palaeontology

The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 3): Beneath the giants – Stigmaria and the swamp floor

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.

palaeontology

Minerals from Trepča

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

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Geology museums of Britain: The Crystal Palace dinosaurs – the birth of scientific reconstruction

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to south London to see reconstructions that are now more than 170 years old and, in many respects, scientifically outdated?

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Geology museums of mainland Europe: The Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée, Paris

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

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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 2): A forest of giants – Lepidodendron and Sigillaria

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.

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Book review: Beneath the Stone: CT Imaging Applied to Fossils, by Jean-Claude Le Van An

“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.

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Aberdare: Coal, memory and the fossil forests beneath

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.

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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 1): A window into the Carboniferous tropics

The fossils described in this series formed during the Carboniferous Period, around 320 million years ago, when Britain lay close to the Equator. The above figure places the Carboniferous within Britain’s wider geological history. During this interval, extensive tropical wetlands covered much of the country, producing the peat deposits that would later become the coal seams of the West Cumberland Coalfield. This series explores one remarkable record of that vanished landscape.

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The weird and wonderful of the Cambrian (Part 10): Myllokunmingia fengjiaoa – an early chordate on the threshold of vertebrates

Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the tenth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Among the richly preserved fossils of the Early Cambrian Chengjiang biota, Myllokunmingia fengjiaoa stands as one of the most revealing. Discovered alongside Haikouichthys, and dating to around 518 million years ago, this … Read More

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A history of the plate tectonics of Britain (Part 4): A quiet crust with a long memory – tectonic inheritance in the modern British landscape

Modern Britain lies far from active plate boundaries. It has no active volcanoes and experiences only minor earthquakes, and is often described as tectonically quiet. Yet its landscape is anything but passive. Hills and lowlands, coastlines and drainage patterns all reflect a deep structural inheritance established during earlier phases of continental collision, collapse and rifting.

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Book review: In Search of Sea Dragons: A Fossil Hunter’s Odyssey, by Matthew Myerscough

Matthew Myerscough’s In Search of Sea Dragons: A Fossil Hunter’s Odyssey begins not with fossils, but with survival. Early in the book, Myerscough recounts how he and his future wife narrowly escaped death in an avalanche on Snowdon. The experience casts a long shadow over everything that follows. What initially appears to be a book about fossil hunting, gradually reveals itself as something rather more personal: a memoir about recovery, obsession, friendship and the strange hold that collecting can exert over people.

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The weird and wonderful of the Cambrian (Part 7): Leanchoilia illecebrosa – the elegant arthropod with extraordinary great appendages

Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the seventh in my series of short articles on fossils of the Cambrian. Leanchoilia illecebrosa is one of the most striking and memorable arthropods from the early Cambrian, known from the Chengjiang biota of China and represented by exquisitely preserved soft tissues. Living around 518 … Read More