Geology museums of Britain: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

Jon Trevelyan (UK)

When I went up to Glasgow to attend my son’s graduation, I deliberately made some time to visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum to explore its 22 galleries. These cover everything from art to animals, Ancient Egypt to Charles Rennie Mackintosh and much, much more besides. However, the reason why I am including Kelvingrove in my series covering the geology museums of Britain, and the real reason for my visit, is its gorgeous collection of fossils, in particular, significant ones found from Scotland and, indeed, in and around Glasgow.

Located in the beautiful Kelvingrove Park (Fig. 1), the art gallery and museum opened in 1901 and is clearly a firm favourite with local people and visitors. It has stunning architecture (Fig. 2) and a family friendly atmosphere; and has relatively recently been redesigned – without losing its Victorian traditions and ideals – so that it is upgraded for the twenty-first century.

Fig. 1. The museum is located in Kelvingrove Park, which necessitates a lovely walk through the grounds of this Victorian, public park.

Fig. 2. The magnificent frontage of Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

In fact, Kelvingrove started life as typical Victorian museum (Fig. 3), founded by (as the guide puts it):

… the wealthy classes to assert their cultural worth and improve the people of the city”.

Fig. 3. The roof of the Victorian entrance hall.

However, as I say, there have been improvements, which were achieved by asking Glasgow residents what they approved of the museum, and what they wanted from it in the future (along with the suggestions of its expert staff – curators, conservators, visitor assistants, educators and the like). Among other things, the result was double the number of objects on view (a definite plus for me, who believes that museums should contain lots of objects to look at, and not just photographs and IT buttons to press). There is also a changing programme of temporary exhibitions and displays.

The palaeontology exhibits are displayed in the Creatures of the Past gallery and include dinosaurs, Carboniferous tropical forests, and coral seas, and the early (Devonian and Carboniferous) fish that Scotland has become famous for (Figs. 4 and 5).

Fig. 4. A death assemblage of fish from the Devonian of Scotland (about 370 Ma). These were no doubt the victims of drought, when the pools in which they lived evaporated and disappeared.

Fig. 5. The Carboniferous fossil fish, *Mesopoma macrocephalum*.

Included also is a rare fossil of a water scorpion (eurypterid), discovered in 1830 and called Hibbertopterus or ‘Scouler’s Auld Heid’ (Figs. 6 and 7) after its discovery and likeness to a human head. Only the head, two body segments and some of the legs are preserved, but it is well worth seeing. This arthropod grew to a daunting length of 1.5m and fed on small animals sifted from the water; and fossil trackways suggest that it could also walk and survive on land.

Fig. 6. *Balanerpeton woodi*, which is an ancestor of modern frogs and salamanders, from the Visean stage of the Early Carboniferous. It was a carnivore that grew up to 50cm long, with the celebrated *Hibbertopterus* (from the Devonian and Carboniferous) in the background (see also Fig. 7). The latter was a large animal, but only ate tiny creatures, which it caught with its front limbs.

Fig. 7. A drawing of the carapace of ‘Scouler’s Auld Heid’ by Henry Woodward (1866-1878).

The skeletal cast of carnivorous dinosaur, Ceratosausus nasicornisis, is the most dramatic exhibit (Fig. 8). This species (and the original skeleton) was actually found in the USA, but a leg bone – whose features suggest it is from a related predatory dinosaur – has been found on the Isle of Skye, which seems to have become Scotland’s dinosaur island (see Geology museums of Britain: Staffin (Dinosaur) Museum, Isle of Skye).

Fig. 8. The Late Jurassic, predatory dinosaur, *Ceratosaurus nasicornisis*, found in the USA.

Other large reptiles have been found in Scotland in the Elgin area, including Stagonolepsis robertsoni (Fig. 9). The collection has a full-size reconstruction and a few fossils of its bones and scales. It grew to about 2.7m long and was a herbivore. This and other fossils of huge reptiles have been found at Elgin in northeast Scotland, from sediments from about 220 Ma, at the beginning of the Triassic.

Fig. 9. A model of the Late Triassic herbivore, *Stagonolepsis robertsoni.*

There is also a lovely example of Chirotherium footprints, also from the Triassic, but this time from England (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10. Fossil trackways of *Chirotherium*, from the Triassic of England. The footprints show that it had five toes, each with a pointed claw on the end.

There are also plenty of less dramatic, but no less interesting fossils. These are of: terrestrial animals like pterosaurs (Fig. 11 and 12) and birds (Fig. 13); marine fossils like ammonites and nautilus (Fig. 14), brachiopods (Fig. 15) and crinoids (Fig. 16); and plants from tropical forests, testament to Scotland’s industrial past and its extraction of coal from its Upper Carboniferous sediments (Figs. 17, 18 and 19).

Fig. 11. The pterosaur, *Rhamphorhynchus* sp., from the Late Jurassic in Solnhofen limestone.

Fig. 12. The pterosaurs, *Scaphognathus* sp. and *Pterodactylus* sp., also from the Late Jurassic.

Fig. 13. A cast of the iconic, *Archaeopteryx*.

Fig. 14. A collection of ammonites and nautiluses.

Fig. 15. A collection of Lower Carboniferous limestone brachiopods from Scotland: *Gigantoproductus giganteus* (1); *Spirifer* sp. (2); *Antiquatonia costatus* (3); *Schellwienella crenistrai* (4); *Echinoconchus* sp. (5); *Eomarginifera* sp. (6); *Rugosochonetes* sp. (7); *Leptagonia* sp. (8); *Lingula mytiloides* (9); and *Krotovia* sp. (10).

Fig. 16. A magnificent block of crinoid fossils.

Fig. 17. An equally magnificent example of the Upper Carboniferous, *Stigmaria ficoides* (the roots of *Lepidodendron* trees, see also Fig. 19).

Fig. 18. Giant horsetails from the Upper Carboniferous of Scotland: *Asterophyllites equisetiformis* – a small twig with leaves (left); and *Calamites cannaeformis* – stem (right).

Fig. 19. An Upper Carboniferous, *Lepidodendron* tree stump, similar to the ones at Glasgow’s Fossil Grove in Victoria Park.

There is also a nice collection of Scottish Ice Age animals, with the skeleton of a huge Irish deer (Megaloceras giganteus) holding court over the Creatures of the Past gallery (Fig. 20). Notwithstanding that this particularly magnificent specimen was found in County Dublin in Ireland, remains of the species have also been found in Scotland.

Fig. 20. Irish deer (*Megaloceras giganteus*), from the Pleistocene of Ireland.

Other local finds from this time (that is, found in or near Glasgow) include a reindeer antler (Rangifer tarandus, found at Mount Florida, Glasgow), a tooth from a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius, from Kenmuir Hill, Glasgow) and the leg from a woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis, from Bishopbriggs, Glasgow). It is estimated that these all date from about 27,500 years ago and all are from the local area, showing that this truly is a local museum.

During my time in Glasgow, I also visited the Hunterian, which is part of Glasgow University. I will cover that next week.

I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Kelvingrove, so heartly recommend a visit.