Palaeontology staff directory

Research interests

• Trilobites and graptolites, especially Ordovician, their systematics, evolution and mode of life.
• Ordovician palaeogeography and correlation.
• Arthropod evolution, and especially the origin of major groups.
• The relationships between divergence times as revealed by molecular evidence and the fossil record.

Current activities

• The Middle Ordovician faunal 'revolution'.
• Evolution and life habits of the pelagic trilobite Carolinites. This is a Leverhulme Research Fellowship and employed Dr Tim McCormick as a co-worker.
• Palaeogeography of Lower Palaeozoic Terranes around Gondwana. This is a NERC-funded project, and employs Dr David Lees as a co-worker. Dr Robin Cocks is a co-investigator.
• Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology: Trilobita. General Editor of this major project.
• Arthropod Relationships. Currently co-working with some molecular sequencing experts in Oxford University.
• Trilobite feeding habits. Bringing to fruition some ideas which have been developing over the last 20 years. 
• Ordovician correlation. Updating the Correlation Chart of the Ordovician Rocks of the British Isles.

Publications

1. Wills, M. A. and Fortey R. A. 2000. The shape of life: how much is written in stone? Bioessays, 22, 1142-1152.
   
2. Fortey, R. A. 2001. The Cambrian explosion exploded? Science, 293, 438-9.
   
3. Fortey, R. A. 2001 Trilobite systematics: the last 75 years. Journal of Paleontology, 75, 1141-51.
   
4. McCormick, T. and Fortey, R. A. 2002. The Ordovician trilobite Carolinites, a test case for microevolution in a macrofossil lineage. Palaeontology, 45, 229-257.
   
5. Lees, D. C., Fortey, R. A and Cocks, L. R. M. 2002. Quantifying paleogeography using biogeography: a test case for the Ordovician and Silurian of Avalonia based on brachiopods and trilobites. Paleobiology, 28, 343-363.
   
6. Fortey, R. A. 2002. Fossils: the key to the Past. 3rd Edition. Natural History Museum, London, and Smithsonian Institution, Washington.
   
7. Fortey, R. A. and Cocks, L. R. M. 2003. Palaeontological evidence bearing on global Ordovician-Silurian continental reconstructions. Earth Science Reviews, 61, 245-307.
   
8. Fortey, R. A. and Chatterton, B. D. E. 2003. A Devonian trilobite with an eye shade. Science, 301, 1689.
   
9. Lane, P. D., Fortey, R. A. and Siveter, D. J. (eds). 2003. Trilobites and their relatives. Special Papers in Palaeontology, 70, 397 pp. (and Introduction, by Fortey, Siveter and Lane, p. 7-8).
   
10. Fortey, R. A. 2004. The Earth: an intimate history. HarperCollins. 501 pp.