Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 750 articles and book reviews.
Liz Porter (Australia) Australia has 14 different major types of soil. Maps showing soil profiles of different areas are very useful for farmers, people planning cities, people who look after natural resources and increasingly … forensic scientists! The foray into the world of crime solving by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and … Read More
Paul D Taylor The Chatham Islands are a far-flung outpost of New Zealand (Fig. 1). This isolated archipelago sits in the Pacific Ocean, some 850km east of Christchurch, and lies very close to the International Date Line, making the Chatham Islands one of the first places in the world to … Read More
Dr Susan Parfrey (Australia) You may be familiar with collecting fossils from eroded rock surfaces, a riverbank, a road or rail cutting, a cliff face or a fresh cut surface such as a quarry. But there is another way fossils can be recovered – from boreholes. Boreholes have been drilled … Read More
Heather Wilson (New Zealand) The 180 million year old fossilised forest at New Zealand’s Curio Bay is of international geological significance. When I visited the area recently, the wind was blowing a gale and there were high seas. There is a two-minute walk from the car park to a lookout … Read More
Dr Paul Shand (Australia) In South Australia, the staff of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Land and Water have recently shown that the River Murray, adjacent wetlands and the Lower Lakes (Alexandrina and Albert) close to the Murray Mouth are being seriously impacted by a combination of … Read More
By Dr Susan Parfrey About 95km south of Rolleston, in the southern part of central Queensland, Australia, is a national park that contains the Carnarvon Gorge. The gorge is over 32km in length and is formed of towering white sandstone cliffs. It has almost everything a visitor could want – … Read More
Thomas H Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich (Australia) Whether they had horns or not, the ceratopsian “horn faced” dinosaurs are distinctive, not only from other dinosaurs, but all other vertebrates as well, in the structure of their skulls. In addition to the horns, another element of their skeleton, the lower arm … Read More
Philip Dunkerly (UK) In A geological model for the alluvial gold environment (Part 1), the first part of this article, I discussed how alluvial gold is found and suggested a geological model for alluvial gold deposits. (Readers are recommended to have another look at that part to remind them of … Read More
Philip Dunkerly (UK) Mankind almost certainly first found gold when a yellow, glint from the bottom of a stream bed attracted the attention of one of our ancestors in pre- historic Africa. Ever since, the allure of gold – its colour, improbable density, malleability and scarceness – meant it has … Read More
Jesse Garnett White (USA) Kohioawa Beach and Matatā Escarpment, Putauaki Volcano and the Kawerau Geothermal Field Kohioawa Beach and Matatā escarpment Kohioawa Beach, an uninterrupted sweep of sandy beach, dunes and wetlands, is directly below the near vertical Matatā escarpment between the towns of Otamarakau and Matatā. The escarpment gradually … Read More
Jesse Garnett White (USA) The Waipoua Forest and Parataiko Range I viewed the tilted volcanic outcrops of early Miocene Waipoua Basalt above the Waimamaku River (Fig. 1), then drove into the small town of Waimamaku. I saw a backpacker standing on the sidewalk thumbing a ride holding a paperback in … Read More
Steven Wade Veatch (USA) Curious pupal cases made by prehistoric weevils, together with worm burrows, are found as trace fossils in rock exposures of the Upper Bridgewater Formation along the western coastline of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia (Flint, 1992; Flint and Rankin, 1991; Rankin and Flint, 1992). According … Read More
Robyn Molan (Australia) In an article in the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Journal (Issue 6, 2008) I dubbed the period between 1984 and 1994 ‘a decade of dedication’, thanks to the persistence of an American-Australian team headed by palaeontologists Tom Rich and his wife, Pat Vickers-Rich. (Tom wrote an article … Read More
Jesse Garnet White (USA) Auckland and the AVF In a thick brain fog, crusty eyed and yawning, I sat up in bed at 4:30 am. I was in Auckland, New Zealand. It was still dark outside when I drove to Mount Eden (Maungawhau), where I hiked up a narrow dirt … Read More
Dr Thomas H Rich (Australia) The Cenozoic Era is commonly referred to as the ‘Age of Mammals’. That is certainly the time in the history of life when their fossils are most abundant and diverse. However, two-thirds of mammalian history was during the Mesozoic Era – and they appeared about … Read More
Tony Forsyth (Australia) I got the collecting bug at about eight years of age, collecting (or ‘fossicking’ as it is called in Australia) fossilised sharks’ teeth and ancient whalebones eroding out of beach cliffs in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Some forty plus years later, I’ve still got the bug. … Read More
Tanya Piejus (New Zealand) One of New Zealand’s most contaminated sites, the Tui Mine near Te Aroha, is to be cleaned up. The New Zealand budget for 2007 confirmed that NZ$9.88 million was available for the two-year project. The orphan mine site sits on the western flank of Mount Te … Read More
Tasman Walker (Australia) 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 22 of Deposits. The grey, stone balls are a fascinating tourist attraction, … Read More
