Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 850 articles and book reviews.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) For much of the twentieth century, generations of students (and amateurs like me) learned a tidy, mid-Cretaceous succession for southern England: Lower Greensand – Gault Clay – Upper Greensand – Chalk. It appeared in every textbook, diagram and museum panel. There was an appealing symmetry to the … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the sixth of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Funisia dorothea is one of the most revealing fossils from the late Ediacaran Period, offering a rare glimpse into the behaviour of early animals rather than only their anatomy. Found in … Read More
Michael C. Mackiewicz (USA) Tungsten as an element is well-known for its extreme physical characteristics. It melts at a higher temperature than any other metal, is unusually dense, and remains hard and stable even under extreme heat, thereby making it crucial in both scientific and industrial settings. Even though tungsten … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the sixth of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period Fractofusus is one of the most abundant and ecologically revealing organisms of the Ediacaran Period, flourishing around 565 million years ago in the deep-marine settings of the Mistaken Point Formation, Newfoundland. … Read More
Robert J Williams (UK) To the north-east of London lies the county of Essex, which extends out to the east coast of England. Although not noted for its geology, it does have quite a bit to offer the amateur geologist. In addition, there is a significant body of published geological … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the last of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE). The first covered the climate engine of the CPE and the second described the marine ecosystem upheaval during those times. This final article turns to the continents, examining how the CPE transformed terrestrial landscapes … Read More
Michael C Mackiewicz (USA) A familiar mineral with an unfamiliar story Graphite is one of those minerals that most people think they intrinsically know until they actually hold a good specimen in their hands. The word ‘graphite’ brings visions of pencils and grey streaks. However, graphite occupies the centre of … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the fourth of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. And among the most intriguing organisms of the late Ediacaran Period is Ernietta, a sack-shaped, partly infaunal creature that lived around 548-541 million years ago in the shallow seas of what … Read More
At first glance, What Did Dinosaurs Think About? looks like a slightly mischievous title attached to a familiar subject. Dinosaurs, after all, have been thought about endlessly; whether they themselves did much thinking is another matter. Ronan Le Loeuff’s book makes no claim to settle that question definitively, but it does something arguably more interesting – it asks what sort of sensory world dinosaurs inhabited, and how that might have shaped their behaviour.
Stephen K Donovan (UK) If asked what is my favourite fossil collecting site, I would have to say the Farquhar’s Beach oyster bed on the south-central coast of Jamaica. I taught at the University of the West Indies for over 12 years and this locality was an easy drive. In … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE). The first covered the climate engine of the CPE. This article turns to the marine record, tracing how the CPE destabilised reefs and reorganised shallow-marine ecosystems. When the Triassic seas lost their balance In … Read More
Planetary geology occupies an awkward but fascinating position between disciplines. It draws its physical framework from physics and astronomy, its observational tools from remote sensing and space missions, and its interpretative instincts from terrestrial geology. Planetary Geology: An Introduction by Dominic Fortes and Claudio Vita-Finzi has, since its first appearance, sought to bring these strands together into a coherent teaching text.
Michael Mackiewicz (USA) Fluorite has long captivated mineral collectors with its range of colours, sharp cubic crystals, and its magical glow under ultraviolet light. Once sought after for its beauty, it is now a mineral that is essential to modern industry and clean-energy supply chains. Fluorite, also called fluorspar, is … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the third of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Dickinsonia is one of the most recognisable and debated organisms of the Ediacaran Period, living between 558 and 550 million years ago on shallow seafloors long before the rise of animals … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The Naturmuseum Südtirol is housed in an historic building in the old town of Bolzano and was opened in 1997 in its current form. Its major theme consists of the geology of South Tyrol, that is, the region’s rocks, minerals (Fig. 1) landscapes, tectonics, its natural habitats … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE), often referred to as an ‘event’, although increasingly recognised as a prolonged episode, as I will discuss) of the Triassic that seems to have grown in importance and interest, and only become more widely … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) I found the pebble almost by accident, while staying with friends near Eccleshall in Staffordshire. We had taken their two dogs (the much missed Holly and Chutney) out for an afternoon walk – the kind of slow, stop-start loop where the dogs dictate the pace and the … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Charniodiscus is one of the most characteristic frondose organisms of the Ediacaran Period, living around 560-555 million years ago in the quiet, low-energy seafloors that preceded the Cambrian explosion. With its … Read More
The Classic Geology in Europe series has, over many years, established a distinctive and reliable identity: authoritative regional syntheses written by specialists, designed for geologists who want to understand landscapes through field observation rather than armchair generalities. The Southern Pennines sits comfortably within that tradition and, in several respects, exemplifies the mature strengths of the series.
