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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

For #FossilFriday: dinosaur footprints at Hanover point, Isle of Wight. My size 12 foot for scale.

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Phil Mannion @pdmannion.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Our new paper led by @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social & Mark Evans @bas.ac.uk on a sauropod from Antarctica 🦕 that represents the earliest collected dinosaur fossil from this continent: www.app.pan.pl/article/item... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... @es-ucl.bsky.social

app.pan.pl

A titanosaurian sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous of Antarctica - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

Massive shoutout to all the #PalaeoDads out there, Dads, Stepdads, Grandads, Uncles and Role Models who are there for our next generation of Palaeontologists (and normal people).

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Spent a great #FossilFriday at the Natural History Musem today. Here’s a croc braincase bone that was hiding amongst the plesiosaurs.

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

News on #SVPCA, a (mostly) UK-based annual meeting devoted to vertebrate palaeontology. Things have been quiet about the meeting for the last 18 months, but a team of us are working to pick up where we left off. More details to follow ASAP, hopefully very soon. #FossilFriday #paleontology #fossil

For those who struggle to read from graphics, here's the wording in plain text:

"After a year off in 2025 and a period of silence, organisers of recent SVPCA have met with other interested parties to discuss future symposia, including provisional plans for a meeting in late August or early September 2026.

More details to follow very soon."

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The Geologists' Association @geolassoc.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Join us online via Zoom on Fri 6th Feb at 19.00 GMT for our next free talk when @dremmanicholls.bsky.social of @morethanadodo.bsky.social will deliver 'Tales from a Geological Curator' Members and non-members must register in advance: non-members email sarah@geologistsassociation.org.uk for details

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British Antarctic Survey 🐧 @bas.ac.uk · 14/01/2026

Cut the ribbon: the Discovery Building is open! From 1976 to today, Rothera Research Station has been the UK’s Antarctic gateway for 50 years. The new building will power polar science for decades to come - and understanding Antarctica means understanding our planet. #PolarScience

Aerial view of a remote Antarctic research station surrounded by floating icebergs and snow-covered land.

A large blue industrial building under a dramatic purple and pink cloudy sky at dusk.

View of a colourful sunset over icy mountains and water, seen through open industrial doors of a building.

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British Antarctic Survey 🐧 @bas.ac.uk · 05/11/2025

Landing at Wolf's Fang, a staging camp on the Antarctic continent 🇦🇶 The team are on the way to Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf. They were meant to get to Halley today, but weather on the rest of their route is causing delays. Not a bad view to wait with though, eh?

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Dr Jack J Matthews @jackjamesmatthews.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Superb! A new species of Charnia - found in Charnwood Forest - has been named after Prof Martin Brasier 😊

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Peter Falkingham @peterfalkingham.com · 14/10/2025

Oxford had a talented group make a video about the #dinosaur tracks in Oxfordshire this summer. Birmingham also had a talented group make a video. I made the video for our group. It is less professional. And has wildly inappropriate music: youtu.be/6ULOHr7dkF0

youtu.be

Oxfordshire Dinosaur tracks - Falkingham Lab from Liverpool John Moores University

YouTube video by Peter Falkingham

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Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford @morethanadodo.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

Museum researcher Frankie Dunn has a funded research placement opportunity with @charnwoodforest.bsky.social ! Applications are now open! The project is part time (14 hours per week) over 12 weeks and the researcher will be receive a stipend of £1,300 www.charnwoodforest.org/collaborator...

charnwoodforest.org

Geopark and Partners Seeking to Recruit Two Researchers - Charnwood Forest Geopark

We’re looking for two researchers to join exciting and innovative projects that will help shape the future of our work in Charnwood Forest. Do you know someone who might be interested? Working with pa...

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 06/07/2025

@fossiliam.bsky.social I guess you’ve seen this one in Chapter House Street, York?

