MOORE, REYMOND CECIL

(b. Roslyn, Washington, 20 February 1892; d. Lawrence, Kansas, 16 April 1974)

geology, paleontology.

Moore was the son of Bernard Harding Moore, a Baptist minister, and of Winifred Denney Moore. He graduated with honors from Denison University in 1913 and received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1916.

Moore joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in 1916 as an assistant professor of geology, becoming a full professor in 1919. This institution remained his base throughout his career. Also in 1916 he was appointed as state geologist, serving until 1937. From 1937 to 1945 he was both co-state geologist and director of the Kansas Geological Survey; Moore reassumed the office of state geologist in 1945 and held that position until 1954. In 1917 Moore married Georgine Watters; they had one daughter. Following a divorce from his first wife, Moore married Lilian Botts in 1936. He was head of the Department of Geology at Kansas three times: 1920-1933, 1940-1941, and 1952-1954. In 1958 he was appointed the first Solen E. Summerfield distinguished professor of the university. He retired in 1970.

Moore was known early in his career for his work on the Mississippian and Pennsylvanian stratigraphy of the midcontinent, particularly in Missouri and Kansas. His research in physical stratigraphy emphasized the cyclic nature of the sedimentary record and produced increasingly refined stratigraphic studies, eventually tracing some units one centimeter in thickness for several hundred kilometers. He was the first to recognize and name the Nemaha Anticline, a buried mountain range extending north-south from Nebraska to Oklahoma.

In 1923 Moore was the geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey expedition that surveyed the Grand Canyon, the first scientific expedition through the canyon since the voyages of John Wesley Powell in 1869 and 1871-1872. Because of a flash flood, all the expedition members were reported drowned. For many years Moore had Powell’s obituary notice framed and hanging on his office wall.

Moore was a superb editor. He was a charter member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and editor of its Bulletin from 1920 to 1926. He was an organizer of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists, and editor of the Journal of Paleontology from 1930 to 1939. He helped establish the Journal of Sedimentary Petrology and edited it from 1931 to 1939. Moore was the founder (1946) and for many years the editor of the paleontological Contributions of the University of Kansas.

During the early part of World War II, a a contribution to the oil and gas investigations of the U.S. Geological Survey, Moore mapped strata in north-central Texas, extending fieldwork he had done twenty years before in that region for the Texas Geological Survey. From 1929, Moore was a captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reserves. During World War II, from 1943 to 1945, he was on active duty with the rank of major, as assistant chief of the planning branch, Fuels and Lubricants Division, in the Office of the Quartermaster General. In 1949, Moore served as a civilian consultant to Gen. Douglas MacArthur and evaluated the coal resources of Japan.

Although he was a skilled field geologist, Moore is best known as a paleontologist who described a variety of fossil invertebrate groups, concerned with both their paleobiology and their utility as indicators of stratigraphic age. His principal works concerned the class Crinoidea (echinoderms growing on a stem and popularly known as fossil sea lilies), and he became an expert at identifying the age of rock strata from isolated fragments of these multiplated animals. Moore also wrote monographic works on corals and bryozoans. His geological and paleontological studies resulted in more than three hundred published papers.

Moore’s greatest contribution to earth science and to biology was the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which he initiated in 1948. This multivolume work, an international effort to summarize and revise all the described invertebrate fossil animals, is published by the Geological Society of America. For more than two decades (1953–1974) Moore was editor of this project; Curt Teichert joined him as the editor, with special responsibility for the revised volumes, and served from 1964 to 1975. Moore enlisted hundreds of specialists on fossil invertebrates from dozens of countries to prepare sections of this work. When it was impossible to find a specialist, Moore, alone or in conjunction with a colleague, would undertake the necessary descriptions and classification. Although it was originally designed only as a compilation, the Treatise led to major classification of many fossil organisms and has exceeded the thirty-six volumes originally planned. During Moore’s tenure as editor almost twenty volumes were published. This work ranks as one of the standard references of invertebrate paleontology and zoology.

Moore was foreign correspondent or honorary member of six European organizations. He received numerous awards and eight medals, including the first Paleontological Society Medal in 1963. He was president of the Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists (1928), the Paleontological Society (1947), the Geological Society of America (1957–1958), and the American Geological Institute (1960). Moore was active in the Association of State Geologists; he was vice president from 1934 to 1937 and again from 1939 to 1941, both coeditor and secretary-treasurer from 1937 to 1939, and president from 1941 to 1942. He also was chairman of the American Commission on Stratigraphic Nomenclature and a charter member of the Association of State Geologists. The building housing the Kansas Geological Survey is named for him. His monument, however, remains the Treatise, supported in part by an endowment he willed to the University of Kansas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Moore’s works include Geology of Salt Dome Oil Fields (Chicago, 1926); Historical Geology (New York and London, 1933); Evolution and Classification of Paleozoic Crinoids (New York, 1943), written with Lowell R. Laudon; Introduction to Historical Geology (New York, 1949; 2nd ed., 1958); and Invertebrate Fossils (New York, 1952).

The following parts of the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology were directed and edited by R. C. Moore; c. Protista 2, I and II (1964); D. Protista 3 (1954); E. Archaeocyatha and Porifera (1955); F. Coelenterata (1956); G. Bryozoa (1953); H. Brachiopoda, I and II (1965); I Mollusca 1 (1960); K. Mollusca 3 (1964); L. Mollusca 4 (1957); N. Mollusca 6, I and II (1969), III (1971); O. Arthropoda 1 (1959); P. Arthropoda 2 (1955); Q, Arthropoda 3 (1961); R. Arthropoda 4 (1969); S. Echinodermata 1 (1967); U. Echinodermata 3, I and II (1966); v. Graptolithina (1955); W. Miscellanea (1962). Part T. Echinodermata 2 (1978), is edited by Moore and Teichert. Part A. Introduction (1979), is dedicated to Moore as founder and contains a pen-and-ink sketch of him. Volumes through 1966 were published by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas Press; subsequent volumes were published by the Geological Society and the University of Kansas.

II. Secondary Liteature. Carl O. Dunbar, “Raymond Cecil Moore,” in Curt Teichert and Ellis L. Yochelson, eds., Essays in Paleontology and Stratigraphy, R. C. Moore Commemorative Volume (Lawrence, Kans., 1967), with portrait and extensive bibliography; D. F. Merriam, “Raymond Cecil Moore,” in Geological Society of London, Annual Report for 1974 (1975), 42–43.

Ellis L. Yochelson