Fossils, geology and minerals. The highly acclaimed international earth science magazine with over 700 articles and book reviews.
Flavia Faedo (UK) The Thiepval Memorial is situated four miles (almost 6.5km) north of the town of Albert, in northern France, and was built to commemorate British soldiers who have no known grave, yet died here during the Great War of 1914-1918. This memorial rises majestically from the woods and, … Read More
Peter J Perkins (UK) This article is for those who like a geological excuse for visiting places. There may well be quaint villages, wonderful scenery and unusual wildlife but, if there is some special geology, so much the better. La Rioja is one of the small regions of northern Spain. … Read More
Rob Hope (France) Ahh, fossil footprints… simultaneously tantalising, evocative and enigmatic! Trace fossils of footprints are known throughout the world, including in the Jura Mountains of both France and Switzerland. Recently, near the tiny French village of Coisia, about 30km north of Geneva, a large slice of rock has revealed … Read More
This is a difficult but nevertheless extremely interesting book. It is written, I think, for academics, but interested amateurs (like I did)will certainly find it stimulating – a mixture of palaeoanthropology and the philosophy of science.
Harry Meisner (Germany) The Antwerp harbour area in Belgium is a very interesting spot for finding fossils. In October 2010, the port approved a long-term investment plan, worth €1.6 billion over the next 15 years. As a result, for a while, the whole area became one big fossiliferous outcrop as … Read More
The Cro-Magnons were a population of early modern humans (that is, they were physically indistinguishable from us, today), who lived in Europe between about 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the Upper Palaeolithic period. This information comes from Trenton Holliday’s excellent book, which tells the story of these people in the context of recent scientific advances. However, while it does not shy away from complex scientific issues, the book is written with a light, understandable touch.
Rob Hope (France) For many years, a great number of Permian fossil footprints have been found in the red mudstone horizons of France’s Lodéve basin (Fig. 1). I have spent some time researching the fossils of this barren region, including learning from papers written by an array of specialists, as … Read More
Deborah Painter (USA) Earlier in the month of September 2022, my friend David and I spent an afternoon with a fellow named Ellery, a long-time member of a rock collecting club we joined a year ago. Ellery allowed me to photograph some of his rock and mineral specimens, including a … Read More
Stephan Lautenschlager (Germany) and Dr Julia Brenda Desojo (Argentina) Among the multitude of fossil animals, dinosaurs have always been the most popular and fascinating. Loved by six-year-olds, Hollywood directors, toy-designers and scientists alike, they not only dominated most of the Mesozoic Era, but still dominate our understanding of palaeontology. However, … Read More
Niels Laurids Viby (Denmark) The first half of the Palaeocene in Northern Europe belongs, more or less, to the Danish! On 16 November 1846, Edouard Desor held a lecture in Paris with the title ‘Sur l’étage Danien, nouvel étage de la crai’ (‘On the Danien, a new stage of the … Read More
By Ken Brooks (UK) Local stone was an essential element in the development of early civilisations, as its availability and quality determined the building styles that they created. The effective working and use of stone as a building material was a skill acquired by man at an early stage of … Read More
By Niels Laurids Viby Denmark – why on earth should anybody in the UK go to such a strange place – where people, among other things, drive on the wrong side of the road and speak a funny language? And why write something for Deposits on the subject at all? … Read More
Mike Howgate FLS (UK) Haarlem is about a half hour train journey from the hustle and bustle of the tourist mayhem that is Amsterdam, and a world away in ambiance. The Teyler’s museum is beautifully situated on the bank of the Spaarne River and just a ten-minute walk from Haarlem’s … Read More
reviewed the 2nd edition of this guide a while ago and, as I said then, Iceland seems to set the hearts of certain geologists racing and, reading this field guide and that previous incarnation, it is abundantly clear why. Iceland’s fascinating geology is clearly set out in this concise and authoritative book. The island, astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, is a ‘natural laboratory’ where the earth sciences can be watched in real-time. Rifting of the crust, volcanic eruptions and glacial activity are among a host of processes and features that can be observed in this fascinating land.
E R Matheau-Raven (UK) Amber is the hardened resin of coniferous and angiosperm trees. Resin should not be confused with sap, which is a product of photosynthesis that consists of sugars, water and dissolved minerals. The sticky extrusive mass that comes from a cut on a pine tree is resin. … Read More
Stephen Moreton (UK) In the first two articles of this series, we looked at Leinster and Munster. Continuing in a clockwise fashion brings us to Connaught. Some of Ireland’s oldest rocks are to be found here, forming the Ox Mountains. The rugged and mountainous west is dominated by metamorphic rocks … Read More
Stephen Moreton (UK) In the second part of our tour of Ireland, we head for Munster, which occupies the southwest corner of the island. Geologically, the rocks are mostly inland Carboniferous shales and limestones, with Devonian sandstones forming the coastal peninsulas. All host mineral localities of note. Starting in County … Read More
Stephen Moreton (UK) The island of Ireland has much to offer the mineral collector, but is relatively unknown to most. This may in part be due to a lack of published information, although, for years, the troubles in the north also served to deter visitors for many years. This series … Read More
Dick Mol (The Netherlands) Introduction In 1874, the first known mammoth remains were brought ashore, trawled off the coast of the province of Zeeland, The Netherlands. Fishermen, fishing for flatfish, caught these fossils as bycatch in their nets. (A bycatch is a fish or other marine species that is unintentionally … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is surrounded by a great defensive earthwork on its landward side, the Stelling van Amsterdam (= Defence Line of Amsterdam), along which are a series of forts and batteries (Figs. 1A-E and 2). This major structure was built … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) The Low Netherlands, much of which is below sea level, is a broad area of the country that (very approximately) parallels the coast and is kept ‘dry’ by major works of civil engineering (IDG, 1985, pp. 6-7). Geologically, it is a flat expanse of Holocene … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) It was a dry Saturday in February (2014), but it was blowing a gale such that some gusts stopped me dead in my tracks. My son, Pelham, and I were out for a walk in the Haarlemmermeersebos, which roughly translates as ‘the wood of the … 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
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.
In this second edition, Dougal Jerram has revised and updated the 2001 version, first published by Alwyn Scarth and Jean-Claude Tanguy. This is to reflect modern research and understanding of Europe’s volcanoes of the last 10,000 years (active, dormant and extinct).
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
Dr Robert Sturm Over the last few decades, local amateur collectors, as well as professional palaeontologists, have collected a large number of fossils from quarries and sandpits on the northern margin of the Central European Alps. With the help of these marine and terrestrial fossils, it has been possible to … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm As a result of their great diversity in shape and long-lasting occurrence in earth history (from the Devonian to the Cretaceous), ammonites are equally fascinating objects for the professional and amateur palaeontologist. By definition, ammonites exclusively comprise a group of extinct marine cephalopods that, according to the … Read More
Dean R Lomax (UK) A ‘big’ discovery In 2002, a wonderful discovery of a 9.7m-long trackway (ichnofossil) with the tracemaker (a horseshoe crab) preserved was made in a quarry near the village of Wintershof, north of the town of Eichstätt in Bavaria, Southern Germany (Fig. 1). Specifically, the specimen was … Read More
