Katherine Van Winkle Palmer
American paleontologist and geologist (1895-1982)
Katherine Van Winkle Palmer (February 5, 1895 – September 12, 1982) was an American paleontologist, studying fossils from the Cenozoic Era, and an accomplished geologist. Palmer is recognized for her field/doctoral study on Veneracean lamellibranches, a class of molluska that include clams, scallops and oysters. Palmer was a director of the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) in New York. During Palmer's time as the director of the PRI, she oversaw the publication of numerous Bulletins of American Paleontology as well as several issues of Palaeontographica Americana. Palmer is well known for her field study and collection of mollusks that took place in several parts of the world, most notably in the Gulf of Mexico. Katherine was married to Ephraim L. Palmer and had two children together, Laurence and Richard Palmer.
Early life
Katherine Evangeline Hilton Van Winkle Palmer was an only child born to Jacob Van Winkle, a doctor, and Mary Edith Hilton Van Winkle, a Canadian-born nurse. Jacob Van Winkle was one of the "First Twelve Men" who helped form the first official representative body of New York and New Jersey in 1641.Palmer Grew up in the small town of Oakville, Washington, sharing a close relationship with her father who introduced her to the outdoors, and who was an important contributing factor in her pursuit of the sciences. The two of them would go outdoors and collect fossil mollusks. It was during these adventures that Palmer found her love for science and a passion for fossils.
The public source identifies “Katherine Van Winkle Palmer” as american paleontologist and geologist (1895-1982). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Katherine, Winkle and Palmer.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15437472. VIAF identifies the subject as 113825908. The Library of Congress control number is n82160923. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1895, 1982 and 1641.
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This entry incorporates text from “Katherine Van Winkle Palmer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.