Kirk Johnson, PhD

Kirk Johnson joined the Museum in 1991 after earning his doctorate in geology and paleobotany from Yale University. He studies fossil plants, terrestrial stratigraphy, geochronology, and dinosaur extinction and has published many popular and scientific articles on topics ranging from fossil plants and modern rainforests to the ecology of whales and walruses. He is best known for his research on fossil plants, which is widely accepted as some of the most convincing support for the theory that an asteroid impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Since 1997, he has supervised the Denver Basin Project, a multidisciplinary NSF-funded effort to understand and interpret the paleontology, geology, and hydrology of the rocks beneath Denver. This work has led to the discovery and analysis of a 64 million-year-old tropical rainforest in Colorado. His research has also taken him to Alaska’s Bering Sea, the Brazilian Amazon, the Canadian High Arctic, the rainforests of New Zealand, the Gobi desert, India, China, Patagonia, and the American West. He is presently working on research projects in Patagonia, Manchuria, Wyoming, and Denver.

Between 1990 and 1995, Dr. Johnson was instrumental in the planning, content, and construction of the Museum’s award-winning exhibition Prehistoric Journey and he continues to design museum exhibits and other media to popularize earth sciences. He loves to work closely with artists to create accurate paintings, murals, and dioramas of prehistoric landscapes. The Ancient Denvers series of 14 images can be seen at Museum and the Ancient Colorado series of 10 paintings can be seen in the Colorado Convention Center.

Dr. Johnson is the author of four popular books Prehistoric Journey: A History of Life on Earth (1995, 2006, with Richard Stucky); Ancient Denvers, Scenes from the Past 300 Million Years of the Colorado Front Range (2002, 2006, with Bob Raynolds); Gas Trees and Car Turds, A Kid’s Guide to the Roots of Global Warming (2007, with Maryann Bonnell) and Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway: An Epoch Tale of a Scientist and an Artist on the Ultimate 5,000-mile Paleo Road Trip (2007, with Ray Troll). All of Dr. Johnson's books are available from the Museum Gift Shop; 303 370 6366/8221.

• Dr. Johnson's Curriculum Vitae (PDF | 55KB)

Current Projects

• Orogeny, Orography, & the Origin of the First Rainforests
• The EarthTime Network
• Diverse Fossil Floras from the Paleogene of Patagonia, Argentina
• High Resolution Calibration of the Maastrichtian to Paleocene of the Western U.S.
• The Paleontology Portal
• The Paleobiology Database
• Denver Basin Project
• The Paleobotany Project

Recent Publications

Johnson, K. R. and Bonnell, M. A., 2007. Gas Trees and Car Turds, A Kid’s Guide to the Roots of Global Warming. Fulcrum Press, Golden. CO, 38 p. 273.

Johnson, K. R and Troll, R. 2007. Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway: An epoch tale of a scientist and an artist on the ultimate 5,000 mile paleo road trip. Fulcrum Press, Golden. CO, 204 p.

Stockey, Ruth A., Rothwell, Gar W., Johnson, Kirk R., 2007. Cobbania corrugata (Lesquereux) GEN. ET COMB. NOV. (Araceae): A floating aquatic monocot from the Upper Cretaceous of western North America. American Journal of Botany v. 94, p. 609-624.

Wilf, P., Labandeira, C.C., Johnson, K.R., Ellis, B., 2006. Decoupled plant and insect diversity after the end-Cretaceous extinction: Science Vol. 313, p. 1112-1115.

Wilf, P., Johnson, K.R., Cuneo, N.R., Smith, M.E., Singer, B.S. and Gandolfo, M.A., 2005. Eocene Plant Diversity at Laguna del Hunco and Rio Pichileufu, Patagonia, Argentina: The American Naturalist, v. 165, no. 6, p. 634-650.