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

For #FossilFriday, a cobble from the streets of York with corals, not sure of the precise taxon. Maybe Carboniferous?

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British Antarctic Survey 🐧 @bas.ac.uk · 25/06/2025

👋Bon voyage as the 2024/25 season ends in Rothera! ❄️ The new Discovery Building is now in use, powering and supplying the station as a new era of polar science begins. Final works continue ahead of handover later this year. Read more: www.bas.ac.uk/media-post/e... #PolarScience #Sustainability

A spectacular red sky over a snow covered landscape of mountains and sea with some buildings and construction vehicles in land in the foreground.

A range of snow covered mountains next to the icy sea and a flat snow covered piece of ground with some containers on it and two long narrow buildings at the foreground.

A pointed snow capped mountain range in the distance with two large buildings on top of a snowy landscape at the front - one is a large bright blue building with an octagonal tower on top with large windows around it and the other building is green with red around the windows.

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Here we go, day 1 of Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. Come and find us in the Jubilee Pavilion @bas.ac.uk #FossilFestival

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

A very happy 99th birthday to Sir David. I’ve had the great honour to have met him several times in both human and ship form.

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Great to see that the 2025 Lyme Regis Fossil Festival programme is now published. I'll be giving a couple of talks about local lass #MaryAnning (of course!) The festival is a fantastic event, loads to see and do, and not to be missed! I hope to see you there! fossilfestival.com/lyme-regis-f...

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

6 April 1821: at @geolsoc.bsky.social, William Conybeare introduces the genus Plesiosaurus for some bones from the Lias of Lyme Regis that differed from Ichthyosaurus. The best specimens (probably bought from #MaryAnning) were in the collection of Thomas Birch, but no complete specimen was known.

Title of published paper: Notice of the discovery of a new Fossil Animal, forming a link between the Ichthyosaurus and Crocodile, together with general remarks on the Osteology of the Ichthyosaurus; from the Observations of H. T. De la BECHE, Esq. F.R.S. M.G.S. ANDThe Rev. W. D. CONYBEARE, F.R.S. M.G.S. DRAWN UP AND COMMUNICATED BY THE LATTER

Plate from the published paper showing vertebrae of Plesiosaurus.

A skeleton of the animal in question, deficient only in the bones of the head, preserved in the well known collection of Col, Birch, (who most liberally allowed us the full use of the very valuable materials he possessed) confirmed in a most satisfactory manner most of my previous conjectures, and enabled us to assign to it its true place in the zoological order, and to designate it by an appropriate name. That of Plesiosaurus has been chosen, as expressing its near approach to the order Lacerta.

Detail of a plate from the published paper showing the paddle bones of Plesiosaurus.

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

For #FossilFriday here’s a Homo sapiens trace fossil on the Norfolk coast being revealed by coastal erosion due to anthropogenic climate change.

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

20 January 1814: the 'Caledonian Mercury' reports that William Bullock is sending a collection of natural history specimens from his new London museum to Edinburgh, including 'the fossil head of a crocodile' – the first public display of the 1811–12 ichthyosaur found by #MaryAnning and her brother.

Newspaper cutting from the Caledonian Mercury 20 January 1814 about William Bullock sending a collection of his duplicate natural history specimens for exhibit in Edinburgh. These include 'the fossil head of a crocodile, lately found in Dorsetshire', the ichthyosaur skull found by Mary Anning and her brother in 1811 and 1812 at Lyme Regis.

Drawing of an ichthyosaur skull with its large eye containing the bony plates of its sclerotic ring and a long snout with many sharp conical teeth.

Portrait of the showman and entrepreneur William Bullock, round-faced, and balding, who had acquired the Anning ichthyosaur, then thought to be a crocodile, for his London natural history museum on Piccadilly.

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Henry De la Beche celebrated Buckland's coprolitic inclinations in this wonderful cartoon, 'A Coprolitic Vision', c.1829, following Buckland's paper on several discoveries by #MaryAnning: her pterosaur, fossil sepia and coprolites, which she had realised as early as 1824 were fossil faeces.

