Category: Geology

Fossils Geology Palaeontology Scotland

The lost lakes of Britain (Part 1): The Orcadian lakes – reconstructing Scotland’s lost Devonian world

This is the first of a three-part series exploring Britain’s lost lakes – landscapes that once existed across very different timescales, from the Devonian world of the Orcadian Basin to the fleeting ice-dammed lakes of the last Ice Age. In this opening article, we go deep into the Devonian, reconstructing the Orcadian lakes from the evidence preserved in Caithness and Orkney. Here, finely layered sediments, exceptional fossil preservation and subtle environmental clues allow us to rebuild not just the organisms that lived there, but the structure and behaviour of the lakes themselves.

Europe Fossils Geology Palaeontology

The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 4): Echinosphaerites aurantium – the grapefruit-shaped cystoid

Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the fourth in my series of short articles on fossils of the Ordovician. Among the diverse and often bizarre echinoderms that flourished during this period, Echinosphaerites aurantium is one of the most distinctive. A rhombiferan cystoid with a rounded, grapefruit-like body, it embodies the experimental … Read More

England Fossils Geology History & biographies Museums & societies Palaeontology

Geology museums of Britain: Cromer Museum, the West Runton Mammoth and the Cromer Forest-bed Formation

Jon Trevelyan (UK) A small museum with a remarkable geological story Tucked away behind the parish church in the centre of Cromer, Cromer Museum occupies a modest site that visitors could easily overlook. Entering through a modern reception building, the museum opens into a narrow courtyard surrounded by a terrace … Read More

England Fossils Geology Palaeontology

The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 4): After the drowning – the roof-shale succession

Every coal seam in the West Cumberland Coalfield district records the accumulation of peat in a mature lycopsid swamp. But just as revealing as the coal itself is what lies immediately above it – the roof shales. These fine-grained sediments record the moment when the forest drowned, the swamp surface subsided or flooded, and a new ecological phase unfolded above the buried peat. In the West Cumberland Coalfield, roof shales are exceptionally well developed and preserve a full sequence of the events that followed each catastrophic rise in water level.

Fossils Geology History & biographies Minerals Mining Museums & societies Palaeontology Wales

Geology museums of Britain: The Blaenavon Industrial Landscape (Part 2) – Big Pit, Blaenavon, Monmouthshire

Jon Trevelyan (UK) Rising above the hills near the town of Blaenavon is the distinctive headgear of Big Pit, one of the most recognisable symbols of the South Wales Coalfield (Fig. 1). Today, the site forms part of the National Coal Museum of Wales, but for nearly a century it … Read More

England Fossils Geology Palaeontology Wales

The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 2): Didymograptus murchisoni – a classic marker of the Middle Ordovician

Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second in my series of short articles on fossils of the Ordovician. Among the many colonial organisms that chart the course of Ordovician seas, Didymograptus murchisoni remains one of the most recognisable. A key graptolite of the Middle Ordovician, it combines elegant morphology with … Read More

Geology History & biographies Minerals Mining Museums & societies Wales

Geology museums of Britain: The Blaenavon Industrial Landscape (Part 1) – the Iron Works, Blaenavon, Monmouthshire

Jon Trevelyan (UK) The ruined furnaces of Blaenavon rise unexpectedly from the Welsh hillsides like the remains of some vast industrial fortress. Massive retaining walls, towering masonry structures and steep charging ramps still dominate the landscape, despite the silence that now surrounds them. Grass and wild flowers spread across terraces … Read More

Dinosaurs England Fossils Geology History & biographies Minerals Minerals Museums & societies Palaeontology

Geology museums of Britain: The Crystal Palace dinosaurs – the birth of scientific reconstruction

With the restoration of the Crystal Palace prehistoric sculptures and their remarkable Geological Court now virtually complete, it is perhaps worth asking why this unique Victorian landscape continues to command such scientific and historical importance. Why should geologists, palaeontologists and members of the public still make the journey to south London to see reconstructions that are now more than 170 years old and, in many respects, scientifically outdated?

Dinosaurs Europe Fossils Geology History & biographies Museums & societies Palaeontology

Geology museums of mainland Europe: The Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée, Paris

Jon Trevelyan (UK) The Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie Comparée, part of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, is located in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Established in 1898, the gallery showcases an extensive collection of fossils and anatomical specimens, offering insights into the evolution of life on Earth. The … Read More

England Fossils Geology Palaeontology

The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 2): A forest of giants – Lepidodendron and Sigillaria

The most visually arresting fossils from the West Cumberland Coalfield, indeed from almost any British Carboniferous site, are the great patterned slabs of lycopsid bark that, if you are lucky, can sometimes be found. Their surfaces carry unmistakable geometric signatures: the diamond-shaped leaf cushions of Lepidodendron or the vertical rows of elongated scars typical of Sigillaria.

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Book review: Beneath the Stone: CT Imaging Applied to Fossils, by Jean-Claude Le Van An

“Never judge a fossil by its surface.” Although not stated quite so succinctly, this is the central message running through Beneath the Stone. Jean-Claude Le Van An demonstrates that a fossil’s outward appearance often tells only part of the story. Hidden beneath the surrounding rock may be exquisite anatomical detail, evidence of ancient life never visible to the naked eye – or, occasionally – proof that an apparently spectacular specimen is not what it seems.

Fossils Geology History & biographies Minerals Minerals Mining Palaeontology Wales

Aberdare: Coal, memory and the fossil forests beneath

This article explores a single landscape – Aberdare – through three interlocking layers: the Carboniferous forests that formed the coal, the industrial system that extracted it, and the lives lived within that system. Each survives only in fragments: fossils weathering from shale, objects preserved in family memory, and traces embedded in the modern landscape. Taken together, these fragments allow the reconstruction of a place in which deep time, industry and lived experience are inseparable.

England Fossils Geology Palaeontology

The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 1): A window into the Carboniferous tropics

The fossils described in this series formed during the Carboniferous Period, around 320 million years ago, when Britain lay close to the Equator. The above figure places the Carboniferous within Britain’s wider geological history. During this interval, extensive tropical wetlands covered much of the country, producing the peat deposits that would later become the coal seams of the West Cumberland Coalfield. This series explores one remarkable record of that vanished landscape.