The Bolton Award
T. E. Bolton Best Student Presentation
​CPC 2023 Winner
Joshua Wasselauf
I am a second-year master's student in Carleton University's Earth Science department in Ottawa. Owing to the skills I obtained through my background in geology, my master's project uses carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope geochemistry sampled from hadrosaurid tooth enamel to better understand the palaeoecology of duck-billed hadrosaurine and lambeosaurine dinosaurs.
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I am a second-year master's student in Carleton University's Earth Science department in Ottawa. Owing to the skills I obtained through my background in geology, my master's project uses carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope geochemistry sampled from hadrosaurid tooth enamel to better understand the palaeoecology of duck-billed hadrosaurine and lambeosaurine dinosaurs.
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At the CPC, I presented the preliminary results of my project and demonstrated how I'm exploring aspects of migration and range size, dietary specializations and growth in these North American megaherbivores. Using this data, I plan to convey how these animals coexisted and to test how their relative niche shifted across sub-families, as well as from the juvenile to adult stages in each group.
I hope to extend these non-traditional methods of palaeontology to other taxa and broaden my understanding of isotope ecology as I pursue a PhD project in the very near future.
About the award
The Paleontology Division of the Geological Association of Canada gives an award to acknowledge excellence in paleontological research by a student through their paper presentation at the Canadian Paleontology Conference. The first of the Thomas E. Bolton Awards was presented in 1998 at the Eighth Canadian Paleontology Conference in Collingwood, Ontario.
The award has been named in honor of Tom Bolton. Just a few weeks after being awarded the Billings Medal, Thomas Elwood Bolton passed away on November 21st, 1997. The medal, named after the Geological Survey of Canada’s first paleontologist, was a fitting tribute to a man who had dedicated his life to the furtherance of geology and paleontology. The citation for the medal included the statement that “No individual has done more for Canadian paleontology than Tom Bolton”.
Tom’s lifelong career with the GSC began in 1952. His research covered a remarkable diversity of Ordovician and Silurian organisms including trilobites, eurypterids, corals, brachiopods, crinoids, cystoids, bryozoans, sponges, nautiloids, gastropods and pelecypods. Not only was Tom an acknowledged authority in his field, he was Curator of the National Collection of Type Invertebrate and Plant Fossils for over 30 years. He left a legacy of eight volumes of the Catalogue of Type Fossil Invertebrates and one Catalogue of Type Plant Fossils. These provide data on over 130,000 specimens collected from the days of Sir William Logan in the last century to 1993.
The hallmarks of Tom’s work were cheerful involvement, modesty, effectiveness, and a willingness to involve others. His enthusiasm for paleontology was contagious, and he delighted in talking to those who shared his passion whether they were “professional” paleontologists or not. If you liked fossils, Tom would share his knowledge with you. It is appropriate that the award for paleontological research by a student is named in his honour.
A summary of Tom Bolton’s life and work was written by G.S. Nowlan and C.H. Smith and can downloaded via the Geological Society of America's website here.
Recent awardees
2023
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Best student presentation
Joshua Wasserlauf (Carleton University) &
Danielle Fitzgerald (Queen's University)
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Best student poster
Brianna Acebobo (University of Toronto)
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2022
Mikayla Rychel (University of Saskatchewan)
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2019
Joseph Moysiuk (University of Toronto)
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2018
Brittany Laing (University of Saskatchewan)
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2017
Brittany Cheung (University of Toronto)
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2016
Greer Strothers (Sheridan College)