Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 900 articles and book reviews.
Rosalind Jones (France) Here’s a conundrum. How is it that a mountain composed of schist has a topping of Larvikite granite which is surrounded by a deposit containing Iona Marble, Old Red Sandstone and Triassic pebbles? Furthermore, why did it make global news? How did it inspire students to become … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The origins of the collection at the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle’s Galerie de Géologie et de Minéralogie in Paris date back surprisingly far. In 1625, under Louis XIII, minerals thought to have medicinal virtues were deposited in the ‘droguier du roi’ (royal drug cabinet) associated with the then … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The geology and palaeontology section at the Museo di Storia Naturale: geology and palaeontology in Verona is one of those museum experiences that perhaps quietly insists you pay attention if you notice it there among the other attractions of this lovely town. It doesn’t shout with flashy … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the seventh of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Kimberella is one of the most influential fossils from the Ediacaran period, living around 555 million years ago and preserved primarily in the White Sea region of northwest Russia. Unlike the … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the last of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE). The first covered the climate engine of the CPE and the second described the marine ecosystem upheaval during those times. This final article turns to the continents, examining how the CPE transformed terrestrial landscapes … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE). The first covered the climate engine of the CPE. This article turns to the marine record, tracing how the CPE destabilised reefs and reorganised shallow-marine ecosystems. When the Triassic seas lost their balance In … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the third of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Dickinsonia is one of the most recognisable and debated organisms of the Ediacaran Period, living between 558 and 550 million years ago on shallow seafloors long before the rise of animals … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) The Naturmuseum Südtirol is housed in an historic building in the old town of Bolzano and was opened in 1997 in its current form. Its major theme consists of the geology of South Tyrol, that is, the region’s rocks, minerals (Fig. 1) landscapes, tectonics, its natural habitats … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first of three articles on the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE), often referred to as an ‘event’, although increasingly recognised as a prolonged episode, as I will discuss) of the Triassic that seems to have grown in importance and interest, and only become more widely … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the first of my series of short articles on fossils of the Ediacaran Period. Charnia is one of the most iconic fossils of the Ediacaran Period, known for its elegant frond-like form and its place among the earliest large, complex organisms in Earth’s history. First … Read More
Paul Lyle begins GeoHibernica with a slightly mischievous acknowledgement: the book exists only because the author of GeoBritannica was unable to take on its Irish counterpart himself. It is a revealing admission, and one that immediately invites comparison between the two works. That comparison is instructive, although not always in the ways one might expect.
Vassilis Makridis (Greece), Evangelia Tsoukala (Greece), Evangelos Vlachos (Greece), Katerina Tsekoura (Greece), Wilrie van Logchem (The Netherlands) and Dick Mol (The Netherlands) In northern Greece, 45km north of Thessaloniki, one of the few public caves in Northern Greece is situated in the Agios Georgios Hill, near Kilkis (Figs. 1 and … Read More
Davide Olivero (Italy), Giorgio Olivero (Italy) and Rob Hope (France) In the Manosque Region of south-eastern France, Rob discovered a remarkable little fish fossil in an out-of-the-way abandoned quarry. He cut and tidied the small stone, and took it away. He wanted it not as a collection piece, but to … Read More
Stephen McLoughlin (Sweden) and Vivi Vajda (Sweden) Among the rolling green hills of Skåne in southern Sweden lies the valley of Fyledalen. The valley lies about 27km north of Ystad – best known as the setting of the Wallander detective novels and television series. Today, most of the valley has … Read More
Paul D Taylor (UK) and Consuelo Sendino (UK) Barcelona is an extremely popular tourist destination. For many visitors, the idiosyncratic buildings of Antoni Gaudi represent the principal attraction, but the Catalan capitol has its fair share of art galleries and museums too. Among the latter are several geological museums, including … Read More
Henk Oosterink (The Netherlands) In the past, I have written about fossils from the Muschelkalk of Winterswijk (the Netherlands) (see Diversity of trace fossils from the Anisian (Middle Triassic) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands, Invertebrate fossils from the Lower Muschelkalk (Triassic) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands and Triassic reptiles from the Lower … Read More
Dr Ross Barnett (UK) Could you receive a blood transfusion from a Neanderthal? The question, as strange as it sounds, gets to the crux of our yearning to truly understand extinct species of the past. What did they look like? How did they live? What blood flowed through their veins? … Read More
Denis Bates and Anna Kozłowska (Poland) Graptolites (grapto + lithos = writing in the rocks) are common Palaeozoic fossils – found from the Cambrian to the Carboniferous. Usually, they are preserved as flattened and altered remains in mudrocks, particularly the black shales or slates known as “Graptolitic Shales” (Fig. 1), … Read More
Gary Paton (UK) There are many types of employment that geology may offer, but one in particular that I would like to describe is the wellsite geologist. I have been employed in this position for approximately four years in the Norwegian Sector of the North Sea. This article aims to … Read More
Dick Mol (The Netherlands) The first finds of mammoth fossils and other representatives of the ice age megafauna occurred in 1874. It was assumed then that there must have been a mammoth graveyard offshore of the province of Zeeland in The Netherlands. To date, many thousands of megafaunal remains have … Read More
Today (14 December 2024), we start a four-part series on the geology and chemistry of Lake Superior agates, by Dr Wayne Sukow (USA), who these days is a retired physicist from the National Science Foundation in the USA. Wayner wrote these articles a while ago for us, and provided some … Read More
Marta Pino Larrío (Spain) In July 2023, I travelled with fellow geologists to Băile Herculane, an ancient Romanian town in the Western Carpathians, situated between the Danube and the Serbian border. Our mission was to analyse the site for a new railway tunnel that will replace the existing one. Băile … Read More
