Mr Wood's Fossils

Evening Redness in the West

2012-01-23T16:39:00.000Z

Tucson time again. I leave tomorrow for around two weeks, and the shop will be in capable hands. Though Riley is due to begin an archaeological contract in Turkey soon, he postponed his departure until I return from the States, so he'll be covering the majority of the time I'm away. From then, Kristen will be taking over the regular Saturday position. She'll have her first full day on Wednesday this week, and I'm sure she'll be great.

Normally, I'll have a few days in New York with friends before reaching Arizona, but this time I'm meeting them afterwards in New Orleans. Very much looking forward to that part, but it does mean I'll have to get over my jet-lag while I'm getting through the most important part of the trip. Usually, as soon as I've dumped my bags at the hotel I'm off to see the guys I buy my Green River fish from. I'm always worried I'll be beaten to the bulk of the better material by someone who gets there a little earlier, so it's a relief once that bit's over. Next is usually onto the Utah trilobites, for similar reasons. It's difficult to know exactly how to time the trip. Arrive too soon and there will be few dealers set up - you can end twiddling your thumbs a little. Too late and the prime stuff has gone. Wait until near the end and you can get some good bargains as dealers don't want to lug all their unsold rocks home again and would rather dump them for anything approaching a reasonable sum. Bargains are great, obviously, but I'm more concerned with quality.

This will be my 12th Tucson trip, I think, and it's fairly routine by now, but it's always good to see everyone. Friends from all over the world come together for a couple of weeks, and the social side of it is by far the most appealing. And the sun. The sun is good, too.

Space rock talk

2012-01-12T11:51:00.000Z

Every year, the The Royal Society awards the Michael Faraday Prize to someone they feel has contributed a significant amount to society's understanding of science. For the communication of often complicated concepts in simplified and comprehensible terms. Making it so that even I can understand it, is what I'm getting at... Anyway. Winners are asked to give a lecture in January. The prize was awarded to Colin Pillinger in 2011, and he gives his lecture today. It's being broadcast live from 5.30pm, but will be available to watch in the Royal Society archives in a couple of days.

Colin Pillinger lead the Beagle 2 project to send an exploration vehicle to Mars. It didn't work. That's not unusual for Mars missions, though; it's a very long way away, after all. The idea, and it was a noble one, was to search for signs of life. So basically, Colin Pillinger is a Martian hunter - reason enough to listen to his lecture today. He's had an interesting career and his contribution to the promotion and popularisation of science is undeniable, so he's a very worthy winner.

All in a lava

2012-01-10T15:16:00.000Z

The extinction event at the end of the Permian is known as The Great Dying. Sounds sad, doesn't it? It is - lots of things died. If the saying about tragedy plus distance making comedy is true, it ought to be really funny, given it happened around 252 million years ago. It's not, though. In the sea, 96% of species went down the plughole, while 70% of land-based vertebrate creatures became even more land-based. In the space of about 200,000 years an estimated 83% of all the planet's genera were gone.

As with many such situations, working out exactly what happened is a long, on-going process but there is plenty evidence to suggest that a main cause may have been an enormous bout of volcanic activity. The Siberian Traps are a massive span of flood basalts, which were spewed out over a long period of time and covered up to 2 million square kilometers, or more, depending on your sources. This happened immediately before and during the extinction event, and threw inordinate amounts of nasty stuff up into the air with predictably dire consequences. The reflection of solar light and heat, the greenhouse effect of the gases in the atmosphere on the ozone layer, huge CO2 levels causing climate change, acid rain caused by the sulphur and, well, everything just being so dirty. All of these things are essentially bad for anything just trying to get by. Disruption of photosynthesis leads to a domino effect on the food chain, and adverse environmental conditions for a protracted period led to extinction on a scale not seen before or since.

Whether the Traps on their own were enough to cause all the destruction is a matter for debate. Although the K-T event that snuffed out the dinosaurs is heavily associated with a meteorite impact, there was more going on at the time. The Deccan Traps in India, another huge volcanic series, are considered an important factor. Inevitable comparisons prompted the search for a corresponding meteorite for the Great Dying. So far, though, a suitable culprit has not been found and it's not likely signs of a crater would have survived this long in any recognisable state. It's possible, though, that a series of problems was triggered by the formation of the Traps which combined in effect to compound the difficulties life on Earth was facing. Methane released by the Siberian eruptions led to a severe episode of global warming, damaging enough in itself, but also subsequent oceanic anoxia as a dropping temperature differential prevented adequate circulation of oxygen within the waters. Chain reactions...

