Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 750 articles and book reviews.
Joe Shimmon (UK) With good luck and perseverance, some beautiful fossils can be collected from the London Clay, which outcrops in the south east of England. The phosphatic remains of crustacea, fish and other, rarer vertebrates are well known, and information and images of them are easily accessed, particularly on … Read More
Fred Clouter (UK) The Isle of Sheppey is situated at the mouth of the Thames estuary and is a part of the North Kent marshes. The north coast of the island has about 5km of London Clay exposures that are highly fossiliferous. The London Clay here was laid down between … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Stop 1. Waterford District, near Codrington Agricultural Station (approx. 59º 36’ 8” W 13º 6’ 49” N; Fig. 1) The area considered in the final part of this guide is outlined in A field guide to Barbados (Part 1): Introduction (Donovan & Harper, 2010, fig. … Read More
Michael E Howgate (UK) Back in the days when I gave my ‘Doctor Dinosaur’ talks to museums, school groups and ‘gifted children’, I would take with me: a plaster cast of the Baryonyx claw; a beach rolled Iguanodon vertebra; and, star of the show, ‘a fossilised dinosaur poo’ (which, in … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Stop 1. Chalky Mount (approximately 59º 33’ 15” W 13º 13’ 55” N; Fig. 1) The area considered in this part of the guide is outlined in Donovan & Harper (2010, fig. 1d) and Figs. 1 and 2. As with other articles in this series, … Read More
Maybe it’s a result of my social anthropology and geological background, but I found this difficult but fascinating book a great read. It’s about nineteenth century India. It is not about the modern geological science or social anthropology of the subcontinent, but rather, the geological imagination of India, as well as its landscapes and people, and its history.
This is clearly one for our German speakers, of which I am glad to say there are many. However, this glossy and excellently produced hardback, covering the fossils of the Alpstein region of Switzerland, may have general appeal to anyone interested in the identification and study of fossils from various parts of the world, despite being written in German.
Khursheed Dinshaw (India) Raiyoli is a village near Balasinor in the state of Gujarat, India, which has been attracting palaeontologists because of its dinosaur fossil park (Fig. 1). Curious to know more about the park, I visited Balasinor to meet Princess Aaliya Sultana Babi (Fig. 2), who is also known … Read More
Paul Murdoch and Clay Carkin (USA) Our hectic, 48-hour adventure had its beginning many years ago, courtesy of the WWW. My friend, Clay, a sixth grade science teacher in Freeport, Maine, had originally contacted the Calvert Marine Museum fossil club’s website about purchasing fossils to use in his classroom. Although … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The area considered in this part of the guide is outlined in Donovan & Harper (2010, fig. 1C) and Fig. 1 of this article. As in other articles in this series, the starting point is Bridgetown. Stop 1: The Barbados Museum The Barbados Museum and … Read More
Biddy Jarzembowski, Chris Proctor and Ed Jarzembowski (UK) In this concluding part of the mini-series, we show the archaic wet forest at Writhlington (Fig. 9) which is the most familiar palaeohabitat associated with the Carboniferous age of coal. In the absence of flowering plants, the forest was less biodiverse than … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Stop 1: Arawak Cement Quarry The area considered in this part of the guide is outlined in Donovan & Harper (2010, Fig. 1b) and Fig. 1. As with other articles in this series, the starting point is Bridgetown. Drive north from the Bridgetown area on … Read More
I like palaeoart. I recently went to the ‘Dinosaurs of China’ exhibition in Nottingham (reviewed in Issue 51 of this magazine) and bought myself a copy of the Chinese palaeoartist, Zhao Chuang’s ‘The Age of Dinosaurs’ – a veritable picture-fest of up-to-date reconstructions of ancient beasts and plants, complete with fuzzy raptors and other bird-like therapods.
