Dr. Ralph Thomas Becker, born in 1959 Hohenlimburg, has been working as C4 professor for paleontology at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster since 2001.
After studying geology at the Ruhr University of Bochum, he received a doctoral fellowship at the RUB. In 1990 Becker became a Postgraduate Research Assistant at the University Southampton and in 1991 a freelancer in oil and gas exploration. In 1995 he received a research and postdoctoral fellowship from the DFG and in 2001 became senior curator of invertebrate paleontology at the Museum für Naturkunde at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has also been a collaborator with the International Stratigraphic Commission (ICS) since 1996.
Becker's main research interests are global ecological crises in Earth history (especially in the Palaeozoic), biostratigraphy, i.e. age classifications based on fossils and their evolution, definition and global correlation of Earth ages (chronostratigraphy) as well as ammonoids, trilobites and conodonts (extinct "predatory worms") of the Devonian and Carboniferous.
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Ralph Thomas Becker