It's reassuring to place these occasions in the context of geological time. We're not likely to see volcanic activity on the scale of the Siberian or Deccan Traps. If we do, though, it'll be pretty bad news. Even panic buying rice and beans may not be enough to save us.

Missing Skull-Bones: Hidden Sea Dragon - A guest post by Jeff Liston.

2012-01-07T20:08:00.002Z

Missing Skull-Bones: Hidden Sea Dragon – the true story of the Speeton Clay ichthyosaur
or ‘Why really important specimens sometimes disappear for fifty years’.

This week, PLoS ONE published a paper which redrew the map as far as our understanding of ichthyosaur extinctions is concerned. The news headline ‘No major ichthyosaur extinction at the end of the Jurassic after all’ might best summarise the conclusions. Or (perhaps less accessibly) ‘Ophthalmosaurines alive and well and living in the Hauterivian of North Yorkshire’. But some might find it odd that the holotype featured was from a specimen collected over fifty years ago from near Scarborough: if this was so special, why did noone pick up on it before? Here is the answer – and sadly it is far from an atypical story.

The animal in question was found in the nineteen fifties by a group of postgrads at Hull University Geology Department. At weekends they would hop on a train and go look for fossils. This particular weekend in Spring 1958, they were fossil-hunting in the Speeton Clay (Lower Cretaceous), and found an ichthyosaur. Over succeeding weekends, they went back and recovered it, piece by piece, bringing it to Hull University, where it sat in their collections for some years, waiting for an ichthyosaur worker to look at it. Enter Robert Appleby, Britain’s premier ichthyosaur worker in the fifties, sixties and early seventies, who borrowed some of the material (mainly skull, with some representative vertebral centra), intending to include it in the Handbuch der Palaoherpetologie, for which he was to do the ichthyosaur volume.

Then things became a little complicated. Margaret Thatcher’s government initiated the Earth Sciences Review (see The Earth Sciences Review Twenty Years On) at the end of the nineteen eighties, with the aim of saving money by cutting geology departments. Despite Hull’s distinguished record as a department (and possibly due to a slightly biased assessment by a ‘hard rock’ worker from Oxford University), it was targeted for closure, and homes needed to be found for the collections housed by the department. By this stage, one of the 1958 postgrads – Keith Ingham – was Curator of Palaeontology at the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. He went back to Hull to pick up his research collections (he had become a world-renowned trilobite worker in the interim), and the Head of Department, John Neale, helped him recover his research material for transferral to the Hunterian. In the process, the fate of the Speeton Clay ichthyosaur was raised – was it just going to be thrown in a skip? - and John made it clear that Keith, as one of the discoverers, could transfer that specimen as well. Cue the ignominious transfer of an ichthyosaur to the back of a landrover, and a few hours later the specimen arrived in Glasgow.

Sadly, once there, it suffered from a similar problem to the one it had suffered in Hull: by the time I arrived at the Hunterian about 5 years later (in 1993), there had been no vertebrate specialists employed by the Museum for over eighty years, and the collection had fallen into some disarray. As I sorted through the collections over the next ten to fifteen years, it became clear that the Speeton Clay animal, as an extremely rare Early Cretaceous ichthyosaur, was off everyone’s radar, and needed to be catalogued, numbered, described and published before I left. Firstly, I had to recover the bones on loan to Robert Appleby – no mean feat, as he had retired from Cardiff University in the nineteen eighties to finish the Handbuch der Palaoherpetologie, and it was difficult to track down anyone who knew where he now was living. Some months of research later, I had a telephone number. “Are you finished with the material?” “Not quite yet – I would hope to be soon….” I took to phoning Robert every 6 months, to encourage him to finish with the material as soon as possible. Until one week in February 2004 when I phoned, to discover from his wife Valerie that he had died a few days earlier on the 8th.

