Martin Lockley

Martin G. Lockley (17 March 1950 – 25 November 2023) was a Welsh palaeontologist. He was educated in the United Kingdom where he obtained degrees (BSc and PhD) and post-doctoral experience in Geology in the 1970s. Since 1980 he has been a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver, (UCD) and was later professor emeritus. He is best known for his work on fossil footprints and was the former director of the Dinosaur Tracks Museum at UCD. He was an Associate Curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and a Research Associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. During his years at UCD he earned a BA in 2007 in Spanish with a minor in Religious Studies, became a member of the Scientific and Medical Network and taught and published on the evolution of consciousness.

Early life

Martin G. Lockley was born in the Channel Islands on 17 March 1950, and grew up in Orielton, a large country house in South Wales, now the Orielton Field Studies Centre. His interest in natural history grew under the influence of his father, Ronald M. Lockley (1903–2000) who became well known as an ornithologist and author of more than 50 books.

Lockley moved to England in the early 1960s where he attended Leighton Park School and twice (1966, 1968) won the All England Schools championship in shot put. Later, after earning a BSc in geology from the Queen's University Belfast, he embarked on a career in palaeontology under the guidance of his mentor Sir Alwyn Williams FRS, obtaining a PhD from the University of Birmingham (1977). As a graduate student and post-doctoral researcher at Glasgow University (1977–1980), he studied Welsh Ordovician paleoecology and represented Wales in athletics.