In the early Eocene Epoch, drainage from the newly uplifted Rocky Mountains filled an inter-mountain basin to form what geologists call Fossil Lake. The climate of Fossil Lake was subtropical, similar to the climate of […]
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Category: geology
An introduction to aetosaurs
The Triassic Period was one of the key episodes in the evolutionary history of life. It marks the transition from the Palaeozoic to the Mesozoic Era, preceded by the Permian/Triassic mass extinction – the greatest […]
Urban geology: a failed example of gabions as false urban geology from the Netherlands
The provinces of Noord and Zuid Holland, including much of the Dutch North Sea coast and adjacent inland areas, are devoid of rocky exposures. In a region of flat-lying Pleistocene siliciclastic successions (Burck et al, […]
The prominent figures of the 1800s who gave rise to vertebrate palaeontology
For centuries, the creatures of the past, from the terrifying theropod dinosaurs to the tiny early mammals, have captured the imaginations of millions. However, the people who put those beasts into the limelight are rarely […]
The mystery of time: a quest to solve the age of the Earth
The question of the age of the Earth and its former inhabitants is one of great interest to us all. Most are aware that the Earth is understood today to be approximately 4.6 billion years […]
The Clarkia Flora: 16-million-year-old plants offer a window into the past.
Near the small town of Clarkia in Shoshone County, Idaho in the USA, exists a rich and unique fossil deposit. The Clarkia fossils, or Clarkia Flora, as the deposit is mostly called due to the […]
Stop the press: the Jurassic Coast starts in the Permian. A Geologists’ Association field meeting report of a two-day excursion to the South Devon Coast with Prof John CW Cope
This Geologists’ Association field meeting followed the publication of Professor John Cope’s Geologists’ Association (GA) Guide No 73, Geology of the South Devon Coast (https://geologistsassociation.org.uk/guidesales.html; £9 for members and £12 for non-members), which was reviewed […]
Rocks in Roslin Glen: a record of a swampy past
Midlothian is an area of central Scotland that lies to the west of Edinburgh and is an area with strong geological connections due to a history of mining for both coal and oil shale. As […]
Colourful bluffs in Long Island recall the most recent ice age
Imagine a tremendous piece of land moving equipment that scraped up the soil and some of the surface bedrock from four states within the United States’ Eastern Seaboard, carrying and dragging it all the way, […]
Bryozoans in the English Chalk
We are very fortunate in Britain to host one of the most remarkable deposits in the entire geological record, the Chalk. The Late Cretaceous Chalk (with a capital ‘C’) is an extremely pure limestone, famous […]
Volcanism in the ancient world
In the ancient Greek and Roman world, volcanism was recognised as a divine phenomenon standing in close connection with the fire god, Hephaestus or Vulcan. Although there did not exist any term corresponding to the […]
Urban geology: the strange tale of a windowsill
Leiden, in the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland, is a city with a fine selection of fossiliferous building stones, mainly Mississippian (Visean, Lower Carboniferous) limestones. which preserve an array of fossils, such as rugose and tabulate […]
La Gomera: a short geological guide
Introduction The island of La Gomera has an area of 370km2, it is 25km in diameter, has a maximum altitude of 1,487m (Alto Garajonay) and is situated approximately 40km west of Tenerife. Unlike the other […]
Whitby Jet and the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event
One hundred and eighty million years ago in the Toarcian Stage of the Lower Jurassic Period, the Earth was very different from the world we know today. The continents were all clumped together in a […]
The geological transformation of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
In this article, I will briefly deal with the fascinating and relatively recent geological transformation of the Sharjah region of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sharjah needs no introduction in terms of it being a […]
The daily lives of fossil reptiles
The Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits of Southern England have long been a rich source of fossil reptiles. Past finds of great historical importance include some of the earliest known examples of dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs. […]
Microfossils in 3D – stereophotography of ancient micro-organisms
In the past 60 years, microfossils have increasingly attracted the attention of earth scientists for several reasons. Firstly, they are highly useful in biostratigraphic respects; secondly, they can be easily determined by light- or electron-microscopic […]
Headbanging, rocking and moonwalking fossils
One can never be too careful when given the opportunity to name a fossil organism that has proved to be new to science. In addition to a meticulous description and accompanying images showing the characteristic […]
Fulletby brickyard – a classic locality in the Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay Formation in Lincolnshire
The Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay Formation in Lincolnshire crops out along the western edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds scarp (Swinnerton and Kent, 1981) and many years ago was formerly exposed in many small workings that […]
Boxstones – in search of Miocene Suffolk
The date is 24 May 2014 and I am browsing across East Lane Beach at Bawdsey in southeast Suffolk. A brown lump of sandstone with a white fossil shell impression catches my eye. A boxstone. […]
A ‘Heavy Metal painter’ meets a ‘Heavy Metal palaeontologist’ – the conception of an unusual portrayal of the past
Sometimes, the stars just seem to align perfectly and make you appreciate life more than at other times. You know those ephemeral moments when, all of a sudden, you find yourself in the midst of […]
Saltwick Bay, North Yorkshire
Saltwick Bay is located along the Yorkshire Coast, between Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay, and can be accessed from the Cleveland Way, which passes the spectacular Whitby Abbey. The geology of the area is predominantly […]
Colorado mountain memories
While headed for the California Gold Rush of 1849, George Giggey (who was my great-great-grandfather) first made his way through the mountainous and untamed wilderness of what would later become Colorado. He was among a […]
‘Finders, keepers’: the lost world of some Isle of Wight geological heroes
There is a growing misconception that most of the earliest important fossil discoveries were made by a select few famous geologists – established names, who were supposed to have ‘found’ everything in their collections. In […]
Carbonate platforms and coral reefs: the Coralline Oolite Formation of the Yorkshire Upper Jurassic – a prime source of palaeontological information
The Malton Oolite Member of the Coralline Oolite Formation (Corallian Group), as exposed in the Betton Farm South Quarry (TA00158555) at East Ayton, near Scarborough (Fig. 1), provides a wealth of fascinating palaeontological and sedimentological […]
The Dendermonde Mammoth: fighting pyrite decay and the preservation of unique paleontological heritage
Collecting fossil vertebrates is rather popular among amateur palaeontologists. However, little interest is shown in the different stages one should undertake to treat and safely guard these specimens for the future. Loads of fossils from […]
Urban geology: gabions in the Dutch townscape
Gabions are tools of the engineering geologist, facing elements that are used to stabilize over-steep slopes, such as sea cliffs or railway/roadway cuttings; they also have military applications. The word is derived from the French, […]
Folklore of fossil molluscs
The final article of this series on fossil folklore focuses on molluscs, excluding the ammonites, which were covered earlier (see Fossil folklore: ammonites in Deposits, Issue 46, pp. 20–23). Molluscs are second only to arthropods […]
Carrara marble from the Apian Alps – another famous ancient workable stone
This is the last in a series of four articles I have written on the quarries and marble of the ancient world and the works of art made from it. The others (Mining in Ancient […]
Wieliczka Salt Mine of Poland part-2
This the second of two articles on the Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland. The first appeared in Issue [51] and covered some of the highlights that can be seen there. This one covers some more […]