Category: Fossils
They were thought to be long extinct
Deborah Painter (USA) It’s all about time, rocks and living things. When humans make attempts to record the distant past, there will be gaps in our knowledge. Historians and archaeologists have the luxury of the written word and of the preservation of culture in the form of fences and aqueducts, … Read More
An early specimen of ‘AMMONITES Walcotii’ and Sowerby’s ‘Mineral Conchology’
Ru D A Smith (Malaysia) A fascinating aspect of palaeontology is the history of early descriptions and the process of assigning and revising the scientific names of fossils. A recently discovered nineteenth century ammonite specimen discussed here provides a vivid illustration of the sometimes tortuous process and can be connected … Read More
The hand-beast of Blackwaterfoot, Isle of Arran
Neil D L Clark (UK) In about 1999, a single, fossilised footprint was discovered on the Isle of Arran, off the west coast of Scotland (Fig. 1). It was known of before this, but kept secret in case it was vandalised. At that time, it was the first, and only … Read More
Fossils from Denmark (Part 3): Getting exercise walking the beaches of Denmark
Niles Laurids Viby (Denmark) I have written a few articles for this magazine on specific formations here in Denmark. However, a lot of local fossil collecting is done simply by walking along the seashore. Some beaches are fronted by cliffs – and some of those are base rock, like the … Read More
De Kuilen: A Dutch treasure trove of Neogene vertebrates
P Formanoy and HJ Ahrens (The Netherlands) De Kuilen is a wet sandpit forming a lake and recreational area located near the small village of Langenboom, about 15 miles south of Nijmegen, in the eastern part of the Dutch province of Noord-Brabant (Fig. 1). Among fossil collectors, the site is … Read More
Fossils of the West Somerset coast
Neale Monks (UK) The West Somerset coastline, between Blue Anchor and Lilstock, exposes an almost complete succession of strata from the latest Triassic well into the Early Jurassic (Fig. 1). Fossils are abundant throughout, mostly invertebrates such as ammonites, brachiopods and oysters, but also with vertebrate remains at certain horizons. … Read More
Trace fossils of Redhill Ridge’s Dakota sandstones
Chris Retzlaff (USA) The Redhill Ridge area in Park County, Colorado is a hogback composed of Dakota Sandstone. This fine-grained, Cretaceous sediment – near the town of Fairplay – contains trace fossils (Figs. 1 and 2) that help palaeontologists understand what the environment was like there, more than 65 million … Read More
Fabulous Fossils exhibition at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery
Dean Lomax (UK) Dr Dean Lomax is now well known from his books, television appearances and especially for his work on marine reptiles. However, before all this, he wrote this article for Issue 21 of Deposits. After returning from a long summer working in the USA at the Wyoming Dinosaur … Read More
Book review: Geologists’ Association Guide No. 77 – Cumbria, compiled and edited by Richard Wrigley
In many ways, this updated guide is exactly what I want from a GA guide – extensive coverage, well written, and oodles of colourful photos and graphics. I liked and used the previous edition (GA No. 2), and it’s a shame that, for example, the Ordovician site of Stockdale Quarry has disappeared, but it – and no doubt other locations – has been replaced by, what I suspect, are just as good, if not better, sites.
Dinosaurs at the Nebraska State capitol
Neale Monks (UK) Not many palaeontologists would go on a field trip to the Houses of Parliament in London, but if you do something similar in the state of Nebraska, you will be surprised to find a whole variety of prehistoric life, including dinosaurs (Fig. 1), ammonites and trilobites. The … Read More
Mull’s famous leaf beds
Rosalind Jones On the Hebridean island of Mull, on a day just before 1850, when potato famine and clearances brought misery to the Highlands and Islands, a man (perhaps collecting shellfish to stave off starvation) ventured down into a wind-swept gully on the Ross of Mull. Known as Slochd an … Read More
More on the dinosaurs of the Booth Museum, Brighton
John A Cooper (UK) The legacy of Gideon Mantell’s fossil collection, sold to the British Museum in 1833, would have been so much more significant to Brighton had he been successful in establishing a permanent Sussex scientific institute to house it. In his article, Gideon Mantel and the dinosaur relic, … Read More
Shining white ammonites: remarkable ammonites from the Posidonia Shales, Southern Germany
Stephen Lautenschlager (Germany) The Lower Jurassic Posidonia Shale Formation of Southern Germany belongs to one of the most famous fossil lagerstätten in the world. Its sediments – finely laminated marly claystones – were deposited in a shallow, inland (epicontinental) sea, the Tethys Ocean, under tropical conditions. The dark grey colour … Read More
Gideon Mantel and the dinosaur relic
Rob Hope (France) A break from work, and also from reading about the history of palaeontology, enabled me to get away for a while. And a chance visit to the south of England found me driving through the lovely Sussex town of Lewes. Held up by a red light, I … Read More
A tiny waterfront town’s Big Fossil festival
Deborah Painter (USA) The breezes from the estuarine Pamlico Sound, which reach the tiny coastal town of Aurora, North Carolina in the USA along a meandering tributary, sometimes carry the evocative and not unpleasant ambiance of salt, mixed with decomposed estuarine life, such as fish, clams, crabs and other “shellfish”. … Read More
Diversity of trace fossils from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands
Henk Oosterink (The Netherlands) Ichnofossils are the non-body remains of organisms. This group of fossils includes burrows, borings, tracks and any other trace formed by the life activity of organisms. They are very important in determining the ecology of extinct organism – although it is not always possible to link … Read More
Fossil sea urchins as hard substrates
Stephen K Donovan (the Netherlands) and John WM Jagt (the Netherlands) A fossil is a mine of information about just one specimen of one species and many such specimens represent extinct species. Consequently, no observations of the living organism are possible – everything we know about that species will have … Read More
Proboscidean tusks through time: A special case of excavation and displaying experience
Dick Mol (The Netherlands), Evangelos Vlachos (Argentina), Spyridoula Pappa (UK), Nikos Vasileiadis (Greece), Nikos Bacharidis (Greece), Vassilis Makridis (Greece), Evangelia Tsoukala (Greece) Over the past 30 years, systematic excavations by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Northern Greece have unearthed many Proboscidea fossils, including the longest tusks in the world … Read More
Echinoids
Neale Monks Although rarely conspicuous, echinoids – commonly known as sea urchins – are among the most important invertebrates in the sea. They are often very numerous and, in particular, the herbivorous species can be critically important as the grazers that keep large seaweed species, such as kelp, from taking … Read More
Deciphering carpoids: Fossil ‘problematica’
Imran A Rahman (UK) Fossils can provide unique insights into the history of life on Earth, which stretches back nearly four billion years. Unfortunately, the closest living relatives of fossil organisms are sometimes unclear and, therefore, their evolutionary significance may not (yet) have been fully realised. Such fossils are called … Read More
The vampire of Csillaghegy
Főzy István (Hungary) Csillaghegy (literally translated, “Star Hill”) is a suburb in the northern part of Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It is home to a waterfront promenade with stunning views of the Danube and the elegant, cable-stayed Megyeri Bridge that crosses Szentendre Island. The riverside is home to kayak … Read More