Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 750 articles and book reviews.
Dr James E Jepson (UK) It was over 150 years ago that the first major work began on the fossil insects of the Lower Cretaceous of England. The pioneers were Victorian naturalists, including the Rev Osmond Fisher, John O Westwood and, in particular, the Rev Peter Bellinger Brodie. 1845 saw … Read More
Dean Lomax (UK) The bodiless plesiosaur In 2011, a plesiosaur specimen, consisting of an isolated and crushed skull, was described. The collected skull sadly lacked any postcranial remains, but was identified as an elasmosaurid plesiosaur and considered to be something new. Therefore, it was given the name Zarafasaura oceanis. The … Read More
Rob Hope and Dr Davide Olivero (France) “ … And yet we cannot hope to describe all of the natural happenings of our world; and thus impossible it seems to be to explain all of these unexplainable things …” JL Alléon-Dulac, 1765, French naturalist (Opening Image). An ‘ammon horn’ sketch by … Read More
Kris Howe (USA) When you think of Texas, what comes to mind? It may be wide open spaces, longhorn cattle, cowboys and ten gallon hats. Now, there’s something else to add to the list – the oldest, definitive bird fossil in North America. That bird is Flexomornis howei, from the … Read More
Stephen McLoughlin and Christian Pott (Sweden) Just as the animal kingdom lost some remarkable designs during the mass extinction events that punctuated the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic (consider the disappearance of the novel carapaces of trilobites and the aerofoils of pterosaurs), so too the plant kingdom lost some majestic groups that, … Read More
Tyler Keillor (USA) In the March 2010 issue of the open-access journal, PLoS Biology, palaeontologist Jeff Wilson and colleagues give an account of a truly unique and amazing fossil discovery. In their article entitled Predation upon Hatchling Dinosaurs by a New Snake from the Late Cretaceous of India, the snake … Read More
Adrian Lister (UK) As palaeontologists, we are used to relying on the preserved hard parts of extinct organisms – shells, bones, teeth and so on – to reconstruct their appearance and adaptations in life. The reconstruction of soft tissue relies upon our knowledge of related living forms, plus clues such … Read More
In this book, Samuel McKie has produced a guide to the most common fossils that can be found at different sites along the Yorkshire coast. And, as he says, it is written by an amateur for amateurs. At the moment, it is set out in black and white, but he is hoping to raise enough money for a full-colour print run.
In these times, when the classic discipline of palaeontology is diminishing, there is a demanding need to inspire the next generation of palaeontologists – and perhaps also to make this field of scientific research more approachable.
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Most geologists will be familiar with Palaeozoic and Mesozoic cephalopods, but their Tertiary counterparts are much less well known. It isn’t that Tertiary cephalopods are rare as such – at some localities they can be quite common – but their diversity is extremely low. For example, … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands), David AT Harper (UK) and Roger W Portell (USA) In his 2014, Ted Nield (2014) reflects on building stones and what they tell the geologist about where they are. Once upon a time, building stones in Britain were derived locally and told the informed observer … Read More
Dr Clare Torney (UK) The weird and wonderful world of trilobite eyes has been subject to study since the late 1800s, but despite being scrutinised intensively over the decades, we are still left questioning how trilobite eyes actually worked due to the loss of their soft parts (that is, photosensitive … Read More
Steve Koppes (USA) Mendoza, Argentina. The remains of a new ten-meter-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina’s Rio Colorado are helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. In September 2008, palaeontologists, led by the University of Chicago’s Paul Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, have published … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) It is unfortunate that the miscellaneous holes, pits and depressions produced in wood, rocks and skeletons (bones, shells and tests), both pre- and post-mortem, by a wide range of invertebrates, plants and fungi, are called borings. A less inspiring name for a fascinating suite of … Read More
Bram Langeveld (The Netherlands) Holland is a small country that lies for the most part below sea level, which can be quite problematical. However, if you are a fossil collector hunting for the fossils of animals from the Weichselian (Last Ice Age) and early Holocene, it is not such a … Read More