Biddy Jarzembowski, Chris Proctor and Ed Jarzembowski (UK) In Part 1 of this article (Writhlington revisited (Part 1): A polychrome perspective), we focused on forest arthropods associated with scale trees (Figs. 1 to 4) that were found in the Coal Measures of Writhlington batch, near Radstock, in southwest England. We … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) and David AT Harper (Denmark) Introduction This article is the second part of a field guide to Barbados, the first part of which is A field guide to Barbados (Part 1): Introduction. The areas visited by different the excursions outlined in Parts 2 to 6 … Read More
I always wait expectantly for the publication of a new Palaeontological Association guide to fossils and, when they turn up, I am never disappointed. This is undoubtedly another triumph. This guide attempts to bring the diversity of its flora and fauna together in a single work, for the first time.
Biddy Jarzembowski, Chris Proctor and Ed Jarzembowski (UK) Thanks to ‘King Coal’, it is perhaps all too easy to visualise the Carboniferous Period – and especially the Pennsylvanian Subperiod – in black and white or shades of grey. The Earth’s first tropical forests – which gave us peat which turned … Read More
I sat down to read this over Christmas and what a good read it turned out to be. The appropriate word is ‘eclectic’ – because Measures for Measure is written for all us with an interest in the industrial history of Great Britain, and its impact on the landscape, economy, social history and culture. It’s a great read as it dots about linking places and ideas together, with the link always being the geology.
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) This is the first of six articles that will introduce the geology of the Antillean island of Barbados. It is an expanded and more detailed guide derived from two earlier publications (Donovan & Harper, 2005, 2009). The structure of the guide will include a summary … Read More
Byron Blessed (UK) As many of us know, a good day’s fossil hunting rarely stops when we leave the beach. However, many people do not know what to do with a fossil once they’ve found it. So, here are a few pointers in the art of fossil preparation. This article … Read More
Paul Pursglove (UK) Take a close look at the three teeth labelled A, B and C in Fig. 1. All of these teeth could have been sold by unscrupulous fossil dealers as pterosaur teeth. So, which is the real pterosaur tooth? Pterosaur teeth are very rare fossils and they tend … Read More
If you, like me, spend much of your palaeontological time collecting Jurassic and Cretaceous cephalopods in the south of the UK (ammonites, belemnites and nautiluses), while dabbling with some Silurian orthocones in Shropshire, you will be delighted at the number of books being published recently about this fascinating group of animals.
David Mayhew (The Netherlands) When you walk through the countryside,youwill not often come across a vole. However, they are present in most habitats and are one of the most successful groups of small mammals, widely distributed in both Eurasia and North America. Broadly speaking, Voles are blunt- nosed, short-eared, mouse-like … Read More
Joe Shimmin (UK) The beauty and variety of the microfossils of Folkestone’s Gault Clay cliffs has amazed me ever since I was about 14 years old. At about this time, I had the good fortune to see some samples sent to me by Jim Craig, who I had met at … Read More
This book is truly sumptuous, and yet is also a comprehensive discussion of William Smith’s maps (including the revolutionary ‘A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland’) and career. It is beautifully produced, printed on quality paper and the full colour illustrations are outstanding.
Joe Shimmin (UK) The Gault Clay outcrop, at Folkestone in Kent, is a wonderful place to find all manner of fossils. Over 100 species of ammonite have been found and there are also barnacles, belemnites, bones (reptile and fish), coprolites, corals, crinoid pieces, crabs, crocodile teeth, fish teeth, gastropods, (deep … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) In Issue 60 of Deposits, I restarted my occasional series on UK geological museum with a visit to the Booth Museum in Brighton (see Geology museums of Britain: The Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton). Having more time on my hands than I would like during the … Read More
Carl Mehling (USA) Things aren’t always what they seem. The fluidity of information and the frailties of human memory allow for a lot of corruption. Innocent assumptions are made. Sloppy mistakes take place. Unforeseeable accidents occur. And deliberate subterfuge is always there as an option when these others fail. Throw … Read More
Dr Paul D Taylor (UK) Fossil collectors often overlook, or worse discard, bryozoans. There are several reasons: some bryozoans are small and not easily spotted in the field, others are mistaken for non-descript sponges or algae, while bryozoans cemented to the surfaces of other fossils can be cursed for detracting … Read More
Mary Anning was clearly one of the most significant characters of eighteenth century science and possibly of all time, particularly in the realm of palaeontology. I am not sure that she is quite as unknown (certainly in the UK) as the American author this excellent little biography claims, but she certainly should be better known.
