Dr. Allan Ashworth, University Distinguished Professor, teaches and conducts research in paleontology and stratigraphy. He is currently working on the paleoecology of a terrestrial fossil assembage from the Neogene Sirius Group in the Transantarctic Mountains, about 500 km from the South Pole and from Neogene fossiliferous deposits in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. The Dry Valleys research is featured in a 2008 In Focus news article in Science. He is also studying full-glacial beetle faunas from the Pacific Northwest, North Dakota and from southern Chile. As a result of a collaborative study involving testing of biogeographic hypotheses using molecular genetics, he has become progressively more interested on how the results of paleontological studies might be used to predict the response of insects to global warming. He continues to serve ex officio on the or the U.S. National Committee for the International Union for Quaternary Research and has recently been elected to serve a four year term as Vice-President of the International Union of Quaternary Research
Images and audio clips from recent research in the Dry Valleys are also contained within a Washington Post web presentation "Exploring Antarctica". The world premiere for the documentary "Ice People" by Anne Aghion, which features the research of Ashworth and Adam Lewis and two NDSU undergraduates, is at the San Franscisco International Film Festival on April 26th at 6:45 p.m. A summary of the film making activities is reported in a New Scientist article.
Contact information: phone (701)231-7919, fax (701)231-7149, email: allan.ashworth@ndsu.edu
Citation and image for the Ashworth Glacier
Coleoptera (beetle) species with the name ashworthi
Refereed publications since 1995
Web publication - Biota Terrestris Australis
Web publication - Climate Change in North Dakota since the last glaciation
Discovery Park Research (GSA 2000 Power Point presentation)
Response of beetles to climate change
Images from the Little Badlands, Stark County, North Dakota
GSA 2002 Poster " Extinction of the Antarctic Terrestrial Biota"