Very soon after, I travelled down to recover the material that he had had on loan, and also received a request from Valerie to help with the posthumous publication of a variety of materials that Robert had been working on – most of which I am hoping to see enter publication this year. Within the 500+ page monograph that he had completed the first draft of only a couple of days before he died, was a description of the Speeton animal within a general taxonomic review of the genus Platypterygius. Having recovered the skull material on loan, and seeing how complete the specimen was, made me even more determined to see the specimen published – this was clearly something exceptional, which could easily get lost amongst the collections again. I could write it up myself, but I knew that with my knowledge of ichthyosaurs being restricted to one genus – Ophthalmosaurus – I was unlikely to do justice to the specimen, and needed an ichthyosaur worker (thin on the ground these days) to do the job for me. I started looking for a candidate, but in the meantime I gave the job of auditing the specimen to an Honours zoology student of mine, Jessica Tainsh. After she completed the initial listing of elements present, I got her to incorporate the specimen into an existing character data set, in case a useful cladistic analysis might be possible. One or two characters leapt straight out, that seemed to reinforce my impression that this was special – in particular a small peg-like structure on the basioccipital, a fairly rare character in ichthyosaurs. By this time, I had seen Valentin Fischer present on Early Cretaceous ichthyosaurs at the European Association of Vertebrate Palaeontologists meeting in Aix-en-Provence in June 2010, and I knew that this was the person to describe the Speeton Clay ichthyosaur, as he had the breadth to place it in overall context and really do the job properly. I began to hassle him – when was he coming to Glasgow to see the specimen? By the end of 2010, I knew that I was going to be leaving the Hunterian the following year, and increased the pressure on him, sending him Jessica’s Honours project report through, and making it clear that he was unlikely to get the access that he required after I had left the Hunterian (they were already overstretched, and unlikely to employ a palaeontologist after I had left). Eventually, he agreed to come in June 2011.

Valentin turned up at the Hunterian that week with his Apple laptop and expanding dataset – he had just finished a draft of a paper on an animal from Cremlingen, which a couple of ichthyosaur workers including Michael Maisch and Judith Pardo Pérez had also looked at with a view to writing up. Within twenty minutes of looking at the Speeton Clay specimen, he said “Jeff, I think this is the same animal as in Cremlingen”. With a ruthlessness that I am not entirely proud of, I asked him what he estimated the size of each animal to be – and he made clear that the German specimen was much smaller than the Speeton animal. I smiled sweetly at him (it’s possible) and said “Well, it is clear that the German animal cannot be the type specimen, as it might be a juvenile.” (The rationale is that characters that are juvenile might not be present in the adult form, so are not the safest for defining a taxon.) Valentin agreed – and that afternoon we started to look at possible names. There were a number of striking adaptations throughout the skeleton that appeared to operate together to make the axial skeleton quite inflexible – a very robust rear of the skull; a remarkably solid scapula; an undulating perimeter to the vertebral centra which I had naively interpreted as preservation distortion, was actually a beautiful ‘locking’ mechanism to restrict axial flexion – and the concept of the ‘rigid swimmer’ was born. In a nicely circular way, Keith Ingham (although retired from the Hunterian some ten years earlier) was very into the grammar and construction of fossil names, so he was my first port of call for suggestions as to how to translate the concept of ‘rigid swimmer’ into Greek. While Valentin continued to score the specimen for characters in his expanded dataset, and started looking at rewriting the description he had previously based on the German animal, we batted back and forth some name ideas, discarding some for phonetic reasons, others for ‘overuse’ by other taxa. After his week’s visit to the Hunterian was over, it was clear that the Speeton Clay animal would be written up as the holotype of the ‘rigid swimmer’, with the German specimen as secondary paratype material.

I then left the process to be steered primarily by Valentin and Darren Naish, who I knew were far better positioned to write an ichthyosaur paper than I, as I had a lot of work to finish before I finally left the Hunterian at the end of August 2011 – and thereafter I was on the road to a variety of conferences for some months, finishing up another couple of papers. This is my way of trying to excuse the fact that I did not review or correct the final copy of the paper, where it transposes the last three digits of the holotype (the specimen is GLAHM 132855, not 132588). Hey ho. But with over 4,100 views of the paper in the last 5 days, the specimen at least now no longer languishes in anonymity within the collections of the Hunterian, and has finally achieved the status and recognition that it has so long deserved.

Thanks, Valentin – again, really good job.

And bear in mind that this is the first of three phases of ichthyosaur work that Darren, Valentin and I are hoping to publish this year, partly derived from Robert Appleby’s unfinished works – optimistically under the ‘brand identity’ of ‘Ichthyosaur Revolution’. So stay tuned…..

Jeff Liston,
National Museums Scotland,
(also School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol),
Edinburgh,
SCOTLAND.

Upper image: GLAHM 132855, the Holotype of Acamptonectes densus. (Ribs omitted to preserve the sanity of the curator - because he would have had to lay them all out and put them away again afterwards.) Photograph © and many thanks to Iona Shepherd.
Lower image: Acamptonectes densus Fischer et al., 2012, as reconstructed by C. M. Kosemen (contact c.m.kosemen@gmail.com).

Sloppy journalism

2012-01-07T12:50:00.001Z

One of the hazards of posting quick and easy geological stories to the shop Facebook page with some glib comment attached is that I don't always put in an adequate level of background research. I got caught out yesterday linking to a BBC article about a bit of a breakthrough in ichthyosaur history which had been given a slightly misleading spin by the journalist.

