Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 750 articles and book reviews.
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
Robert Broughton (UK) The end Permian mass extinction occurred 251mya and marked the end of the Palaeozoic era. The loss of life is currently estimated to consist of 95% of the marine fauna and around 70 to 77% of the known terrestrial fauna (where the fossil record is inevitably less … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) While arthropods and roundworms exceed the phylum Mollusca in terms of species, molluscs hold their own when it comes to anatomical diversity. There may be well over a million species of arthropod, but crabs, spiders and bees are all obviously related, sharing the same multi-limbed body … Read More
Dick Mol (Netherlands)and Wilrie van Logchem (Netherlands) Somewhere around the Dutch coast, a mammoth herd, led by an experienced matriarch strolls along a trail on the cold, dry and treeless steppe – the mammoth steppe – typified by tall, tough grasses and Artemisia. The impressive herd numbers about thirty animals, … Read More
Benjamin Kear (Australia) and Georgios Georgalis (Greece) Most people are familiar with the famous giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands – isolated oddities evolving in the absence of predators on a remote tropical paradise. However, as little as 5mya, continental landmasses (including Europe, Africa and India) also had their own … Read More
Richard Bizley (UK) Life on Earth has been affected and shaped by geological and astronomical events during the 4.5 billion years since it was formed. Scientists study geological and palaeontological processes to answer some rather fundamental questions. What did the animals and plants look like and how did they interact? … Read More
Henk Oosterink (Netherlands) The Lower Muschelkalk (from the Anisian age of the Middle Triassic) of the quarry at Winterswijk in The Netherlands is well known for its beautiful and sometimes abundant finds of reptile footprints and bones. A few, almost complete, skeletons have even been found. Most of the bones … Read More
Paul D Taylor and Consuelo Sendino (UK) Last week, In the first par of this two part series (see Dinocochlea (Part 1): The mysterious spiral of Hastings) we introduced Dinocochlea ingens, a gigantic spiral fossil from the Lower Cretaceous Wadhurst Clay Formation of Hastings, Sussex. Discovered in 1921 during the … Read More
Paul D Taylor and Consuelo Sendino (UK) Spiral structures in nature hold a particular fascination on account of their beautiful yet twisted symmetry. The logarithmic spiral coiling of ammonite shells and rams’ horns, the corkscrew helix of a plant tendril, and the planar spiral of a hurricane when viewed from … Read More
Dr Michał Zatoń (Poland) The Middle Jurassic Bathonian stage, which is preceded by Aalenian and Bajocian and overlaid by the Callovian, was established on the basis of oolitic limestones outcropping at Bath in Somerset. This historical and English connection is a major reason I have chosen the Bathonian as a … Read More
Sebastian Lüning (UK) Morocco is a popular tourist destination. Most people travel to the white beaches of Agadir to sunbathe and relax, to watch the magicians on Djemaa el-Fna square in Marrakech, or to go shopping in the UNESCO-protected Osouk of Fes. However, Morocco has much more to offer. Some … Read More
Rick Day (USA) I found my first Triassic fossil when I was about 15 years old on a backpacking trip in Tule Canyon, Briscoe County in Texas. After setting up camp, I walked over to a small, red-coloured hill. On its slope, I found a small, unusual bone fragment approximately … Read More
Dr Caroline Buttler (UK) It has long been recognised that art and archaeological collections in museums may need specialised conditions and conservation to survive. However, until relatively recently, geological collections have not had the same level of care. Perhaps, it was thought that rocks, minerals and fossils that had already … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Mosasaurs were large lizards, for a long time assumed to be most related to the modern monitor lizards such as the Komodo dragon, Varanus komodoensis. Certainly they had a lizard-like shape, except that their legs were modified into flippers for steering and their tail was flattened … Read More
Dan Quinsey (UK) Some fossils show evidence of the violent relationships between predator and prey. Below is a brief discussion of a few of such fossils – fossils that seem to preserve the moment when a carnivore has killed its victim or scavenged a dead body for food. Predator: MosasaurPrey: … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) So far our essential collectibles have been invertebrate fossils, remains of animals without backbones such as ammonites and trilobites. Vertebrate fossils are much rarer, and consequently more expensive, the pocket money-priced ones tending to be things like sharks’ teeth or small fragments of reptile bone. Certainly, … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Gastropods, or snails, are common fossils thanks to their strong, easily preserved external shells. Quite a few fossil gastropods are traded commercially, including members of the genus Turritella. This particular genus first appears in the fossil record during the mid Cretaceous and includes many species still … Read More
Mark Witton (UK) Planet Earth was a busy place 225Ma. The super-continent, Pangaea, in the Northern Hemisphere started rifting, creating the beginnings of the North Atlantic Ocean. Dinosaurs began their campaign for global dominance of Mesozoic terrestrial ecosystems and drove many older reptile lineages into extinction. In the seas, enormous … Read More
The Geologists’ Association have extended their excellent series of geological guides by producing what some people (including me) would think at first was a slightly self-indulgent couple of volumes on ‘Devonshire Marbles’.
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Orthocone nautiloids, loosely referred to as Orthoceras in the trade, are another type of fossil exported from Morocco in large numbers, like the Diacalymene trilobites discussed earlier in this series. Both their common and scientific names refer to the long, narrow, conical shape of their shell, … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) One of the most interesting aspects of fossil collecting is learning about the folklore attached to them, and few fossils rival Gryphaea when it comes to this sort of thing! Known as ‘devil’s toenails’ because of their curves and gnarly shape, during medieval times they were … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Alongside trilobites, ammonites are among the ‘must haves’ in any palaeontological collection. Professional geologists value them as among the best index fossils, many species having only existed for a relatively brief period of time (often a few tens of thousands of years) but in that time … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK). In this series of articles we’re going to be looking at those fossils many people buy rather than collect. This doesn’t mean they’re less interesting of course, but because of the way they’re acquired hobbyists often don’t know much about them beyond what they are and … Read More
Niels Laurids Viby (Denmark) I didn’t go to Florida especially to look for fossils, but I am always looking for opportunities when I am abroad. Being an architect, I actually went there to study houses, in particular, the Art Deco district at Ocean Drive in Miami. However, it seems that … Read More
David Bone (UK) “I have been greatly disappointed … [owing to] sand, sometimes two to three feet in thickness, or the tide not leaving the shore sufficiently exposed; so that a stranger might conclude that there were no fossils to be procured at Bracklesham”. The Sussex geologist, Frederick Dixon, writing … Read More
Richard Edmonds (UK) Between Seatown and Eype, on the West Dorset coast (part of the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Site), there is a remarkable layer of rock known as the Eype Starfish Bed. This is famous for exquisitely brittle starfish (brittlestars) fossils that are usually preserved on … Read More
Charles Underwood (UK) Fossil sites are generally the result of happy coincidence. It may be that this is the result of natural processes, when the sea or a river has eroded into cliffs of fossil bearing rocks. It could also be the result of human activity, where a quarry opened … Read More
