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New names for ancient minerals honour scientists

Steve Koppes (USA) When the solar system was born 4.5 billion years ago, davisite and grossmanite were soon there. These minerals were two of the first solids to form when an interstellar gas cloud collapsed to form the sun. Found in the Allende meteorite (Fig. 1), they now carry the names of Andrew Davis (Fig. 2) and Lawrence Grossman (Fig. 3), professors in geophysical sciences at the…

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Making the most of what you have: Fossil collecting for the geographically less fortunate

Jason Sherburn, (UK) Living near the coast is amazing. Or, at least, that’s how I imagine it to be for budding fossil collectors intent on unlocking the mysteries of the ancient world. However, I live about 50 miles from the coast and, while my own area is not topographically dull, for a palaeontologist, it may as well be a barren landscape. There were once great treasures to be found, as…

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A reef under a hill: Just one of the delights of Coral Caverns

Deborah Painter (USA) Why is there a reef in a cavern under a hill in south-central Pennsylvania in the USA? My good friends Richard Hedges and David Hawk and I wanted to know the answer. We had seen various websites which describe an amazing commercial cave with one wall composed of fossil corals, stromatoporoids, brachiopods and crinoids. The three of us were already planning a weekend trip…

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Two days of trawling in the Eurogully: Did trawler OD7 find a mammoth graveyard?

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 been collected from the seabed, and not just woolly mammoths. Fig. 1. Dick Mol, holding a…

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Toro Toro - a palaeontological treasure of the Andes

Vivi Vajda (Sweden) In a valley in the Andes, at 2,500m above sea level, is Bolivia’s third largest city – Cochabamba. The town is beautifully surrounded by snow-capped mountain peaks of which the highest is Tunari at 5,088m. For a palaeontologist, the town is an excellent base camp, as it is situated in a geologically complex area and the highly variable geology exhibits marine Ordovician and…

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In memory of Roy Bullard: Co-founder and former editor of <i>Deposits</i> magazine

It is with deep sadness that we share the news of the passing of Roy Bullard, who died on the 12th of May 2025 after a long and courageous battle with health issues. Roy was the joint founder and former editor of Deposits Magazine, a publication he helped launch with Alister Cruickshanks in 2004. Together, they built a platform that became a valued voice in the geological and palaeontological…

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Geology Museums of Britain: Folkestone Museum, Kent

Jon Trevelyan (UK) Recently, I spent a few days on my own down at one of my favourite fossil hunting sites – Copt Point and East Wear Bay in Folkestone. As readers probably know, the Gault Clay at Folkestone is a marine sedimentary deposit from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian) period, consisting mainly of dark grey to blue-grey silty clay, with occasional layers of silt and sand (or put another…

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Renovated palaeontology exhibits at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History

Ruel A Macaraeg MA, JD On Friday, 20 November 2009, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History re-opened, after a two-year renovation project in which the interior space was substantially enlarged and redesigned. The expansion allowed the museum to create large themed galleries, not possible in the previous structure. The most prominent is the new ‘DinoLabs’ featuring a number of Cretaceous…

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Palaeontologist Michael Coates launches fossil shark hunt

Steve Koppes (USA) This article was written by Steve a while ago about palaeontologist, Michael Coates, and a project he was involved in on fossils sharks. While the project is now over, the article is an interesting insight into his thinking. Michael Coates (Fig. 1), Chicago palaeontologist and professor in ‘Organismal Biology & Anatomy’, has spent his career mining the marine fossils of…

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A coal mine remembered

Paul Cox (UK) During the 1980s, the secretary of the local branch of my professional association was famous for arranging field trips to places of interest. By and large, these had nothing to do with my profession, but they were nevertheless interesting places. One day, he had arranged a visit to a coal mine somewhere near St Helens and Wigan. Eight of us had managed to get time off work and so,…

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Earth learning idea

Elizabeth Devon (UK) ‘I know it’s Monday when a new Earth leaning idea appears’ – quote from a supporter in India. The Earth learning idea was set up for the International Year of Planet Earth with the intention of reaching as many children throughout the world as possible, particularly those who suffer from lack of resources and from lack of thought-provoking teaching. Our aim is to foster a…

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Hell’s Gate (Part 2): Return to Hell’s Gate

Dr Trevor Watts (UK) This is the second of two articles on Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya (see Hell’s Gate; Part 1). Two days after the visit described in that article, we had intended to climb Mount Longonot and trek around the rim. However, our guide was not keen on this, so we opted to return to Hell’s Gate, as the map and guidebook indicated that there could be other interesting features…

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Hell’s Gate (Part 1)

Dr Trevor Watts (UK) I think it was the name ‘Hell’s Gate’ that attracted us to the place to start with. The Internet, wonderful as it can be, only told us that Hell’s Gate National Park “contained volcanic features” (Fig. 1). One was called Fischer’s Tower, where you could climb a sheer face of rock with the help of guides and ropes. The other was a basalt cliff called, uninspiringly, Main…

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The Story of Earth's Climate in 25 Discoveries: How Scientists Found the Connections Between Climate and Life, by Donald R Prothero

Jon Trevelyan (UK) In recent years, geology has evolved from being primarily concerned with rocks, minerals and the Earth’s physical structure, to integrating fields, such as climatology, meteorology, biology and more. This interdisciplinary approach has become essential for understanding complex Earth systems and this book is part of that trend – a discussion of Earth’s climate and the…

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Fossils from St Margaret’s Bay, Kent

Flavia Faedo (UK) Fig. 1. View of St Margaret’s Bay, east. Situated on the east coast of Kent, between Dover and Deal, St Margaret’s Bay (Fig. 1) is a picturesque location offering a pleasant coastal walk as well as chalk cliffs and flint pebbles for the lover of Cretaceous fossils and geology. There are benches here to sit on and relax while contemplating the sea, and a lawn suitable for…

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The Scottish Fossil Code

Colin MacFadyen (UK) After years of preparation, involving a public consultation, the Scottish Fossil Code was launched by the Scottish Government’s Environment Minister in Cromarty on 11 April 2008. It was probably the first national code of its kind, and aims primarily to help conserve the fossil heritage of Scotland by promoting responsible collecting. Scotland has a remarkably rich…

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Broken Hill: Australia’s silver city

Tony Forsyth (Australia) Located over 1,100km west of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia is the city of Broken Hill (Fig. 1). Nicknamed Australia’s “silver city”, with a population of over 20,000 people, it is now a prosperous centre for mining, the arts, tourism and film production. However, my wife and I were here for other attractions of the city – its wonderful mineral specimens and the…