Biography

Paul R. Janke - President and Founder of Pan Terra Inc.

The first decade of my professional career were spent as a supercomputer software engineer at ETA Systems and Cray Research Inc. in Minnesota. I left Cray in 1994 and founded Pan Terra Inc. in order to focus on earth sciences and designing, developing, publishing and marketing high-quality educational products on printed and electronic media. My primary interests are geography, natural history, geology, biology, astronomy, archaeology, information science and computer graphics.

In 1994, 1998, 1999, 2003 I published an educational wallchart entitled:"A Correlated History of Earth". This popular full-color graphic (38" high x 28" wide) represents the most comprehensive compendium of earth's history on a single chart. Included are major geological events, plate tectonic maps, ice ages, detailed geostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, classic fossil localities, all known asteroid/comet impacts, and fossil range of major kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders (including extinction events). All subjects are correlated by time period.

In 1995 I published another educational wallchart entitled: "Butterflies and Moths of the USA and Canada" which features beautiful images of Lepidoptera grouped into their taxonomic context for a teaching purposes.

In 1996 I created this site, the Worldwide Museum of Natural History , featuring image-rich educational galleries covering many aspects of Natural History, with emphasis on geology, fossils and paleontology.

In 1998 I moved from St. Paul, Minnesota to the Black Hills of South Dakota, in part to be closer to the diggin's.

In 2002 I published " A Correlated History of Matter" and "A Correlated History of the Universe", which extends the detailed timeline back to the big bang.

Other Areas of Interest:

Using computers and software tools in the earth sciences (esp. digital imaging and databases).

Creating a repository of astrogeology samples to investigate the nature of impact events.

Fieldwork, on both vertebrates and invertebrates.

Assisting in the development of the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Research Center in Woodland Park, Colorado.

My hobbies include travel, rockhounding, music, rockclimbing, hiking and fishing.

I've also done a bit of archaeology in the Middle East.

Digging up a dinosaur

Checking out the K/T boundary