Arie W. Janssen
honorary curator National Museum of Natural History,
Dept. of Palaeontology (Cainozoic Mollusca), Leiden, The
Netherlands
Currently: Xewkija, Gozo, Republic of Malta
Email: ariewjanssen@waldonet.net.mt
The author is grateful to Michiel J. Janssen for substantial help
in constructing this homepage
Some personal details:
From 1969 to 1997 I used to be curator of the Palaeontology Department (European Cainozoic Mollusca) of the National Museum of Natural History at Leiden (The Netherlands). Here I was, apart from editorial work for both Contributions to Tertiary and Quaternary Geology and Scripta Geologica, predominantly occupied with collecting and the study of benthic molluscan assemblages, not only from the North Sea Basin, but also from many other European regions, such as France (Paris and Aquitaine Basins), Germany (Mayence Basin), England (Hampshire Basin), and various regions in Poland, Hungary, Italy (inclusive of Sardinia and Sicily), Spain and Turkey. Many papers on various subjects appeared in between 1969 and 1997 (click here for a list).
From c. 1980 onwards I more and more specialised on the topic of fossil holoplanktonic Mollusca, an interest initiated by Dr Chris King within the framework of I.G.C.P.-project 124 "The NW European Tertiary Basin". What was started as a short-term project turned out to be a major subject, developing world-wide, and taking more and more of my time. Papers appearing nowadays almost exclusively deal with this topic, with all its interesting morphological, systematical, evolutionary and biostratigraphical aspects, and its future palaeobiogeographical implications.
In 1997 I retired early, just antecipating the joint moving of the geology and biology departments of the National Natural History Museum into their new premises under the new name of "Naturalis", where my good friend Frank Wesselingh was going to be my successor as a curator of Cainozoic Mollusca. Together with my wife Edith I emigrated to the Republic of Malta, where we enjoy living in an old farmhouse on the quiet and pitturesque island of Gozo, as seen in the pictures below.
Here we have all necessary facilities, inclusive of the relevant literature, to continue the study, with all the rich Miocene pteropod-bearing deposits of Malta and the whole Mediterranean around us. We have several modest guest-rooms which are available for colleagues and friends, interested in the geology of the area.
back of the 'Cavolinia cookei'
farmhouse at Xewkija, Gozo
November 2003
garden and guestrooms
enjoying 'the good life'
sample processing
in a primitive but
enjoyable 'laboratory'
office with Wild
M5 binocular microscope and pc
one of the
beautiful outcrops of (Lower) Globigerina Limestone Formation on Gozo
Wardija, October
2003
Edith assisting in fieldwork at Wardija, Gozo, October 2003
(emission horizon
with burrows in Lower Globigerina Limestone Formation)