstone with a clay mineral-rich matrix of both aluminosilicates and non-aluminous Mg- and Fe-rich silicate minerals that we interpret as authigenic clays. Authigenic clay-mediated fossilization of unmineralized tissues, including moldic preservation in heterolithic siliciclastic strata, as indicated by the Dunfee Gaojiashania, may be linked to the prevalence of both silica-rich and ferruginous seawater conditions prior to both the radiation of silica-biomineralizing organisms and the rise of ocean and atmospheric oxygen to modern levels. In this light, clay authigenesis may have played a critical role in facilitating multiple modes of Ediacaran and Cambrian exceptional fossilization, thus shaping the stratigraphic distribution of a range of Ediacara macrofossil taxa.

  PublisherDOI

• A pyritized Ordovician leanchoiliid arthropod

  Current Biology · 2024-10-29 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  <h2>Summary</h2> The "short-great-appendage" arthropods (Megacheira), such as <i>Leanchoilia</i>, have featured heavily in discussions of arthropod evolution, particularly related to the head and its appendages.¹^,²^,³^,⁴ Megacheirans are subject to competing interpretations, either as a clade⁴ or a grade,⁵ in the stem group of Euarthropoda⁶ or, alternatively, Chelicerata.⁴ They are most diverse in Cambrian Burgess-Shale-type deposits, where the family Leanchoiliidae is represented by six genera,⁷^,⁸^,⁹^,¹⁰^,¹¹^,¹² characterized by the presence of three distal flagella on the great appendage with a presumed sensory function. We describe the first post-Cambrian member of this family, <i>Lomankus edgecombei</i> gen. et sp. nov, from the Upper Ordovician (Katian) Beecher's Trilobite Bed site of New York State—the first post-Cambrian megacheiran with the exception of the Silurian and Devonian Enaliktidae. Micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scanning reveals the morphology of the short great appendage with elongate flagella, four biramous cephalic limbs, 11 trunk segments with biramous limbs and dorsal tergites, and an elongate telson unique within Leanchoiliidae. The great appendage is also unique: the long endites that bear the flagella in other leanchoiliids are absent (or at least greatly reduced) and each flagellum appears to attach directly to an individual podomere, suggesting a sensory rather than a raptorial function. The remarkable preservation of a well-developed ventral plate (epistome-labrum complex) anterior of the mouth reinforces a deutocerebral origin²^,¹³ of the short great appendages. <i>Lomankus edgecombei</i> unveils the three-dimensional (3D) head morphology of leanchoiliids in unparalleled detail and demonstrates that these iconic fossil arthropods ranged into dysaerobic environments in the Ordovician, where <i>Lomankus</i> occupied a deposit-feeding niche.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: RUI: AN INTEGRATIVE PALEONTOLOGICAL AND PALEOENVIRONMENTAL STUDY OF THE MIDDLE CAMBRIAN SPENCE, WHEELER, AND MARJUM SOFT-BODIED FAUNAS

  NSF · $52k · 2005–2008

• Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Biomechanical Evolution of Echinoderm Locomotion

  NSF · $17k · 2017–2021

• The exceptionally preserved Fezouata Biota from the Lower Ordovician of Morocco: a unique window into the Cambro-Ordovician faunal transition

  NSF · $204k · 2011–2018

• Collaborative Research: Integrated Study of an Exceptional Avifauna from the Eocene Green River Formation: New Data on Avian Evolution and Taphonomy

  NSF · $35k · 2007–2013

• Collaborative Research: Reconstructing the High Latitude Permian-Triassic: Life, Landscapes, and Climate Recorded in the Allan Hills, South Victoria Land, Antarctica

  NSF · $50k · 2005–2010

Frequent coauthors

• Derek J. Siveter

  University of Oxford

  100 shared

• Mark D. Sutton

  Imperial College London

  67 shared

• David J. Siveter

  University of Leicester

  52 shared

• Ross P. Anderson

  University of Oxford

  50 shared

• Pincelli M. Hull

  47 shared

• Elizabeth G. Clark

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  47 shared

• James C. Lamsdell

  40 shared

• Sean McMahon

  36 shared