Raymond Ethington

Raymond Ethington
Emeritus Professor
Education

University of Iowa, 1958

Research Focus

Ray Ethington's research addresses the taxonomy and biostratigraphy of Lower and Middle Ordovician conodonts in the central and western United States. Continuing projects involve the faunas of the Arbuckle Group in southern Oklahoma, the Manitou Formation in central Colorado, The Prairie du Chien Group in the Upper Mississippi Valley region, the graptolite facies in the core of the Ouachita Mountains in west-central Arkansas, and the type are of the Ibexian and Whiterockian Series in western Utah and central Nevada.

Current work includes documentation of the stratigraphic distribution of conodonts in the type area of the Whiterockian Series in the Great Basin and global correlation of the succession of graptolites and conodonts in the Whiterockian strata of the Roberts Mountains, central Nevada. Other projects now actively pursued [in collaborations with colleagues from the United States, Germany, and Sweden] include a monographic discussion of the conodont genus Clavohamulus Furnish; redefinition and paleogeographic interpretation of Reutterodus borealis Repetski based on occurrences in North America, Australia and Argentina; description of the whole-animal apparatus of Oneotodus variabilis Lindström; and description of an evolutionary precursor of Tripodus laevis Bradshaw based on specimens collected near St. Petersburg, Russia, and in the central Great Basin (USA).