Stan Wood was a self-taught fossil hunter known for his significant palaeontological discoveries at scale and is arguably most celebrated for refocusing attention on early Carboniferous palaeobiology as the means to closing Romer's gap.

[5] At the age of 29, with no training but with a natural enthusiast's eye for detail, Wood spent two years scouring the Wardie coastline for fossils but with no success.

Fully committed, Wood curated his own specimens by working as a technician in the vertebrate paleontology group of Dr Alec Panchen of Newcastle University,[9] completing a geology degree with the Open University,[10] and securing work on a new site on the Scottish Borders,[n 1] which created a series of research initiatives published in twelve scholarly papers in 1985.

[11] Once Wood had identified fossil-rich strata in a specific locality, he would follow through at scale, inspiring others to participate and research his finds, which attracted funding for new, sometimes ambitious projects to uncover new discoveries.

[19] The quarry revealed an abundance of fossil marine and terrestrial arthropods, along with examples of several classes of fish and early amphibians.

Many were rejuvenations of excavations discovered by Victorian fossil hunters, casting new light on the early Carboniferous and its growing importance to our understanding of life on earth.

[34] For two years between 2008 and 2009 he recovered an extensive fauna of arthropods, fish and tetrapods, which led to the closing of Romer's Gap, inspiring a new generation of Ph.Ds, this time from Cambridge University.

[37][n 5] In 2009, in recognition of four decades of world enlightenment, Wood received the Marsh Award for palaeontology, particularly for his work in inspiring young palaeontologists at the beginning of their careers.

Confined to a wheelchair, Wood concentrated his efforts in a final surge of enthusiasm focused at end of the Devonian from a new excavation site at Jedburgh and then returning to his collection of raw field-specimens from Mumbie.