@raptoryx.bsky.social
Education & Outreach at Life Science Centre in Newcastle 🧬 | Member of @fossilsinthills.bsky.social 🐚 | Lvl 31 human geek 🧙🏻♂️ | Plant botherer 🪴 | Cat dad 🐈⬛ | He/Him 🇪🇺🏳️🌈
Dark grey rock with small wheel- or cog-like fossils scattered across the surface
Close up view of the small cog-like fossils on the grey rock
Tiny fossil cogs?
Not quite, these are single segments (ossicles) of a crinoid stem.
In life, soft tissues would have run through the central hole. The radial groves and ridges would have prevented the sections of the stem from twisting in currents.
📍 Wensleydale
#FossilFriday
Even in poor visibility on top of Ingleborough, we still found fossil plants!
This is in the Millstone Grit at the very topmost part of the peak.
#FossilFriday
Today's #FossilFriday post is a Sea Monster and some Seashells...
Why? Because tomorrow afternoon we are back at the fantastic Land of Iron Museum to take people on a tour of the Jurassic ocean!
🐬 The ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus zetlandicus from Loftus
🐚 A shell-bed of the bivalve Bositra
Latest news! 🗞️
As part of our 25th birthday celebrations, 60 schools took on the Moon Base Challenge 🌙
Big congrats to winners St Mary’s, Barnard Castle – chosen by a panel from Airbus and @northumbriauni.bsky.social.
This lovely fossil is a sapling of a giant plant similar to those in Bradford's parks. It's photographed upside down to clearly show the 4 branching roots that all of these plants have - unfortunately the one closest has broken off and is missing.
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Gallery Oldham
Some creatures are windows into the past - others are just windows...
This fossil is a fenestrate bryozoan. The fenestrate part of the name derives from the Latin for window, and refers to the grid-like skeleton of these filter-feeding colonial organisms.
📍 Thorpe
🏛️ Gallery Oldham
#FossilFriday
Join our team of Explainers! 🧪
Are you passionate about engaging people with science? We're looking for enthusiastic individuals to join our team! If you love making experiences exciting, entertaining, informative, and fun, we want you!
Last weekend Team Fossils in t'Hills (and friend) went on an adventure under the hills! We were thrilled to once again join Bradford Pothole Club at their winch meet at Gaping Gill.
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The spectacular main chamber of Gaping Gill is one of the largest underground chambers in Britain.
There are a few fossils which can be seen in the limestone of the caves, including this magnificent fossil coral near the waterfall that was pointed out to us by an experienced caver.
#FossilFriday
Amazing experience this weekend, descending 365 feet into the main chamber at Gaping Gill in the Yorkshire Dales. Breathtaking.
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Heading out to a park this #FossilFriday?
Be sure to visit Horton Park in Bradford, where you can see one of three huge fossil trees!
These Carboniferous giants were excavated from Clayton in the late 19th Century and placed on public display to "inspire future generations of geologists".
Looks like we're in for more glorious weather here in Yorkshire!
With extremely low water levels it's a great time to head out to a stream to see what you can find!
We recently spotted this lovely little Siphonodendron amongst the cobbles in a dry stream near Horton in Ribblesdale.
#FossilFriday
Anyone for fossils and chips?
After work we had a takeaway sitting by the riverbank, followed by a quick look along the river beach - where we found this lovely little Stigmaria!
📍 Gargrave
#Yorkshire #YorkshireFossils #ukfossils #fossilplant #carboniferous #geology #gargrave #FossilFriday
Here’s a few more…
19.04.2025 15:14 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
These gorgeous fossils are Stigmaria, the roots of enormous tree-like plants that lived over 300 million years ago! I found these ones on Blast Beach at Seaham, where the spoil heap from an old coal mine is being eroded by the sea!
19.04.2025 15:13 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
It's been so warm in Yorkshire this week you could be forgiven for thinking you were in the Carboniferous, when tropical corals like this Lithostrotion were alive...