The article, while a little cursory, focuses on the 2005 find from Braunschweig in Germany, missing the point that the source material, a paper published on PLoS ONE, based its findings far more heavily on the study of fossils found near Scarborough in 1958 and since. On this occasion, at least, I'm able to redress my sloppiness to some extent and allow one of the authors of the original paper to guest on the blog and either tell us a little more about the subject or give me a dressing down. In my defence, I don't pretend to be a proper scientist. I don't even own a white lab coat.

[Edit] Jeff will tell the story behind the paper. Now, I've never written a scientific article, because I don't know enough about anything and I'm lazy. Jeff, however, is a proper scientist so the blog post will be longer than usual and contain some technical terms such as 'basiocciput'. I find it best just to nod at those parts and carry on. Anyway. I'll get the final draft in a couple of days and post it.

Sluggish

2011-12-19T13:29:00.000Z

It's been a while since the last post. I'll put it down to the weather, but really it's a number of things. I've been busy, there haven't been any geological stories that have particularly prodded me to write about, and I'm struggling for motivation a little. Doing the Facebook page most days is good for keeping me up to date on relevant stories, but it's added to the list of things I should be doing and sometimes I begin to resent that list.

I'm awful at the mailing list, for example. I know that's supposed to be good business practice; building a mailing list and keeping your customers informed. But I've always felt these sort of things can be intrusive, and almost never sign up to such lists myself. I forget that (in most cases) people are actively subscribing and may actually want to learn of new stock. I think I've only sent out about 5 mails in four or five years. The last one was the other week and the first reply was nearly instantaneous - an email saying simply 'Unsubscribe. Cheers!'. Kind of demoralising. Clearly an email a year is just too much for some people. Wonder why they wrote their name in the book... That said, I did get a couple of sales from it, as well as a trade offer. At the moment, I'm getting an email every day from an online florists, despite never actively adding my name. Now it's easy enough to ignore these things and send them to the spam folder, but that level of frequency is annoying. I've tried to unsubscribe twice. No luck so far.

So there's that. What else? Hmm. Well, I had my first Tucson-related nightmare last week, which means it's coming closer. This was one I've had before - arriving at the room of my main Green River fish dealer to find it empty; everything sold. There are other dealers I buy fish from, but my reliance on a few particular dealers is pretty heavy, and the thought of not being able to buy the quality and quantity of fish I need does actually scare me a bit. Most things I'd be able to source similar quality and numbers some way or another, but there are a few lines that I need to get to before they've been picked over too much. It's a great concern in the preceding month or so: hence nightmares.

Another significant thing in the Mr Wood's world lately has been a staffing issue. Riley, who has been here for three years or so now, will be leaving for a job in Turkey in February and I've had to find a replacement. I've been incredibly lucky in recruitment so far and I think I've found someone to continue the run.

So. Bit of a scattergun post this time. Back to geological things next time, most likely.

Fade to blue

2011-11-23T15:26:00.000Z

I was wrapping up a nice Diplomystus for a customer when a woman asked to see a pendant in the cabinet. Riley had stopped in, so he opened the case and handed her the jewellery. I was still talking to the fish-buyer at this point, but could pick up the conversation in the background.

'So -what is this? It's a lovely colour.'
'It's a dyed turquoise from Arizona. They call it turtle turquoise.'
'Dyed? So does it fade?'
'Well, I don't think so.Um. You'd be be better asking Matt, there, I think.'
'This is dyed. Will it fade? What colour did it used to be?'
'We've had some of this material for a few years now, and I've not noticed any fading - it's not likely to fade any quicker than any other stone. It was most likely just very pale turquoise that they might not have had a market for. Quite a lot of the stuff sold as turquoise is really just dyed howlite. But it's pretty stuff, and dying it makes it of some use for jewellery. If you were to leave it out in bright sunlight for a while it might fade, I suppose, like many naturally coloured stones.'
'But will it? Why did they dye it? It's such a lovely colour - is that because of the dye?'
'...I think so. Yes, probably.'
'I'm going to get it. It's lovely. I just hope it's as nice in ten years time.'
'Me too.'

Meteorites and meteowrongs

2011-11-18T13:27:00.000Z

Most days, a meteorite will fall to Earth somewhere. Almost all of them are stone, with only a small percentage iron-nickel or stony-iron. It's hard to recognise a stony meteorite - with an iron one you can feel the unusual weight, cut it to see the metallic sheen inside, etch it for crystal pattern and so on. With a stony one, it usually just looks like a slightly shiny stone. And there are plenty of them lying around. I'm sure you've noticed. So how do you find a meteorite?

