An acclaimed international collection of earth science articles and book reviews on palaeontology, geology, minerals and more
Jon Trevelyan (UK) Robert Westwood is no stranger to the pages of Deposits. Over the years, I have reviewed several of his geological guides, covering subjects ranging from the Jurassic Coast to Cornwall and the Lake District (ee below). What has always appealed to me about his publications is their … Read More
When a Carboniferous swamp drowned, its towering lycopsids collapsed, its peat surface disappeared beneath mud, and the forest that had stood for decades, or at most a few generations, abruptly ceased to exist. Yet within surprisingly little time, new vegetation reclaimed the abandoned lake floor. The first wave of this recovery is written across the roof shales of the West Cumberland Coalfield district in thousands of beautifully preserved fronds, most commonly those of Pecopteris, the characteristic tree ferns of the Westphalian wetlands.
Stephen K. Donovan (UK) One of the first volumes that I bought when I first took up palaeontology over 50 years ago was the very excellent Directory of British Fossiliferous Localities (Arkell et al., 1954; Donovan, 2025a), a tome full of meat. It was published in the same year as … Read More
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
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.
Deborah Painter (USA) There is a fault zone that trends southwest to northeast from Stafford County, Virginia USA and joins a fault that extends through the capital of the United States. It is a high-angle reverse fault. Cambrian and Ordovician mylonites, schists and phyllites lie unconformably atop Cretaceous gravels or … Read More
The trunks of Lepidodendron and Sigillaria (Part 2) dominate most people’s mental image of the Carboniferous swamp, but to understand how these forests actually functioned, you need to look beneath the surface, into the layer that supported and anchored the entire ecosystem. In the West Cumberland Coalfield, this means one thing above all – Stigmaria, the distinctive rooting systems of the giant lycopsid trees.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The road over Honister Pass does not feel like a place for industry. It climbs abruptly into the high fells, threading between steep slopes and exposed rock faces, with little sense of the gentler, pastoral Lake District often presented in guidebooks. Yet, set into this harsh landscape … Read More
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
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.
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.
Modern Britain lies far from active plate boundaries. It has no active volcanoes and experiences only minor earthquakes, and is often described as tectonically quiet. Yet its landscape is anything but passive. Hills and lowlands, coastlines and drainage patterns all reflect a deep structural inheritance established during earlier phases of continental collision, collapse and rifting.
By the end of the Carboniferous, Britain had already passed through more than one major phase of mountain building, each followed by long periods of erosion and structural collapse. The Caledonian mountains were long eroded, and the Variscan belt of southern Britain was entering its final stages of decay. Yet tectonic influence did not fade away. Instead, the dominant regime changed. Britain was no longer being compressed – it was being stretched.
The collision that assembled Britain at the end of the Silurian (see A history of the plate tectonics of Britain (part 1): Britain assembled – oceans, collisions and the making of a geological patchwork) did not mark the end of tectonic influence on the landscape. Instead, it marked the beginning of a new phase – one that is often less intuitively grasped, but just as important. Mountain belts are temporary features. Once continental collision ceases, thickened crust becomes gravitationally unstable. Erosion strips material from the surface, while extension and faulting affect the deep roots of the orogen. The geological record that follows is not one of rising peaks, but of collapse, subsidence and redistribution.
At first glance, Geology: an illustrated history appears to be another entry in the now familiar genre of large-format, image-rich popular science books. In practice, however, David Bainbridge has produced something rather more distinctive: a visually driven history of geology in which images – maps, diagrams and artefacts – take a leading role, with the text providing interpretation and context.
Rosalind Jones (France) Here’s a conundrum. How is it that a mountain composed of schist has a topping of Larvikite granite which is surrounded by a deposit containing Iona Marble, Old Red Sandstone and Triassic pebbles? Furthermore, why did it make global news? How did it inspire students to become … Read More
Britain is often described as geologically quiet. There are no active volcanoes, no subduction zones, and only modest earthquakes. Yet, for its size, few countries display such a concentration of geological variety. Mountain uplands, volcanic terrains, deeply folded rocks, and ancient metamorphic cores all occur within a relatively small area. The explanation for this diversity lies not in Britain’s present tectonic setting, but in a long and complex tectonic history that assembled the country piece by piece from fragments that originated far apart.
