Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 900 articles and book reviews.
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The Isle of Wight is a marvellous place for the geologist on holiday, but there must be a suspicion that it has all been done before. When I first visited the island in 1999, my late wife Trina said that, of course, I would want … Read More
Megan Jacobs (Isle of Wight) In September 2015, I went to Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight to hunt for dinosaur bones. It was equinox tides all week, so an ideal time to get out on the furthest rocks of the Wessex formation, dating from the Barremian stage of … Read More
Zachary Sepulveda (USA) Perched upon a grassy hill ancient hunters prepare to make a kill… Blaring trumpets shatter the airTerrified voices echo despairHurtling towards their own demiseA chance at life, their fate denies. The blood of giants spills upon the grassBrought forth by razor-edged volcanic glassMarching closer to defeat with … Read More
WAJ Rutter (UK) and HC Costigan (UK) This article is about the geology and geomorphology of the Levisham Bottoms and Newtondale area of Yorkshire. This is an interesting strip of virtually level land, which forms a shelf at about 150m above sea level, between Levisham Moor and the bottom of … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) In July 1979, I was one of more than 20 undergraduate students at the Department of Geology, University of Manchester, to undertake their final year mapping project in the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales. My mapping area was the Yr Arddu Syncline, about 4km … Read More
Chelsea Leu (USA) A new study, published by University of Chicago researchers challenges, the notion that the force of an exploding star forced the formation of the solar system. In this study, published online in Earth and Planetary Science Letters in November 2012, authors Haolan Tang and Nicolas Dauphas found … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) My young son and I both have a taste for oysters, and have a favourite restaurant in which we like to eat them. It is in the Spui district of Amsterdam, which is also an area with a high density of bookshops. Therefore, there is … Read More
Gavin Noller (USA) I am currently studying an arrow straightening tool left behind by the Ute Indians of the Northern Colorado Plateau long ago. The artefact is made of an unusual material – a Jurassic dinosaur bone. As I work with this object (which is more than 13 decades old), … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) Many people interested in palaeontology and collecting fossils have either found fragments of trilobites in the field or marvelled at fossil examples of these animals displayed in museums around the world. Although they are essential components of palaeontological collections, thereby acting as index fossils for the … Read More
Zachary J Sepulveda (USA) and Steven Wade Veatch (USA) The Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is known worldwide for its late Eocene (34Ma) fossil plants and insects. Recently, a fossil spider was discovered at the commercial quarry, which is near the fossil beds (Fig. 1). Due to the condition of … Read More
Mark Wilkinson (UK) If you think of dinosaur hunting, you probably imagine trekking through a parched landscape, reaching the crest of a low hill and catching the first glimpse of a complete skeleton lying half exposed in the next depression. While this might just be true in some parts of … Read More
Stephen McLoughlin, Benjamin Bomfleur and Thomas Mörs (Sweden) Fossil hunters occasionally chance upon small glossy red to amber-coloured, roughly circular objects on bedding planes, when they crack open shales that were deposited in ancient swamps and rivers. These curious fossils range from about a millimetre in diameter up to the … Read More
Joe Shimmin (UK) Before you start shouting at your magazine, don’t worry, you’re not going to read that I think climate change isn’t happening or that human beings aren’t contributing to it. However, I am going to try to show that the version of climate change that we are always … Read More
Stephen McLoughlin (Sweden), Benjamin Bomfleur (Sweden) and Vivi Vajda (Sweden) On some occasions, it is the hard sweat and toil of palaeontologists labouring in the field at carefully planned excavation sites that yields the prize specimen on which careers are built. On other occasions, it is the chance discovery by … Read More
Dr Neale Monks (UK) Graptolites are curious fossils that are common in Lower Palaeozoic rocks where other types of fossils are lacking. The word ‘graptolite’ comes from Greek words that mean ‘writing’ (graptos) and ‘stone’ (lithos), and refer to the fact that graptolite fossils look like pencil marks on stone, … Read More
