Fossils, geology and minerals. Highly acclaimed international earth science blog with over 850 articles and book reviews.
Mary Anning was clearly one of the most significant characters of eighteenth century science and possibly of all time, particularly in the realm of palaeontology. I am not sure that she is quite as unknown (certainly in the UK) as the American author this excellent little biography claims, but she certainly should be better known.
Deborah Painter (USA) “Look over there!” I exclaimed as I stood on the grounds of a manufacturing plant and stared across the tracks of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to the east of the plant. I was pointing at several mountains a few kilometres in the distance. “That … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) The mineral zircon (more correctly, orthosilicate zircon or ZrSiO4) is an important accessory mineral in various rocks of the earth’s crust, but most of all of igneous rocks with the mineral composition of granite. An accessory mineral is a mineral comprising less than about 10% of … 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
The 71st GA guide has been published and what a good one it is too. It’s not really my area (I prefer palaeontology) and covers quite a specialist subject, but this is certainly interesting. And this is surely the point of GA guides – to cover topics that other publishers might be reluctant to consider.
Dean R Lomax (UK) Introduction Ichthyosaurs are extinct marine reptiles that superficially resemble dolphins and sharks, but are neither. They are most definitely not ‘swimming dinosaurs’. In fact, they were fully aquatic marine tetrapods that lived in the seas, while their more famous counterparts – the dinosaurs – roamed 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
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) Unlike the British Isles, which contain large swathes of Palaeozoic rocks, Central Europe only features sporadic rock types belonging to this early geological era. Among the most salient geological terrains entirely or partially from the Palaeozoic are the Bohemian Massif, the Central Plateau in France, the … Read More
Robert Sturm The Isle of Skye is a part of the Inner Hebrides in the north-west of Scotland. It has a total area of 174,000 hectares and has an irregularly shaped coastline that is typical of the British Isles. Since the early nineteenth century, the island has become a centre … Read More
Scotland has been the source of many important fossil discoveries, from the first ever soft body parts of the conodont animal, to Devonian fishes and early tetrapods. Yet, there has been little published for the popular market on Scottish palaeontology.
David M Martill (UK) After several gruelling years of working in the sticky wet Jurassic clay pits of the Peterborough district for their gigantic marine reptiles and even more massive fishes, it was a refreshing change to fly south and investigate the sun-baked Caatinga of South America. The Chapada do … Read More
This is a lovely little book and something of a departure for Dr Dean Lomax, who, these days is more often seen up to his elbows in ichthyosaur remains. However, this fun little book is rather different. Dean (and ably helped by the artwork of Mike Love) has created a full-colour popup book covering the ancestors of many of our favourite pets.
This is a lovely book – a glorious mixture of a beautiful coffee-table book and an academic treatise of the highest quality. But why microfossils? What is it about them that can create such strong feelings?
Robert Sturm (Austria) During the last few decades, the interest of diverse geosciences has increasingly focussed on the examination of so-called ‘shear zones’, because the displacements between two lithological blocks represent natural ‘laboratories’, within which the phenomena of mineral alteration and deformation are clearly shown for the purposes of scientific … Read More
Jens Lehmann (Germany) Thick-shelled oysters of the species Pycnodonte (Phygraea) vesiculare (Lamarck, 1806) are among the most common fossils of the late Cretaceous period of Europe. They are also known as “thick-shelled mussels” in the popular wisdom and the reason for this name is obvious when you have a look … Read More
Jens Lehmann (Germany) The recent find of a big slab of Early Cretaceous lumachelle limestone of the Wealden facies containing a bone (Figs. 1 and 2) made for a time-consuming and technically ambitious preparation process. (Lumachelle limestone is a compact limestone or marble containing fragments of shells, encrinites and other … Read More
The Geologists’ Association is making something of a name for itself when it comes to pushing the envelope in geological publishing in the UK. This guide is was quite a departure.
Jens Lehmann (Germany) Since 2008, the largest palaeontological association in Germany – the Paläontologische Gesellschaft – has awarded the crown for ‘Fossil of the Year’ for fossils that are of special scientific interest or that are commonplace in that they are on display in many institutions. A ‘Fossil of the … Read More
Jens Lehmann (Germany) Plate tectonics drove the continent-continent collision of Euramerica and Gondwana, roughly 280 to 380mya. This mountain-building phase of the late Palaeozoic era is referred to as the Variscan Orogeny and eventually formed the supercontinent Pangaea. This was largely complete by the end of the Carboniferous and many … Read More
John P Green (UK) The Ampthill Clay Formation of the UK, of Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) age, represents a series of highly fossiliferous marine mudstones that form part of the Ancholme Clay Group in North Lincolnshire (Gaunt et al, 1992); but are almost unexposed in the county other than at an … Read More
John P Green (UK) The large, disused quarry at North Ormsby [O.S. grid ref. TF2893], north of Louth in Lincolnshire, displays an important sequence of beds of the Burnham Chalk Formation (Upper Cretaceous, Upper Turonian stage) and, at present, constitutes the best exposure of the beds in the county. Similar … Read More
I don’t normally review BGS memoirs – they are excellent publications, but largely written for the professional or the seriously committed amateur geologist. (I have to admit to owning several, which cover my favourite fossil collecting areas of the UK.) However, this is one ‘Special Memoir’ that I am quite willing to make an exception for.
John P Green (UK) The Early Cretaceous succession in Lincolnshire consists of a series of shallow water marine sandstones, ironstones, clays and limestones, not unlike those deposited elsewhere in the UK during early Jurassic times. In the north of the county, at Nettleton Hill, near the village of Nettleton, minor … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) Exploitation of gold deposits in the Hohe Tauern, in the Central Alps of Austria, has a long history: occurrences of this noble metal were explored for the first time about 2,000 years ago. Since the fourteenth century, the search for gold has been conducted on an … Read More
Anthony Rybek (UK) Having lived on the Isle of Skye since 2007, I consider myself to be very fortunate to have every day opportunities to fulfil my hunger for the wilderness, natural world and two of my greatest passions, fossil hunting and geology. So, it was of no surprise to … Read More
Dr Robert Sturm (Austria) When talking about precious or semi-precious gemstones, most people think of the diamonds they cannot afford or rubies, agates and similar well-known minerals. But, only a few people know that gemstones have been subjected to various carving techniques since ancient times, making from them small but … Read More
Dr Trevor Watts (UK) In the first part of this article, I discussed the Middle Jurassic environment in the region of Whitby, on the northeast coast of England at the time when dinosaurs roamed there. In Part 2 (see The dinosaur footprints of Whitby (Part 2): Problems matching footprints to … Read More
Dr Trevor Watts (UK) In my previous articles in the series, I looked at the environments that allowed dinosaurs to flourish in the Whitby area during the Middle Jurassic and to leave their footprints. Then I considered the factors and problems in trying to match the footprints to particular species … Read More
Dr Trevor Watts (UK) In the first part of this article (The dinosaur footprints of Whitby (Part 1): Introduction), I considered the immediate surroundings of Whitby as a seemingly unlikely place to find many dinosaur footprints; and I looked at the environments that existed here in mid-Jurassic times; and finally … Read More
