An acclaimed international collection of earth science articles and book reviews on palaeontology, geology, minerals and more
Jon Trevelyan (UK) A small museum with a remarkable geological story Tucked away behind the parish church in the centre of Cromer, Cromer Museum occupies a modest site that visitors could easily overlook. Entering through a modern reception building, the museum opens into a narrow courtyard surrounded by a terrace … Read More
Every coal seam in the West Cumberland Coalfield district records the accumulation of peat in a mature lycopsid swamp. But just as revealing as the coal itself is what lies immediately above it – the roof shales. These fine-grained sediments record the moment when the forest drowned, the swamp surface subsided or flooded, and a new ecological phase unfolded above the buried peat. In the West Cumberland Coalfield, roof shales are exceptionally well developed and preserve a full sequence of the events that followed each catastrophic rise in water level.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the third in my series of short articles on fossils of the Ordovician. Although the famous Pterygotus of Silurian and Devonian fame had not yet reached their iconic size in the Ordovician, their ancestors were already present in the marine ecosystems of the period. These … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) Rising above the hills near the town of Blaenavon is the distinctive headgear of Big Pit, one of the most recognisable symbols of the South Wales Coalfield (Fig. 1). Today, the site forms part of the National Coal Museum of Wales, but for nearly a century it … Read More
Deborah Painter (USA) There is a fault zone that trends southwest to northeast from Stafford County, Virginia USA and joins a fault that extends through the capital of the United States. It is a high-angle reverse fault. Cambrian and Ordovician mylonites, schists and phyllites lie unconformably atop Cretaceous gravels or … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second in my series of short articles on fossils of the Ordovician. Among the many colonial organisms that chart the course of Ordovician seas, Didymograptus murchisoni remains one of the most recognisable. A key graptolite of the Middle Ordovician, it combines elegant morphology with … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The ruined furnaces of Blaenavon rise unexpectedly from the Welsh hillsides like the remains of some vast industrial fortress. Massive retaining walls, towering masonry structures and steep charging ramps still dominate the landscape, despite the silence that now surrounds them. Grass and wild flowers spread across terraces … Read More
Trevor A Jackson (Trinidad) and Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The Caribbean island of Antigua lies towards the northern end of the Lesser Antilles volcanic arc. In this particular region, it is a double arc, diverging northwards. To the west, the arc is a line of islands formed by volcanoes … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first in my series of short articles on fossils of the Ordovician. Among the many graptolites recovered from the classic Dob’s Linn section of the Southern Uplands, Climacograptus wilsoni is one of the most elegant. Its slim, saw-toothed profile captures a phase in graptolite … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) Keswick Museum is not a geology museum in any conventional sense. There are no long stratigraphic runs of specimens, no systematic mineral displays, and no attempt to present geology as a complete discipline. Instead, visitors encounter a typically Victorian mixture of natural history, literature, local industry and … Read More
Jack Shimon (USA) I recently went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This was my first member’s night and I want to go to them every time now.My mom and I went to see Dr Scott Sampson talk about a dinosaur. He is the new chief curator and … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the twentieth and last in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Yunnanozoon lividum, from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of southwest China of about 518 million years old, is one of the most intriguing fossils in the long search for the … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) Beneath Dudley Castle lies a landscape that began as a tropical Silurian sea and ended as one of the most intensively worked limestone systems in Britain. Around 425 million years ago, this part of the Midlands lay beneath a warm, shallow sea, building the reef limestone now … Read More
The trunks of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria (Part 2) dominate most people’s mental image of the Carboniferous swamp, but to understand how these forests actually functioned, you need to look beneath the surface, into the layer that supported and anchored the entire ecosystem. In the West Cumberland Coalfield, this means one thing above all – Stigmaria, the distinctive rooting systems of the giant lycopsid trees.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the nineteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Wiwaxia corrugata is one of the most distinctive animals of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale – a soft-bodied creature decked in shimmering scales and sharp defensive spines, crawling slowly across the seafloor … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The road over Honister Pass does not feel like a place for industry. It climbs abruptly into the high fells, threading between steep slopes and exposed rock faces, with little sense of the gentler, pastoral Lake District often presented in guidebooks. Yet, set into this harsh landscape … Read More
Peter Perkins (UK) While an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to be involved in a student exchange with IAESTE (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) during the summer of 1959. Although not specialising in mineralogy, I was assigned to the mine at Stari Trg with three … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the eighteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Waptia fieldensis is one of the most beautifully preserved and behaviourally informative animals from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. Living around 508 million years ago, it represents an early and unexpectedly sophisticated … Read More
With the restoration of the Crystal Palace prehistoric sculptures and their remarkable Geological Court now virtually complete, it is perhaps worth asking why this unique Victorian landscape continues to command such scientific and historical importance. Why should geologists, palaeontologists and members of the public still make the journey to south London to see reconstructions that are now more than 170 years old and, in many respects, scientifically outdated?
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the seventeenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Vetulicola cuneata is one of the most enigmatic animals from the Early Cambrian, known from the celebrated Chengjiang biota of China. Living around 518 million years ago, it represents a body plan … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée, part of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, is located in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Established in 1898, the gallery showcases an extensive collection of fossils and anatomical specimens, offering insights into the evolution of life on Earth. The … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the sixteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Scenella amii is one of the more persistent enigmas of the Burgess Shale – small, conical and deceptively simple, yet taxonomically slippery. For more than a century, it has bounced between interpretations: … Read More
The most visually arresting fossils from the West Cumberland Coalfield, indeed from almost any British Carboniferous site, are the great patterned slabs of lycopsid bark that, if you are lucky, can sometimes be found. Their surfaces carry unmistakable geometric signatures: the diamond-shaped leaf cushions of Lepidodendron or the vertical rows of elongated scars typical of Sigillaria.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the fifteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Among the many extraordinary organisms preserved in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, Pikaia gracilens stands out not for its strangeness but for its quiet familiarity. Living around 508 million years ago, this … Read More
“Never judge a fossil by its surface.” Although not stated quite so succinctly, this is the central message running through Beneath the Stone. Jean-Claude Le Van An demonstrates that a fossil’s outward appearance often tells only part of the story. Hidden beneath the surrounding rock may be exquisite anatomical detail, evidence of ancient life never visible to the naked eye – or, occasionally – proof that an apparently spectacular specimen is not what it seems.
Hans-Henrik Meyer (Denmark) This article was written in 2011. While some of it is clearly out of date, hopefully it is still relerant for those wishing to visit the museum. The Möns Klint GeoCenter continually strives to improve the understanding of life in the Chalk Sea of 70 million years … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the fourteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Few Cambrian animals have captured the public imagination and baffled palaeontologists quite like Opabinia regalis, an extraordinary creature from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. With its five eyes, backwards-facing mouth, and a … Read More
A few slabs of black shale from a South Wales spoil tip may look unremarkable at first glance, but with the right approach, they can reveal the structure of a 310-million-year-old coal-swamp forest. By combining plant fossils with sedimentary clues, collectors can reconstruct the ecosystem that once grew above the coal seams.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the thirteenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Olenoides serratus is one of the most recognisable members of the Burgess Shale fauna – a trilobite that, unlike so many of its soft-bodied neighbours, still looks reassuringly like a trilobite. Yet … Read More
This article explores a single landscape – Aberdare – through three interlocking layers: the Carboniferous forests that formed the coal, the industrial system that extracted it, and the lives lived within that system. Each survives only in fragments: fossils weathering from shale, objects preserved in family memory, and traces embedded in the modern landscape. Taken together, these fragments allow the reconstruction of a place in which deep time, industry and lived experience are inseparable.
