Remembering Dr. Jordi M. de Gibert

Abstract

From a young age, Jordi Maria was always fascinated by Natural Sciences, Geology and fossils being especially attractive for him. Together with his school friends, planning a fieldtrip to observe and recollect fossils was one of his hobbies. At that time, Jordi Maria was really interested in trilobites. In fact, he gathered an interesting collection of fossils of this group from the Catalonian Palaeozoic rocks. Jordi Maria had no doubts about his future; he wanted to be a palaeontologist. To get it, he enrolled at the Faculty of Geology of the Universitat de Barcelona in the 1986/1987 academic year. Four years later, he got his degree in Geology (1990/1991). During these years, he first met Prof. Jordi Martinell and Dr Rosa Domènech (his ‘Paleontology’ and ‘Invertebrate Paleontology’ professors). Over time, both would become his friends and colleagues for over 20 years. Continuing his formation as palaeontologist, Jordi Maria wanted to develop his Master thesis in the study of trilobites (those collected during his youth), so he proposed to Prof. J. Martinell to be his supervisor. However, since Prof. J. Martinell knew about the wide geological and palaeontological vision that Jordi Maria had demonstrated during his degree, he made him change his mind and convinced him to carry out an ichnological study. Eventually, he defended in 1992 the Master thesis entitled ‘Estructures de bioturbació en el Pliocè marí del Baix Llobregat’ (Bioturbation structures in the marine Pliocene of the Baix Llobregat, Univesitat de Barcelona). Jordi Maria’s way on Ichnology began. From 1992 to 1995 and again under the supervision of Prof. J. Martinell, Jordi Maria earned a predoctoral FPU grant in the Universitat de Barcelona (Earth Sciences PhD programme) to develop the doctoral thesis. During this time, besides become a member of the research group PaleoNeoMed (to which he belonged uninterruptedly until the day of his death), he also had opportunity to do several short stays in different foreign research centres. Among them, that held in the University of Reading (UK) under the supervision of Prof. Roland Goldring was the most important with respect to his overall understanding of Ichnology. Although it is true that Prof. J. Martinell (more interested in bioerosion) introduced Jordi Maria to the ichnology world, Prof. R.