Michael C Mackiewicz (USA) Minerals have shaped human societies since ancient times, but the idea of ‘critical minerals’ is fairly recent. As explored in earlier articles in this series, the Top Ten critical minerals, lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, the rare‑earth elements, tungsten, vanadium, bismuth and antimony are central to … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Charnia is one of the most iconic fossils of the Ediacaran Period, known for its elegant frond-like form and its place among the earliest large, complex organisms in Earth’s history. First … Read More
Kurt Lahmers (USA) A closer look at a dinosaur bone found in the Garden Park area of Cañon City, Colorado (USA) shows some interesting details on the end of the bone. The holes in the dinosaur bone shownin Fig. 1 used to be tube-like structures called Haversian canals. These are … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the third and last of my series of short articles on fossils of the Pre-Cambrian. The stromatolites of the Tumbiana Formation, Western Australia, form one of the most remarkable biological records of the Late Archean, dating to around 2.72 billion years ago. These exquisitely preserved … Read More
Michael Mackiewicz (USA) Gallium is one of those odd minerals that somehow gets people’s attention. Unlike cobalt, lithium or the majority of other critical minerals, you do not find gallium in rich ore bodies that can be mined directly. Instead, it shows up in trace amounts inside common minerals like … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second of my series of short articles on fossils of the Pre-Cambrian. The Strelley Pool stromatolites, preserved in the ~3.45-billion-year-old Strelley Pool Formation of Western Australia, rank among the oldest widely accepted macroscopic evidence of life. Formed on shallow marine carbonate platforms during the … Read More
Paul Lyle begins GeoHibernica with a slightly mischievous acknowledgement: the book exists only because the author of GeoBritannica was unable to take on its Irish counterpart himself. It is a revealing admission, and one that immediately invites comparison between the two works. That comparison is instructive, although not always in the ways one might expect.
Vassilis Makridis (Greece), Evangelia Tsoukala (Greece), Evangelos Vlachos (Greece), Katerina Tsekoura (Greece), Wilrie van Logchem (The Netherlands) and Dick Mol (The Netherlands) In northern Greece, 45km north of Thessaloniki, one of the few public caves in Northern Greece is situated in the Agios Georgios Hill, near Kilkis (Figs. 1 and … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first of my series of short articles on fossils of the Pre-Cambrian. The Gunflint stromatolites, preserved in the 1.88-billion-year-old Gunflint Iron Formation of Ontario and Minnesota, offer one of the clearest windows into early complex microbial ecosystems. Formed by thriving mats of cyanobacteria long … Read More
Michael Mackiewicz (USA) In earlier articles of this series, lithium and cobalt from the list of the Top 10 critical minerals – lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, rare earth elements, tungsten, vanadium, bismuth and antimony – were discussed relative to their value to mineral collectors,advanced technologies and the global economy. … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) High in the central Brecon Beacons, not far from the quiet village of Heol Senni, lies a small disused quarry cut into green-grey sandstone. To most passers-by, it is an unassuming feature, a slice of rock along the hillside with ruined quarry buildings, streaked with moss and … Read More
