A tribute to W.A. "Bill" Cobban

Abstract

In August, 2006, a two-day symposium was held at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado, on “The Paleontology, Geology, and Stratigraphy of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: A tribute to the life of W.A. ‘Bill’ Cobban.” This symposium was attended by nearly 100 participants and featured 25 oral and poster presentations. Several of the papers that grew out of this symposium are published in the present issue of Rocky Mountain Geology (see following articles by N. H. Landman and W. A. Cobban; E. A. Merewether, W. A. Cobban, and J. D. Obradovich; and J. W. Grier, J. C. Grier, N. L. Larson, and J. G. Peterson. W. A. “Bill” Cobban in the field. This symposium celebrated Bill's extraordinary and prodigious contributions to our knowledge of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior, so much so, that his name is synonymous with the subject. Bill's career has spanned nearly 60 years and has resulted in more than 300 publications, many of them monographs. His research has fundamentally changed our understanding of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior and produced one of the most refined biostratigraphic zonations known anywhere in the world. …