Vincent Courtillot

Vincent E. Courtillot (b. March 6, 1948) is a contemporary French geophysicist, prominent among the researchers who are critical of the hypothesis that impact events are a primary cause of mass extinction of life forms on the Earth. Courtillot is best known for his book "La Vie en Catastrophes" (Paris, Fayard, 1995), translated into English as "Evolutionary Catastrophes" (1999).

Biography

Courtillot was educated at the Paris School of Mines, University of Paris, and Stanford University, from which he received his Ph.D. He has pursued an academic career in France and the United States, including teaching stints at Caltech and the University of Minnesota, and work with the European Geosciences Union, the Institut de Physique du Globe (where he has been director since 2004), and the Ministry of National Education in France. (From 1998 to 2001 Courtillot served under Claude Allègre as director of research when Allègre was Minister for National Education, Research and Technology.) Courtillot is currently Professor of Geophysics at the University of Paris (Denis-Diderot). He has published in excess of 150 papers in scientific journals, with some emphasis on the specialty of paleomagnetism; he has served as editorial advisor to the French journal "La Recherche."

Vincent Courtillot was elected to membership in the French Academy of Sciences in November 2003.

Research

Courtillot favors the hypothesis that major mass extinctions are caused by massive episodes of vulcanism: that the P/T extinction that ended the Paleozoic Era was caused by the Siberian Traps eruption, and the K/T extinction that ended the Mesozoic Era was caused by the Deccan Traps vulcanism in India. His position is generally in opposition to the hypothesis famously championed by Luis Alvarez and Walter Alvarez, that the K/T extinction that saw the end of the dinosaurs was primarily due to the asteroid impact at Chicxulub on the Yucatan Peninsula.(Courtillot does not dispute the scientifically-determined facts of the Chicxulub impact; rather, he argues that the totality of the available evidence supports a thesis that mass extinctions are generally caused by volcanic action.)

Magnetic field and climate

He is currently at the centre of scientific controversy regarding the publication of one of his papers in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters entitled “Are there connections between the Earth's magnetic field and climate” by V. Courtillot, Y. Gallet, J.-L. Le Mouël, F. Fluteau, A. Genevey EPSL 253, 328, 2007. There have been recent articles in Le Monde on the 15 January, 2008 [ [http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3244,36-999585@51-999674,0.html LeMonde.fr : Querelle scientifique autour du climat ] ] , and in Science on the 11 January, 2008 [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5860/144] concerning the debate over this paper.

References

* Courtillot, Vincent. "Evolutionary Catastrophes: the Science of Mass Extinction." Translated by Joe McClinton. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

External links

* [http://www.academie-sciences.fr/membres/C/Courtillot_Vincent_bio.htm Courtillot's "Academie" biography (in French).]