Caribbean sun and Carboniferous art

I know the Met Office considers the first of December to be the beginning of winter, but I always feel the season doesn’t really start until the beginning of the new year. So, on that thought and to cheer us all up with a bit of geological ‘sun’, this week will see the start of a six week field guide to the sunny Caribbean island of Barbados by long time friend of Deposits and British palaeontologist, Stephen K Donovan.

Stephen has spent a considerable amount of time over there, studying the geology of the island in a number of different contexts. The field guide is the result. The first part is published today (A field guide to Barbados (Part 1): Introduction) and the next five will be published on the same day over the next six weeks. I hope you enjoy them.

In addition, we are publishing a three-parter of artistic interpretations of the fauna and flora of the Upper Carboniferous jungles, in particular, from the fossils found at Writhlington in the Somerset coalfield. The authors are Biddy Jarzembowski, Chris Proctor and Ed Jarzembowski. Ed is Keeper Natural History at Maidstone Borough Council and has also been a good friend of Deposits over the years. Readers will be aware that he and his wife, Biddy, have provided expert (and rather beautiful) interpretations (both scientific and artistically) of fossil insects. This series is another. Chris Proctor joins them, as author. Chris is at the Department of Geography at the University of Exeter.

The first part (Writhlington revisited: A polychrome perspective (Part 1)) will be published on Tuesday, 5 January 2020 and the other two will be published on the same day over the next three weeks. Again, I hope you enjoy them and that all of these articles will brighten and warm up the remaining weeks of the winter.

And, from everyone at Deposits, may you all have a wonderful New Year.

Jon Trevelyan
(Editor)