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markopalaeo.bsky.social @markopalaeo.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

For #FossilFriday here’s something I came across today, the skull of the Early Jurassic plesiosaur Anningasaura. From the Natural History Museum, London.

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Storm Bert hits the UK today, on the bicentenary of the Great Storm of 22-23 Nov 1824 which caused widespread destruction along the S coast of England. #MaryAnning told a friend of the damage in Lyme Regis. Contrary to some later accounts, her house was not damaged, but her brother's premises were.

Printed text of a letter from Mary Anning to a friend in London in November 1824 describing the effects of the Great Storm in Lyme Regis: 'Oh! my dear Fanny, you cannot conceive what a scene of horror we have gone through at Lyme, in the late gale: a great part of the Cobb is demolished, every vessel and boat driven out of the harbour, and the greatest part destroyed; two of the revenue men drowned, all the back part of Mrs. England's houses and yards washed down, with the greater part of the hotel, and there is not one stone left of the next house: indeed, it is quite a miracle that the inhabitants saved their lives. Every bit of the walk, from the rooms to the Cobb, is gone; and all the back parts of the houses, from the fish-market to the gun-cliff, next the baths. My brother lost, with others, a great part of his property. All the coal cellars and coals being gone, and the Cobb so shattered that no vessel will be safe there, we shall all be obliged to sit without fires this winter: a cold prospect you will allow.'

The 'Unity', the ship which carried Mary Anning's plesiosaur to London 9 months earlier, was washed against the rocks between Lyme Regis and Charmouth in the Great Storm. The men on board were saved in a dramatic rescue. A sailing ship is tossed in high storm waves onto rocks as the crew cling to the rigging. On a cliff, a group of men are organising their rescue.

Detail of a portrait of Mary Anning in a green cloak and straw bonnet, and holding a hammer.

Extract from a newspaper report of the damage in Lyme Regis caused by the Great Storm of 1824: 'The beautiful promenade in Lyme is entirely destroyed. The house called the Cob House, which was lately
purchased by Mr Walker, of Weymouth, was washed to the ground in a few minutes after himself and family had quitted it. They were all obliged to be taken out of the windows. The Hotel and several houses near the Cob, the Bank House and all the houses opposite the Pilot Boat, are in a wretched state: the sea rolled right through them, and carried away every thing that came in its way. Bennett's Hot Bath's are washed to pieces. Scarcely a house in Lyme had escaped uninjured. The town on Wednesday presented a scene of real dis-tress; not more than three or four shops were opened, but all business was suspended.'

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Bob Nicholls Art @bobnichollsart.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

This #FossilFriday morning's blue #PaleoArt, for all the new #Bluesky people, features the #mosasaur #Platecarpus...

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Leaping Balaur bondoc #paleoart for #FossilFriday. This image follows the interpretation that Balaur was an omnivorous bird, not a "double-clawed" dromaeosaur. The skull is unknown, so the head is based on Sapeornis. Originally created for the first @palaeogames.bsky.social book. #sciart

Two bird-like animals leap at one another. Their chests and wings are orange, their necks orange-brown, and their legs white. Feather fans project from their tail base and tail tips. They are surrounded by the bases of trees and framed against a hazy blue-green backdrop. Leaf-litter occupies the base of the image.

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

This #FossilFriday, I offer you a 50 million year old feather. I found this in the Green River Formation, while doing fieldwork for @johellawell.bsky.social's PhD back in 2006.

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Bob Nicholls Art @bobnichollsart.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

The new Woolly Rhino coin is available in a variety of metals, including silver and gold. Released today, from The Royal Mint and the Natural History Museum, London. You can buy my Ice Age Giants collection here: www.royalmint.com #coins #coincollector #coincollecting #paleoart #sciart #scicomm

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