Author: fossiliam

April 13, 2025

Yorkshire Geology Month 2025

Yes, yes, I promised videos and blogposts and all sorts this year, and here we are in April and I’ve hardly added anything to Fossilhub. So, let’s remedy that with a post about the upcoming Yorkshire Geology Month. It all begins on Saturday April 26th – Yorkshire Geology Day, no less – with Geology Rocks at the National Coal Mining...

Categories Outreach/Teaching

January 24, 2025

The Fossil Box Project

I’ve decided to try and make a few more videos in 2025, as part of a project I’ve neglected for quite a while: Fossil Club. The first rule of Fossil Club is you DO talk about Fossil Club. (Even though I clearly haven’t been talking about it.) The video above is ‘The Fossil Box’ and aims to introduce people to...

Categories Outreach/Teaching

September 27, 2024

William Smith in York and Scarborough

Over the weekend of Sept 21st and 22nd 2024, the Yorkshire Philosophical Society and Yorkshire Geological Society celebrated the 200th anniversary of William Smith delivering the inaugural YPS lectures, on the subject of geology. Saturday September 21st was the symposium day, in the Tempest Anderson Hall of the Yorkshire Museum, and it was a fascinating day of talks. A proper...

Categories Outreach/Research/Teaching

September 24, 2024

Yorkshire’s Earth Heritage

In June 2023, the Yorkshire Fossil Festival, Scarborough Museums & Galleries, and the University of Leeds were awarded funding by the Dynamic Collections scheme of the National Lottery Heritage Fund to run a project called YorEarth Heritage. YorEarth Heritage was a pilot project that set out to use fossil collections to help under-represented people in Yorkshire uncover their amazing Earth...

Categories Outreach/Teaching

September 15, 2024

Fall into fossils – autumn 2024 events

Summer may be over, but there’s still plenty of opportunity to get out fossiling. This autumn I’m leading a variety of events, both in York and on the Yorkshire Coast: Whitby small-group fossil tourThursday October 3rd, 9.15–11.15am – East Scar, WhitbyBook on Eventbrite (max. 7 tickets available) Prehistoric tour of YorkSunday Oct 6th, 11am & 2pm – Start at Yorkshire...

Categories Outreach

July 16, 2024

Dinosaur and fossil hunts, Summer 2024

Join palaeontologist Fossiliam for some family-friendly fossil-finding fun in York and North Yorkshire this summer!

Categories #ChalkingWithDinosaurs/Outreach/Teaching

July 4, 2024

York Guildhall’s ancient seafloors

On the first Wednesday of each month, for York’s Hidden History, I lead a Guilded Tour of medieval York. The walk takes an hour, and we start and finish outside York Guildhall, but if there aren’t any events on, we might sneak a peek inside. As a geologist, one of the things I particularly like about the Guildhall is that...

Categories Outreach/Teaching

May 10, 2024

Why save Severus Hill?

I’m part of the campaign to save Severus Hill, an Ice Age landmark in York, which may also have been the place where Emperor Septimius Severus was cremated, after he died in Eboracum in AD 211. The hill is definitely a four-acre former reservoir site that nature has rewilded, and is definitely a place that Yorkshire Water wants to sell....

Categories Outreach

March 30, 2024

Stegosaurs of Whitby

Leading a family fossil hunt at Whitby, I walked my group onto East Scar, beneath Whitby Abbey. The rocks in the foreshore and lower part of the cliffs here are Early Jurassic marine shales. The dark grey layers, peppered with hard, pale lumps, belong to the Whitby Mudstone Formation. The hard pale lumps are limestone nodules (concretions) that grew around...

Categories #ChalkingWithDinosaurs/Outreach/Research/Teaching

December 29, 2023

Twenty plenty more

I could review 2023, with The Rock Showman and I delivering a fab fossil festival in wonderful Whitby; and the magnificent Kirkleatham Museum team inviting me to work on their Lemon Tops & Lobster Pots exhibition; and the NLHF Dynamic Collections scheme awarding funding for YorEarth Heritage with Scarborough Museums and the University of Leeds; and becoming a champion of...

Categories Media/Outreach/Research