Plants growing on land are rarely preserved fossils because continental conditions may not be very favourable for the process of fossilisation.
Fossil wood is not usually found associated with the rest of the tree (leaves and roots) and identification can be difficult, in these cases the specimens are given a special botanical name. These [...]
When starting out on preparation most hobbyist collectors will find the use of a rotary tool kit with interchangeable heads immensely versatile. Along with an electric engraver, steel probes and craft knives, these can be helpful for carefully picking away and removing the surrounding sediments. Fortunately the tools just mentioned do not take up much space and can be purchased at very little expense to the user.
Frosterley Marble is a dark grey to black limestone which has been used as an ornamental stone locally and internationally in churches and buildings such as Durham Cathedral.
Welcome to the latest offering in the TVRIGS Rock of the Month series of articles. This month I thought that we might examine a broad group of deposits known as argillaceous rocks, collectively referred to as argillites (clay rocks), as opposed to arenites (sandstones) and rudites (conglomerates, tillites and breccias).
Derived from the Latin Argilla – [...]
These are an extinct order of arthropod (animals having a jointed and segmented body plan) which make their first appearance in the fossil record during the Cambrian Period, commencing about 520 million years ago. Trilobites, meaning ‘three-lobes’, are some of the earliest known arthropods and lived on the sea floor at a variety of [...]
Iron carbonate (FeCO3), or siderite from the Greek sideros meaning iron, is a major source of ore for steel-making being usually low in sulphur and phosphorous, and high in manganese and/or magnesium.
This mineral is able to assume almost any colour but commonly brown, yellowish-brown, or grey specimens can be found. It occurs in Britain’s [...]
The name mica is thought to derive from the Latin word, micare – “to glitter”. This no doubt refers to the brilliant sparkle when light is reflected and refracted by this mineral.
More correctly, the Mica Group of minerals are sheet silicates. This means that instead of growing as a large crystal they form in [...]
Whinstone is a quarryman’s term for a variety of hard, dark-coloured, rocks including basalt and chert. Here, in the Tees Valley and Cleveland, the name refers to a hard rock that is very different from the soft sedimentary strata which make up the majority of the area’s underlying geology.
Around 58 million years ago, as [...]
During his now-infamous journey to the Orient Marco Polo is said to have been amazed when, following meals with wealthy Persians, the tablecloths were cleaned by exposing them to fire the cloths surviving the ordeal without a mark. The fibres from which the cloths were woven came to the Persians from the Hindu Kush, and [...]
Alum Shale occurs within the upper 35 metres or so of the Whitby Mudstone Formation. A suite of rocks that originated as soft sediment accumulating on the floor of an ancient sea (the Tethys) which occupied this area between c.188 million and c.182 million years ago during the late Lower Jurassic phase of Earth’s geological [...]