About the author:
Whereas some people are in the life-saving business, paleo metal devotee Mats E. Eriksson is in the death-saving business, meaning that he sure loves his fossils. He was born in 1972 and works as a professor of paleontology at Lund University, Sweden. He chiefly studies creatures from the Paleozoic Era and tries to reconstruct and understand these ancient organisms and their interrelationship to the surrounding physical environment. His research is, or has been, funded primarily by the Swedish Research Council, the Crafoord Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Besides research and teaching, Eriksson has a profound interest in scientific outreach, which is manifested through audiovisual art, oral presentations, as well as regularly writing popular science pieces for journals in both English and Swedish. He loves contrasts in life and adores it when different disciplines - such as science, arts, and popular culture - amalgamate, while he wholeheartedly loathes hypocrisy (although not Peter Tägtgren's eponymous death metal band). Eriksson lives with his family in Malmö, Sweden, and nurtures a dream of sometime being fossilized himself, albeit - for several reasons - in a very distant future.
Mats E. Eriksson Research Gate:
Mats E. Eriksson Department of Geology, Lund University,
Sweden:
Music projects:
https://kalloprionkilmisteri.bandcamp.com/releases
https://primordialrigormortis.bandcamp.com/releases
https://ohmresistance.bandcamp.com/album/deep-time-predator
Some recent press-releases and media output:
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/article/celebrity-fossil-reveals-all-for-science
https://blogs.plos.org/paleocomm/2017/11/27/top-10-open-access-fossil-taxa-of-2017/
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/dec/28/top-fossil-discoveries-of-2017
https://universitetslararen.se/2018/03/22/han-later-hardrocken-influera-sitt-vetenskapliga-arbete/
https://bravewords.com/news/cannibal-corpse-legend-named-in-honour-of-new-fossil-species
Some quotes about the book and the author:
"I never knew I cared
about binomial nomenclature until I read the author's work. Yes, that is a
compliment."
(Alex Dontre, Psychostick)
"Read
Charles R. Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"? Enjoyed Stephen J. Gould's "Wonderful
Life"? Well, then it is time for you to embrace the next milestone-publication
that deals with the history of life on Earth, namely Mats E. Eriksson's "Another
Primordial Day"!"
(Associate Professor Johan Lindgren, Lund University)
"It should be obvious that a man, like
Mats E. Eriksson, who has dedicated his professional life to searching for the
remaining corpses of long dead creatures, is addicted to death metal. However,
the realization that heavy metal and science can be combined continuously
attracts interest from the press worldwide. Thank God for that, as it keeps our
"Rock Fossils" traveling exhibition on the road."
(Esben Horn, 10 Tons, Copenhagen)
"The author is widely known as a specialist
on the relations between 'rock and rock' (rock music and geology)."
(Professor Emeritus Stig M. Bergström, The Ohio State
University)
"This professor is a big King Diamond
fan, and in our eyes, he is most certainly one of the coolest!"
(Livia Zita-Bendix, King Diamond)
"A marvellous display in the art of finding
concordance between two seemingly disparate topics"
(Dr. Fredrik Terfelt, Lund University)
"This book is an excellent piece of
work."
(Professor Emeritus Bill Ausich, The Ohio State
University)