Warren Allmon ’78: ‘Exploring the History and Diversity of Life’
Exeter Bulletin, Spring 2005

Photo Caption: Warren Allmon’s lifelong interest in paleontology has led him from archaeological digs at PEA (right) to the directorship of the Paleontological Research Institute. (No photo credit given.)

Warren Allmon ’78, director of the Paleontological Research Institute (PRI) in Ithaca, NY, chose a quote from Benjamin Disraeli to begin the institute’s annual report: “The secret of success is constancy of purpose.”

He was referring to the recent opening of PRI’s Museum of the Earth, the striking new exhibition space and educational facility built to showcase a portion of the institute’s extensive fossil collection, one of the largest in North America. But Disraeli’s words apply just as readily to Allmon himself and his lifelong dedication to the field of paleontology, the study of prehistoric forms of life.

Allmon was just 3 years old when he saw his first Tyrannosaurus rex, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. What 3-year-old isn’t fascinated by dinosaurs? But this is where Allmon’s constancy comes in. Rather than waning, his interest in paleontology grew, and by the time he was 13 he was studying fossils from Maryland’s famous Calvert Cliffs. At Exeter, Allmon recalls, “I think I took every biology and anthropology course that was offered.” He also took part in archaeological digs in nearby Seabrook led by instructor Donald Foster, the Academy’s Dr. P. Phillips Professor of Anthropology.

The fossils that Allmon began collecting at 13 became the basis for both his senior thesis at Dartmouth, and his doctoral work at Harvard. “I am particularly interested in the evolution of Cenozoic mollusks,” Allmon explains, “especially the marine snail family Turritellidae, their patterns of origination and extinction over the last 100 million years, and the environmental and ecological contexts of these patterns.”
His research is strongly supported by the extraordinary resources in the collections of PRI. Founded in 1932 by a Cornell geology professor, the institute is now home to some two million specimens, as well as laboratories and a 50,000-volume library. A recent addition to the collection is the skeleton of a 44-foot-long North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis), now on view in the museum.

Allmon became PRI’s fourth director in 1992, and during his tenure he has overseen the planning, construction and opening of the Museum of the Earth, which has greatly expanded PRI’s educational outreach. Allmon is on a mission to educate others about the resources of the earth and how they are used. “There is,” he says, “an impending sense of ignorance out there. And ignorance is expensive. It leads to political leaders who don’t value the environment and people who don’t see global warming as a dangerous issue.” In recognition of his accomplishments, the American Geological Institute presented Allmon with its 2004 award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Understanding of the Geosciences.

Allmon, who also serves as an adjunct associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell, reluctantly acknowledges that some people may see the earth sciences as boring. “But really, the question we are asking is ‘How did the earth and its life get to be what they are?’ ” Allmon says. “My work is about exploring the history and diversity of life. What could be more interesting?”

— Julie Quinn

For more information about PRI and the Museum of the Earth, go to www.priweb.org.

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