Areas of interest
Thomas is a palaeobiologist and taphonomist whose research seeks to understand one of palaeontology's most fundamental questions: how do soft-bodied creatures become fossils?
Combining experimental approaches with international fieldwork and museum collection work, he investigates the mechanisms by which decay, burial, and geological processes drive the preservation of soft tissues through authigenic mineralisation. His research spans three interconnected themes: understanding how decay processes control and bias soft-tissue preservation; developing novel statistical and modelling methods to assess the influence of taphonomic processes across deep time; and unravelling the evolutionary history of key invertebrate groups, particularly the coleoid cephalopods — the group encompassing octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish.
Thomas is also an award-winning science communicator, committed to bringing ancient life and the science behind its discoveries to a wide audience.
Specific interests
- Investigating the microbiology of decay
- Controls of fossiliferous carbonate concretionary preservation - particularly siderite
- Authigenic mineral replacement of soft tissues
- Phosphatisation of soft tissues
- Preservational biases
- Quantitative taphonomic modelling
- Global taphonomic modelling
- Coleoid cephalopod evolution and taphonomy
- Taphonomic experimental design and best practice
- Science communication
- History of palaeontological science
