| Citation | Richard Fortey is an evolutionary biologist and geologist of exceptional distinction. He is internationally known for original and important studies of arthropods, trilobites in particular, and of the Lower Palaeozoic. His major monographs on trilobite faunas from many parts of the world have provided the basis for novel interpretations of structure, function and distribution. He was the first to show that trilobite assemblages could be related to offshore depth profiles, so distinguishing endemic faunas, useful in continental reconstruction, from pandemic faunas, useful in world correlation. He has successfully applied these ideas in predicting, ahead of geophysics, former continental positions and, with L.R.M. Cocks, the exstence (later confirmed) of Tornquists Ocean. Fortey has produced new high-level classifications of trilobites, based on cladistic analysis, that bring precision to the phylogeny of the group and extend it to include soft-bodied early Palaeozoic animals. He has also made important contributions on relationships within arthropods as a whole, on the problem of the "Cambrian explosion", and other macroevolutionary questions. He has worked extensively on graptolites, producing the first phylogenetic classification of the whole group. In stratigraphy, he revolutionised understanding of the British Lower Ordovician, and contributed extensively to the intercontinental correlation and on the Cambrian-Ordovician boundry. Apart from research, he has written prize-winning books popularising geology and palaeontology. |