...Ok, so it's not really been tropical here this week, but it's been beautiful weather!
#FossilFriday
🏛️ @galleryoldham.bsky.social
Pendle Hill rises like the prow of a ship over Lancashire - famous for its witches but less so for its fossils!
Most of the rocks of Pendle Hill are un-fossiliferous. You can however find a few fossils including these small bivalves (Posidonia) in scree on the flanks of the hill.
#FossilFriday
We always do a #FossilFriday post on a fossil, but this week the fossil is on the post! (...groan...)
Keep your eyes peeled for fossil plants in the Millstone Grit, they're everywhere! We spotted this piece of fossil plant in an old gate
post near Keighley.
In honour of William Buckland's birthday earlier this week, here is one of his hyena fossils!
Buckland borrowed a live hyena in order to study its poo and the gnaw marks it left on bones. He then compared these with fossils from Kirkdale Cave in Yorkshire #FossilFriday
🏛️@morethanadodo.bsky.social
Our goal is to celebrate Yorkshire's inland geology, but we have a confession: we're also experts on coastal fossils...
If you're interested in the coast's palaeoheritage or are a palaeoart fan, check out this new book! Our team members Becky & Jed were scientific advisors for some of the artwork.
You wont find any pearls in this shell - but it's filled with calcite crystals!
Brachiopod shells typically stay together after the animal dies, meaning when they are buried on the sea bed they become a pocket of space into which crystals can precipitate from mineral-rich water.
#FossilFriday
As the weather improves, we're looking forward to getting back out into the hills to uncover more fossils and their stories.
In the meantime, here is a lovely Stigmaria we found last autumn in the most Yorkshire sounding place of all the dales: Arkengarthdale!
#FossilFriday
On this #FossilFriday in 1822, a significant event in the history of UK palaeontology occurred!
William Buckland presented his study on fossils from Kirkdale Cave, providing evidence that hyenas once lived there rather than their bones being washed by a great flood.
🏛️ @leedsmuseums.bsky.social
Today is #FossilFriday and also Valentine's Day, so we've each selected a fossil that we love!
Edestus - the whorl toothed shark from near Huddersfield (📷GB3D type Fossils 🏛️ @britgeosurvey.bsky.social)
We've had a great #FossilFriday digging through the archives of @sheffieldmuseums.bsky.social researching fossil trees. Many fossil tree stumps had a thin outer-layer of coal which often falls off when the tree is excavated
This piece came from a stump near Barnsley and looks just like modern bark!
A brown rock on a black background with a black and white scale bar along the bottom of the image. The rock is smooth and polished with a cone shaped fossil running along its length.
What does Settle have in common with the Atlas Mountains in Morocco?
Surprisingly it's not the weather...
This lovely cut and polished orthocone may look very similar to those exported from Morocco but it was collected from Settle in the Yorkshire Dales!
🏛️📷 The Yorkshire Museum
#FossilFriday
Don't you hate finding a bone in your fish supper?
Be glad it's not like this one!
This strange bone is from the pectoral fin of the Carboniferous fish Gyracanthus.
These spines made this fish awkward for a predator to swallow.
#FossilFriday
📍 Bradford
🏛️ @leedsmuseums.bsky.social
Sometimes you can tell where/when you are in the rock record if you find a particular distinctive fossil.
There are lots of fossil-rich layers in the Vale of Pickering, but only one has lots of sea urchin spines. If you find these, you are in the Upper Jurassic Coral Rag.
#FossilFriday
It felt like the Ice Age this week in Yorkshire!
Most Ice Age fossils from the region are actually from the warmer interglacial periods, so we don't find many of the iconic animals like mammoths here.
This beautiful fossil is one of the few Yorkshire mammoths!
#FossilFriday
2024 was a very busy year!
Here are a few highlights:
🐚 Becky's talk about ichthyosaurs at Whitby Museum - which naturally progressed into the galleries to look at the specimens in person!
🐚 The 10th Yorkshire Fossil Festival was the best yet! (despite the wind and our tent leaking)