Michael C Mackiewicz (USA) Antimony is one of those elements that most people have heard of at one time or another, but when asked why it is important, they would be at a loss for words. However, it is critical in making flame-retardant fabrics, battery grids, solders, bearings, ammunition and … Read More
Paul Binns’ Explaining the Earth: An Introduction to the Earth and its Systems is an attractive and highly accessible introduction to the planet and its major systems. Beautifully illustrated throughout with full-colour photographs and clear explanatory diagrams, it offers a brisk survey of the familiar territory of introductory Earth science – rocks and minerals, plate tectonics, oceans and atmosphere, the Earth’s interior, mountains, deserts and so on, and the processes that shape them.
The Oldest Rocks on Earth is composed in a consciously popular-science style, making it an enjoyable read, as well as an informative one for readers interested in how geologists reconstruct the earliest history of our planet. This approach allows Simon Lamb to interweave the science with his own research history, particularly his PhD work and later field studies in Swaziland (now renamed Eswatini), where he investigated some of the oldest rocks on Earth.
Robert J Williams (UK) To the north-east of London lies the county of Essex, which extends out to the east coast of England. Although not noted for its geology, it does have quite a bit to offer the amateur geologist. In addition, there is a significant body of published geological … Read More
Michael C Mackiewicz (USA) A familiar mineral with an unfamiliar story Graphite is one of those minerals that most people think they intrinsically know until they actually hold a good specimen in their hands. The word ‘graphite’ brings visions of pencils and grey streaks. However, graphite occupies the centre of … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (UK) If asked what is my favourite fossil collecting site, I would have to say the Farquhar’s Beach oyster bed on the south-central coast of Jamaica. I taught at the University of the West Indies for over 12 years and this locality was an easy drive. In … Read More
Planetary geology occupies an awkward but fascinating position between disciplines. It draws its physical framework from physics and astronomy, its observational tools from remote sensing and space missions, and its interpretative instincts from terrestrial geology. Planetary Geology: An Introduction by Dominic Fortes and Claudio Vita-Finzi has, since its first appearance, sought to bring these strands together into a coherent teaching text.
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The Naturmuseum Südtirol is housed in an historic building in the old town of Bolzano and was opened in 1997 in its current form. Its major theme consists of the geology of South Tyrol, that is, the region’s rocks, minerals (Fig. 1) landscapes, tectonics, its natural habitats … Read More
This is the first of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE), often referred to as an ‘event’, although increasingly recognised as a prolonged episode, as I will discuss) of the Triassic that seems to have grown in importance and interest, and only become more widely known in relatively recent times. In this article, I will introduce the topic, concentrating on what might be called the “climate engine” driving what was happening.
I found the pebble almost by accident, while staying with friends near Eccleshall in Staffordshire. We had taken their two dogs (the much missed Holly and Chutney) out for an afternoon walk – the kind of slow, stop-start loop where the dogs dictate the pace and the conversation meanders as much as the footpath. Along a muddy stretch of track, something smooth and rounded caught my eye: a faintly banded, reddish stone lying half-buried among the usual Midlands gravel and mud.
The Classic Geology in Europe series has, over many years, established a distinctive and reliable identity: authoritative regional syntheses written by specialists, designed for geologists who want to understand landscapes through field observation rather than armchair generalities. The Southern Pennines sits comfortably within that tradition and, in several respects, exemplifies the mature strengths of the series.
Mike Leeder’s Geology and the Pioneers of Earth Science is an ambitious and absorbing exploration of the intellectual and personal stories behind the transformation of geology in the twentieth century. Published in September 2024, the book positions itself as an account of how the discipline shifted from a largely descriptive, field-based science into the more synthetic, quantitative and planet-wide framework we now call “earth science”.
Have you ever wished to time-travel to the Miocene while armed with a PhD and a GPS unit? Well, At the Foot of the Himalayas is your next best thing. This sweeping but masterfully integrated volume brings the Siwalik Hills – the sediment-rich, fossil-packed foothills of the Himalayas – into sharp scientific focus.
