Fossils, geology and minerals. The highly acclaimed international earth science magazine with over 450 articles and book reviews.
Just a couple of days before the Covid-19 lockdown, I was with friends at Tidmoor Point collecting wonderful pyrite ammonites from the Oxford Clay with this excellent guide to the South Dorset Coast.
This is a very ambitious work. The authors discuss the geology of Britain as a “geological legacy”, that is, they believe it is “an inheritance bequeathed to 11 millennia or so of its post-glacial inhabitants”.
So, Palass has published another of its excellent field guides, this time to the fossils from the Lias of the Yorkshire coast. Readers of this magazine will know that I have a soft spot for these guides.
The is a second edition of Prof John Cope’s excellent geological guide to the Dorset coast for the Geologists’ Association (GA). It is slightly shorter than the first edition, with some minor corrections and some of the figures revised, together with new photographs.
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Much of the secondary railway route in Derbyshire, from Buxton south to Ashbourne, was closed in the 1950s and 1960s. Today, only the northern section is still in use as a railway, providing a route for major limestone quarry traffic (Roberts and Emerson, 2018). But… … Read More
Biddy and Ed Jarzembowski (UK) An ‘artist’s impression’ of Wealden insects, inspired by the original work of Neil Watson, appeared in a three-part mini-series in Deposits issues 47 to 49. Since then, the discovery of a number of species new to science (belonging to diverse groups) has meant that an… … Read More
Steven Wade Veatch (USA) In a breath of inspiration in 1830, English geologist, Henry De la Beche (1796–1855), while exploring new intellectual territories in the emerging fields of palaeontology, painted Duria Antiquior (meaning “a more ancient Dorset”), a representation of a prehistoric Dorset coast. De la Beche’s work was ground… … Read More
Roy Bullard (UK) There are many places around the coastline of the British Isles that are quite simply majestic and, in their own unique ways, full of magic. Dunwich lies between the lovely town of Southwold and the village of Sizewell on the East Coast of England in the county… … Read More
Jon Trevelyan (UK) This is the second Geologists’ Association (GA) guide by Professor John Cope to be published in the last two years. The first was the second edition of his excellent Dorset guide, which was reviewed in the last issue of Deposits. And, on the grounds that “if it … Read More
Les Lanham (UK) Just to the east of Herne Bay in Kent, on the way to Reculver at Beltinge, there is a small area on the foreshore where fossils of shark and other fish remains can be found on a good low tide. As this is a beach location, success… … Read More
Mervyn Jones (UK) This Geologists’ Association field meeting followed the publication of Professor John Cope’s Geologists’ Association (GA) Guide No 73, Geology of the South Devon Coast. It is also the companion to GA Guide No 22, Geology of the Dorset Coast. John retired in 2003 after lecturing at Swansea… … Read More
Dr Paul D Taylor (UK) We are very fortunate in Britain to host one of the most remarkable deposits in the entire geological record, the Chalk. The Late Cretaceous Chalk (with a capital ‘C’) is an extremely pure limestone, famous for the White Cliffs of Dover and responsible for the… … Read More
Arthur Speed (UK) One hundred and eighty million years ago in the Toarcian Stage of the Lower Jurassic Period, the Earth was very different from the world we know today. The continents were all clumped together in a supercontinent called Pangaea, which was just beginning to split apart. Sea level… … Read More
Robert Coram (UK) The Mesozoic and Cenozoic deposits of Southern England have long been a rich source of fossil reptiles. Past finds of great historical importance include some of the earliest known examples of dinosaurs, ichthyosaurs and pterosaurs. Fossil material, including new species, continues to be revealed, mainly at rapidly… … Read More
There are several good books on the fossils of the Gault Clay and, by extension, Folkestone. However, this little guide has an advantage over the others that I have looked at.
John P Green (UK) The Upper Jurassic Kimmeridge Clay Formation in Lincolnshire crops out along the western edge of the Lincolnshire Wolds scarp (Swinnerton and Kent, 1981) and many years ago was formerly exposed in many small workings that exploited the Lower and Upper Kimmeridge Clay Formation for brickmaking. The… … Read More
Tim Holt-Wilson (UK) The date is 24 May 2014 and I am browsing across East Lane Beach at Bawdsey in southeast Suffolk. A brown lump of sandstone with a white fossil shell impression catches my eye. A boxstone. This is the first one I have ever found with a fossil… … Read More
I’ve been waiting for a book like this for a very long time and am delighted that a publication of this quality has now arrived. New books covering British palaeontology are always welcomed by this magazine and we published an article a while ago by the founder of the publisher of this book – David Penney – explaining the need for such guides.
This newly published guide is another near-perfect fossil book from Siri Scientific Press, who are rapidly becoming my favourite publisher of esoteric palaeontology.
Emily Swaby (UK) Saltwick Bay is located along the Yorkshire Coast, between Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay, and can be accessed from the Cleveland Way, which passes the spectacular Whitby Abbey. The geology of the area is predominantly Jurassic in age, with the site often being described as a ‘fossil… … Read More
Martin Simpson (UK) There is a growing misconception that most of the earliest important fossil discoveries were made by a select few famous geologists – established names, who were supposed to have ‘found’ everything in their collections. In reality, however, the true ‘discoverers’ of the original specimens were an often… … Read More
Keith Eastwood (UK) The Malton Oolite Member of the Coralline Oolite Formation (Corallian Group), as exposed in the Betton Farm South Quarry (TA00158555) at East Ayton, near Scarborough (Fig. 1), provides a wealth of fascinating palaeontological and sedimentological information. Examination of outcrops within this small quarry enables the geologist to… … Read More
Nigel Larkin and Steven Dey (UK) Inspired by the recent excellent series of articles by Trevor Watts discussing the types of Mid-Jurassic dinosaur footprints to be found along the Whitby coast (Deposits, Issues 46, 47, 48 and 49), when recently working in the area I (NL) made sure that I… … Read More
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) Wall games are a very geological form of light entertainment and education. I certainly have amused myself by identifying rocks and their features in walls since my days as an undergraduate and before. I was introduced to the name for the wall game (obvious, I… … Read More
Professor John CW Cope (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff UK) Take a trip to the South Devon coast around Easter time and you are bound to come across student parties from universities engaged in fieldwork. What is it about this area that makes it so popular as a centre for… … Read More
David Penny (UK) I have written this article as a summary of how I established myself in the fossil publishing business because it might be of interest to a general readership. First, a little background about myself is in order. I have had a life-long interest in natural history, especially… … Read More
Dean R Lomax (UK) Palaeontology and Britain In its simplest form, palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life, through examination of fossils. Palaeontology is, however, not just dinosaurs. Dinosaurs constitute a miniscule portion of what palaeontology is. After all, a myriad of different, and often down-right bizarre, organisms lived long… … Read More
Mervyn Jones (UK) Since 2012, the Geologists’ Association (GA) has put on annual field trips to the Dorset coast led by Prof John CW Cope (of the National Museum Wales), who is author of the definitive Field Guide No 22. The second edition was published in April 2016 (Geology of… … Read More
Mark Wilkinson (UK) The Armboth Dyke makes a good half day geology excursion in a scenic but quiet part of the UK Lake District. Parking is on the west shore of Thirlmere, in a pay-and-display car park accessed by the narrow road that winds around that side of the lake… … Read More
David Bone (UK) Issue 26 of Deposits magazine in the Spring of 2011 included my article on fossil collecting at Bracklesham Bay in West Sussex, following in the footsteps of my guide book on Fossil hunting at Bracklesham & Selsey, published in 2009. This area has been well known for… … Read More
