Jan Smit (paleontologist)
Jan Smit is a Dutch paleontologist. He was connected to the Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences of the VU University Amsterdam from 2003 to 2013 as Professor of Event Stratigraphy, studying rapid changes in the geological record related to mass extinctions.
Smit has a particular focus on the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, which ended the Cretaceous period and killed all non-avian dinosaurs, and was an early researcher into the now-accepted belief that a giant meteor impact was responsible for their demise. He was described by Nobel prize winner Luis Alvarez, the theory's originator, as "a KT expert has studied more KT sites around the world than anyone else". In 2019 he was described by New Yorker magazine as a "world authority" on the impact and its related extinction event.
Smit graduated from the University of Amsterdam in 1974 with a master's degree in Geology. In 1981 he obtained his PhD at the same university. His dissertation was related to Luis and Walter Alvarez' recently announced KT extinction theory, which he helped to prove, and was titled "A catastrophic event at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary". Since that time, he has taken part in several important explorations which have furthered the theory.
In 2016 he was awarded the prestigious Van Waterschoot van der Gracht Medal.
