Coming Soon
A preview of articles scheduled for publication.
Don’t believe everything you read: Beachcombing at Easington, County Durham
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Geology museums of Britain: The Rotunda Museum, Scarborough
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 6): Isotelus maximus – one of the giants of the trilobite world
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The lost lakes of Britain (Part 2): The ‘parallel roads’ of Glen Roy – a vanished Ice Age lake system
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 7): Maclurites bigsbyi – the open-coiled oddity of the Ordovician
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 5): The ferns return – Pecopteris and the first colonisers of the drowned swamp
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 8): Nemagraptus gracilis — the elegant index fossil of the Middle Ordovician
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The lost lakes of Britain (Part 3): Landscapes that vanished, rivers that remain
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 9): Orthoceras – the straight-shelled icons of Ordovician Seas
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Proterochampsids: A key group in continental Triassic ecosystems
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 10): Receptaculites oweni – the “sunflower fossil” of the Ordovician
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 11): Strophomena planumbona – the evolving architecture of Ordovician brachiopods
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 6): The seed-fern story – Neuropteris, Odontopteris and Alethopteris
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The weird and wonderful of the Ordovician (Part 12): Trinucleus fimbriatus – the blind fringe-faced trilobite of Britain’s Late Ordovician
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The lost rivers of England (Part 1): The Seven Sisters and how Ice Age rivers helped shape one of Britain’s most famous coastlines
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 1): Calymene blumenbachii – the Dudley Bug and the Silurian trilobite that became a cultural icon
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 2): Encrinurus punctatus – a spiny Wenlock trilobite forged in a sea of predators
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The lost rivers of England (Part 2): The vanished Bytham River
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 3): Halysites catenularia – the chain coral that wove the framework of Wenlock reefs
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The West Cumberland Coalfield’s lost rainforest (Part 7): Rivers, reeds and dry patches – Calamites and Cordaites on the Carboniferous floodplain
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 4): Monograptus priodon – the Silurian graptolite that defined an era
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The lost rivers of England (Part 3): Rivers beneath the Channel and the Solent River
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 5): Pentamerella of the Arctic Silurian – a brachiopod window onto far-northern seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 6): Pentamerus oblongus – the Llandovery heavyweight and architect of the Early Silurian seafloor
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 7): Phragmoceras – the hooked nautiloid that redefined Silurian cephalopod design
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 8): From Langsettian to Bolsovian – dating the West Cumberland Coalfield flora
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 8): Plectodonta bipartita – a Wenlock brachiopod at the heart of a recovering world
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The lost landscape of Britain: Doggerland – a lost world beneath the North Sea
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 9): Pterygotus anglicus – apex predator of Silurian seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 10): Rhizophyllum – the Wenlock sponge that held reefs together
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 11): Silurian Carpoids of Britain – the echinoderms that broke all the rules
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 9): Life on the equator – climate and environment in Westphalian Cumbria
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The weird and wonderful of the Silurian (Part 12): Silurian cystoids – the last experiments of an ancient echinoderm lineage
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 1): Asterolepis – the armoured bottom-dweller of the Devonian
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 2): Bothriolepis – the armoured swimmer of the Devonian waters
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 3): chonetid brachiopods – the small but ubiquitous seat-clams of the Palaeozoic
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 10): Why the West Cumberland Coalfield? Geology, tectonics and preservation
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 4): Dipleura – the broad-headed trilobite of the Devonian seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 5): Hyneria – the apex predator of the Devonian rivers
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 6): Manticoceras – the emblematic ammonoid of the Devonian seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 7): Miguashaia – a living-fossil blueprint from the Devonian
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The lost rainforest of the West Cumberland Coalfield (Part 11): Two coalfields, two records: reconstructing the Carboniferous forest at Radstock and Cumberland
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 8): Panderichthys – the fish on the threshold of land
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 9): Prototaxites – the giant mystery of the early land
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 10): Rhynia – one of the first land plants
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 11): Stringocephalus – the giant spiriferid of the Devonian reefs
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A Carboniferous floodplain on the Cumbrian coast: Fossils from a quarry and the decline of the coal forests
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The weird and wonderful of the Devonian (Part 12): Tamiobatis – an enigmatic spiral-toothed fish
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 1): Adelophthalmus – the last of the sea scorpions
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 2): Annularia – the leaves of a giant, disguised as a small plant
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 3): Calamites – the horsetail that became a tree
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 4): Cordaites – the familiar tree of an unfamiliar world
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 5): Crassigyrinus scoticus – the amphibian that returned to the water
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 6): Cyperites – the “grass” before grasses existed
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 7): Endothyra and the fusulinids – architects of the Carboniferous seabed
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 8): Gerarus – the spined insect of the Carboniferous forests
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 9): Lepidodendron – the tree built like a giant clubmoss
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 10): Lepidostrobophyllum and Lepidostrobus – the scales of the giant clubmoss cones
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 11): Listracanthus – the ribbon shark of the Carboniferous seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 12): Neuropteris and Odontopteris – the “ferns” that weren’t ferns
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 13): Onychaster – the brittle star of the crinoid seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 14): Palaeodictyoptera – lords of the Carboniferous skies
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 15): Pecopteris – the fern that marks a forest returning
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 16): Sigillaria – the tree with stamped bark
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 17): Sphenophyllum – the little plant with leaves like a wheel
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 18): Stigmaria ficoides – the root system that looks like a fossil plant in its own right
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 19): Typhloesus wellsi – “alien goldfish” of the Carboniferous seas
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The weird and wonderful of the Carboniferous (Part 20): Ulodendron – the scarred trunk of a giant
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 1): Bakevellia – experimenting with attachment
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 2): Calcrete nodules – fossils of ancient soils
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 3): Coprolites – traces of unseen lives
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 4): Desert trackways – life on dry ground
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 5): Fish scales – fragments without a fish
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 6): Gypsum pseudomorphs – fossils that aren’t fossils
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 7): Myalina – when one species takes over
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 8): Schizodus – a shell built for survival
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 9): Stromatolites – when microbes take over
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 10): Ullmannia – a familiar leaf from an unfamiliar forest
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 11): Walchia – the forest after the swamp
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The weird and wonderful of the Permian (Part 12): The Zechstein reef – a reef without corals
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