Robert Carter

Robert Merlin Carter (9 March 1942 – 19 January 2016) was an English palaeontologist, stratigrapher and marine geologist. He was professor and head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia from 1981 to 1998, and was prominent in promoting climate change denial. Early life and education Carter was born in Reading, England on 9 March 1942 and emigrated to New Zealand in 1956, where he attended Lindisfarne College. He obtained a B.Sc. (Hons) in geology from the University of Otago in 1963 and returned to England to complete a Ph.D. in paleontology from the University of Cambridge in 1968. His doctoral thesis was titled The Functional Morphology of Bivalved Mollusca. Career Carter began his career as an assistant lecturer in geology at the University of Otago in 1963 and advanced to senior lecturer after obtaining his Ph.D. in 1968. He was professor and head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University from 1981 to 1998, an adjunct research professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University from 1998 to 2005 and a visiting research professor in geology and geophysics at the University of Adelaide from 2001 to 2005. He published papers on taxonomic palaeontology, palaeoecology, the growth and form of the molluscan shell, New Zealand and Pacific geology, stratigraphic classification, sequence stratigraphy, sedimentology, the Great Barrier Reef, Quaternary geology, and sea-level and climate change. Carter published primary research in the field of palaeoclimatology, investigating New Zealand's climate extending back to 3.9 Ma.