Neale Monks (UK) Ammonites are such popular and well-known fossils that suggesting they need interpreting may seem ridiculous. But for all their familiarity, there is still a good deal of debate over how they lived and what they did. If nothing else, ammonite experts all agree that they were ecologically … Read More
James Cresswell (UK) Eighty percent of Greenland is covered by ice and, in places, this is up to 3.4km thick. So, Greenland might not immediately spring to mind as a place to go to observe rocks. However, it is a huge country and the ice-free area, at 410,000km2, is nearly … Read More
David Bone (UK) Bognor Regis in West Sussex was wheret I spent my teenage years (a long time ago) and it is still a locality that I regularly visit and to where I also lead fossil hunting expeditions. Having said that, like many foreshore localities with no eroding cliffs, there … Read More
Ken Brooks (UK) For over two hundred years, dinosaur bones and other fossils have been found along the beach to the east of Hastings, between Rock-a-Nore and Pett, but by far the most spectacular specimens were collected from local quarries in the nineteenth century. At this time, Hastings was expanding … Read More
Oscar Roch (Age 10, USA) This amazing article about the life of Mary Anning, was written by Oscar Roch who is just TEN years old, for a school project. It is his own work, with just books and guides to help obtain facts. After receiving the handwritten project in the post, … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) Gemstones are commonly regarded as natural wonders, and their infatuating beauty and rareness has fascinated us from time immemorial. Besides the obvious macroscopic appearance, many a gemstone is characterised by a ‘hidden’ microscopic inner life of breathtaking aesthetics. Among non-experts, such inclusions in precious and semi-precious … Read More
Ken Brooks (UK) This article was inspired by a poem in which an ammonite and a nautilus travel the world’s oceans for millions of years, until they are finally separated by extinction, and is based on a talk I gave on HDGS Members Day, on 18 July 2010. The nautilus … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands), Paul Kabrna (UK) and Pelham H Donovan (The Netherlands) A while ago, SKD published a critique of the poor geoconservation practices on one of England’s most productive Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) of Mississippian age – the so-called scraped surface at Salthill Quarry, Clitheroe, … Read More
Chetan Patel (USA) Often referred to as the Red Rock Country, the state of Utah boasts some of the most breathtaking landscapes formed from years of erosional artistry. Dominating this impressive landscape is the Colorado Plateau that spans the four states of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. Adjacent to … Read More
Dr Paul D Taylor (UK) The distinct five-fold – or pentameral – symmetry of echinoderms makes them particularly striking fossils. Some even have a vaguely mystical appearance. Modern echinoderms – starfish (asteroids), sea urchins (echinoids), feather stars and sea lilies (crinoids), sea cucumbers (holothurians) and brittle stars (ophiuroids) – are … Read More
David N Lewis (UK) and Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Many people regard fossils, quite rightly, as rare and exotic objects. Yet how often do people come into contact with palaeontological remains without appreciating it? Probably the easiest example to cite is that of quarried stone, either appearing as facing … Read More
Rosalind Jones (UK) There’s a saying on the Isle of Mull – “If you come to Mull the once you return again for sure” – and it’s not an idle boast, as those who have visited and subsequently revisited this ‘geological Mecca’ will agree. Second largest of the Inner Hebrides, … Read More
Tomasz Borszcz and Dr Michał Zatoń (Poland) The area of southern Poland is well known for its widespread Jurassic deposits, in particular, Middle and Upper Jurassic sedimentary rocks that outcrop in a belt running from south-east to north-west in the area known as the Polish Jura Chain (Fig. 1). This … Read More
Malcolm Chapman (UK) Collecting is natural. We all do it to a greater or lesser degree and what we collect is motivated by many factors including value and the appeal to the eye. Rarity is often a factor, as is cost, and interest can be awoken by someone you are … Read More
Neale Monks (UK) Heteromorph ammonites were a group of externally shelled cephalopods that were particularly diverse during the Cretaceous period. Many species were abundant and geographically widespread and, for this reason, they have been used to date and correlate rocks. Unlike regularly coiled ammonites, which underwent a steady decline in … Read More