Paul D Taylor (UK) People have collected fossils since prehistoric times. In pre-scientific times, a remarkable folklore developed about how fossils originated and their usefulness. Folklore refers to the beliefs – usually non-scientific – and customs of ordinary people. Before the true origin of fossils as the remains of once … Read More
Robert Broughton (UK) In many ways, Britain is the birth-place of palaeontology, and the heady years of the 19th century saw the discovery of creatures that have inspired the imagination of small boys ever since – myself included. I’m talking, of course, about the dinosaurs. A vast plethora of names … Read More
Ruel A Macaraeg (USA) In recent years, a number of ammonite pendants, similar to the one in Fig. 1, have been offered by tribal art dealers. As scientific objects, they offer the interest all fossils – a chance to study the tangible remains of ancient life. Being among the more … Read More
Russell Garwood and Alan Spencer (UK) The Carboniferous Period is a fascinating time in earth history. It spanned 60Ma (359.2 to 299.0Ma), towards the end of the Palaeozoic era, falling between the Devonian and Permian. During the Carboniferous, the supercontinent Pangaea was assembling and the oceans were home to invertebrates … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Our look at those fossils that commonly bought rather than collected has so far looked at the fossil remains of animals, whether shells, teeth or whatever. But this time we’re looking at a trace fossil; that is, a fossil produced by a living organism but not … Read More
Dr David Penney (UK) and Dr Jason Dunlop (Germany) When it comes to fossils, arachnids are not a group that obviously springs to mind. However, with more than 100,000 described living species, Arachnida form the second most diverse group of primarily land-living organisms after the insects. And they probably made … Read More
Terence Collingwood (UK) Recently, I was lucky enough to unearth a prize find – a 40-million-year-old, spider-like insect perfectly preserved in amber. I found the valuable harvestman in a piece of prehistoric amber and considered it to be of such scientific interest that I donated it to the National History … Read More
Stephen Lautenschlager (Germany) The Triassic Period was one of the key episodes in the evolutionary history of life. It marks the transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic Era, preceded by the Permian/Triassic mass extinction – the greatest extinction event of all time. A conclusive explanation for it has still … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The last weekend in September 2013 was sunny after more than two weeks of grey skies, rain and even some fog. Saturday was spent as planned, moving bookcases ahead of Karen’s insatiable paintbrush, the walls changing from lime green to white as she progressed. Sunday … Read More
Nigel R Larkin (UK) A recent find from Lower Jurassic marine deposits on the Dorset Coast consists of a curious association of bones and bone fragments that have so far eluded identification, despite being inspected by some top palaeontologists. Is it a shark? Not according to some shark specialists. Is … Read More
Dean Lomax (UK) A Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits exquisite fossil richness, detail and/or completeness, often preserving fine details, including soft parts, which wouldn’t normally be found as fossils. There are two main types of fossil Lagerstätten: concentration Lagerstätten, which simply consists of large concentrations of fossils found … Read More
James O’Donoghue (UK) It’s a Welwitschia! Nestling among 280 million year old fossil tree trunks, this is the rare plant I have been searching for. Two wonders of the natural world – the living, sprawling Welwitschia and the ancient, petrified trees – have fortuitously come together here in Namibia. Separated … Read More
Martin Simpson (UK) The Isle of Wight has long been regarded as a world famous fossil locality. It is now called Dinosaur Island, with no less than 29 different species having been found along the southern coast. Indeed, it has recently been ranked in the top seven dinosaur localities worldwide. … Read More
Neil Clark (UK) The existence of dinosaurs in Scotland is not something that is generally well known. Yet, there are at least three different families represented from fossil bones and a number of different footprint types from the Middle Jurassic. Of the bones, there is a sauropod, a thyreophoran, a … Read More
Stephen McLoughlin (Sweden) South of the craggy limits of Patagonia, Africa and Tasmania, and beyond the piercing gales of the roaring forties and the furious fifties, lies Antarctica – the last great continent on Earth to be explored. Straddling the South Pole, it lies frozen in a winter that has … Read More
