Ancient civilizations had a high demand for raw materials, like clay, diverse rocks and, most of all, metals. These were required for buildings, crafts, agriculture, their armed forces, financial concerns, art and culture. Clays and […]
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Category: geology
Urban geology: monumental geology
My writings on urban geology are normally centred in the area around my home in Noord Holland, but sometimes I am lucky enough to travel. A personal wish that I have had since I was […]
The artistic reconstruction of palaeoenvironments
Life on Earth has been affected and shaped by geological and astronomical events during the 4.5 billion years since it was formed. Scientists study geological and palaeontological processes to answer some rather fundamental questions. What […]
The Bass Rock, Firth of Forth
From much of the coast along the Firth of Forth in southeast Scotland, and from coastal hills such as Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, the impressive piece of rock called the Bass Rock forms a prominent […]
Preserving geological museum collections
It has long been recognised that art and archaeological collections in museums may need specialised conditions and conservation to survive. However, until relatively recently, geological collections have not had the same level of care. Perhaps, […]
Lavas from Hawaiian volcano contain fingerprint of planetary formation
Hikers visiting the Kilauea Iki crater in Hawaii today walk along a mostly flat surface of sparsely vegetated basalt. It looks like parking lot asphalt, but, in November and December 1959, it emitted the orange […]
Stones of Destiny
Time and tide wait for no man and truth is often stranger than fiction. Both these sayings apply to Scotland, especially Argyll with its islands at ‘the edge of the world’. Here, historic stones – […]
Geology of Grandfather Mountain
Like all mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee are the result of the action of plate tectonics. The crust of our planet is composed of five primary plates, or […]
History shows current climate change is normal
Those who I refer to as ‘the new deniers’ keep trying to repair the infamous climate “hockey stick”. This is a term coined for a chart of temperature variation over the last 1,000 years, which […]
Urban geology: two granites
Building stones may tell us something or nothing about the geology of the local area. As Ted Nield (2014) recently highlighted in his book Underlands, stones used in Britain today are rarely local. Once upon […]
Building stones of Canterbury
Eleven members of the Hastings and District Geological Society (HDGS) assembled in front of the Canterbury Law Courts on a fine Sunday morning in June 2010 to meet up with our guide for the day, […]
The geology of Charles Darwin
Like the writer, Johann Goethe, who inscribed himself in the guest book of Karlsbad – present day Karlovy Vary, in the Czech Republic – as “J.W. Goethe, Geognost”, Charles Darwin considered himself a geologist (“I, a […]
Moeraki Boulders: giant marbles of New Zealand
Scattered over Koekohe Beach on the South Island of New Zealand, dozens of huge spherical boulders look like the remains of a monster game of marbles. These were recently featured on the cover of Issue […]
Urban geology: palaeontology at the Wagamama restaurant, Amsterdam
A misconception shared by many non-palaeontologists is that fossils are rare. For example, when governments pass legislation to protect their fossil heritage, they are stopping the export of complete and well-preserved specimens, such as those […]
Urban geology: boulders and the Dutch
My late wife, Dr Trina MacGillivray, was a geomorphologist. She loved the Netherlands and the Dutch landscape, but more than once made astute comparisons with the scenery of other northern European countries. The Dutch landscape, […]
Geological expedition along the southwest coast of Scotland
Compared to the geological architecture of other European countries not exceeding a total area of 100,000km², the geology of Scotland is characterised by an unusual diversity of geological features. Due to its tectono-metamorphic complexity Scotland […]
Rival theories by English amateurs: Matley, Trechmann
The two most significant geologists to visit Jamaica and study its geology between the two World Wars were both British: Charles Alfred Matley (1866-1947) and Charles Taylor Trechmann (1885-1964). Both had active research programmes in […]
The geology and fauna of the Spilsby Sandstone
The Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary interval is represented in Lincolnshire by the Spilsby Sandstone Formation, a shallow water marine deposit that spans the Volgian stage of the Jurassic to the Berriasian stage of the Cretaceous (Hopson et al. 2008). The ammonite faunas of this formation are of particular interest, exhibiting affinities with correlative forms in both Russia on the Siberian plain, as well as Greenland and Canada (for example, Casey, 1973; Mikhail Rogov, personal communication 2015).