Short of one smashing a hole in your house or flattening your car, chances are you're not likely to come across one, but it's not impossible. It was once thought the chances of finding a meteorite were too low to bother, but one man made it his life's work to change that perception. In 1923 Harvey Nininger, a teacher, saw a fireball and became fascinated with meteorites. Eventually he quit his job to focus on hunting them, and he was offered space in Denver Museum, with his collection on display. He worked out a system. 'Go out and educate the people; tell the people what they're like, offer a bonus if they find any. And in a country where the land is farmed, they will turn these things up. And that's the way I made the collection.' In 1946, he founded the American Meteorite Museum near Winslow, Arizona, close to Meteor Crater. By this time he'd built up an enormous collection of material, and he began to push for the study of meteorites to be taken more seriously. The museum moved to Sedona after a new highway was built, and when business began to fall away, Nininger sold his collection to the British Museum and the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University. He was now in a position to spend more time hunting, so went back to his hobby while writing books and giving lectures on the subject. Science owes this man a great deal.

I frequently get people bringing me their 'meteorite' finds. So far there hasn't been a meteorite among them. Pyrite nodules quite often. Industrial slag. A piece of pottery. Some galena and a lot of... well... pebbles. But, you never know. There was a nice story earlier this month about a farmer who in 2006 had found a big lump of pallasite, spectacularly speckled with olivine. He cut a bit off, realised he had something special, and it ended up being recently designated a new find and given its own name - Conception Junction, after the town in Missouri where it was found. So there can be a happy ending.

By the light of the sun

2011-11-02T11:53:00.002Z

Vikings, as everybody knows, got around a bit. By sailing, largely. They are thought to have reached America, long before it was being called that, they made themselves busy round most of the European coastline and reached the Mediterranean, the Black and the Caspian Seas. They knew how to handle a boat.

This all took place before there were magnetic compasses to help them navigate, so it's all the more remarkable. I had a customer come into the shop last week looking for a piece of iolite, a blue-violet variety of cordierite. They wanted it because they knew it as Viking's Compass - apparently it had been used by Vikings to find the sun on overcast days. Iolite is pleochroic; the colour varies as you turn the stone in the light. This happens as light of different polarizations is bent to different degrees by the mineral structure as it passes through. I'd not heard of this use of the stone before, and also hadn't heard of an iolite source in Scandinavia. It's not a hugely rare stone, however, and I mentioned above, these were some well-travelled guys.

In the news today, though, is an article about a cleavage rhomb of Iceland Spar - or optical calcite, above right - found on an Elizabethan ship sunk in 1592. It looks like it had been used as a navigation aid in a manner similar to that mentioned above. This clear form of calcite has a set of recurring planes of weaknesses - cleavages - which cause it to break into distinct rhombic shapes. It's known for its birefringence, where light passing thought the rhomb will produce a double image. Another way to find the sun, by rotating the stone until the images are of the same intensity. This find, though dating to a few hundred years after the Vikings had calmed down somewhat, adds weight to the belief that they used some form of crystal to find the sun and, subsequently, their direction. And it'd have been pretty easy for Vikings to get their hands on samples of Iceland spar. Somewhere or other.

Orange-Brown

2011-10-21T17:19:00.000+01:00

And finally...

It's been a long time coming, but here's the new shop front, more or less finished. Couple of tiny bits to touch up, but I'm happy with it. I may miss the fossil stencils a little.

Given the trouble it's taken to get this done, I'm not keen to ever go through the process again. I was thinking recently about - in the longer term - opening another shop. It would either be a fossil shop elsewhere or maybe a shop selling something else in Edinburgh. Fossils and minerals are what I know best, but the benefits of being able to spend time in the other place without hours of travelling means it's worth exploring new possibilities. Not something I'm going to do anything about in the near future anyway.

As the sign writer was working his magic (and he was impressively quick) I thought it'd be a nice touch to add a little extra. So I got him to put the date the business was established on the wall, too. I had to do a little checking to make sure of it, as I'd come across 1988 in a couple of Stan's old documents, but the shop was opened in June 1987. I even found a picture of a proud and beaming Stan at the launch event - it was from the Scotsman's archives, and available through SCRAN. I've bought the image for the shop, and will license it for use on the blog in time for next year's 25th anniversary.

On the map

2011-10-19T11:21:00.001+01:00

The Grassmarket is a great place. It's got a reputation as a bit of a drinking den, which may still be true to a lesser extent, but I think that does it a huge disservice. It's more than that, and always has been. It has an amazing history, some lovely architecture and - obviously - a proliferation of interesting, independent businesses. Its mix of little shops, cafes, restaurants and bars make a visit a very different experience to walking along a town high street or through a modern shopping mall. A bit of character, not a list of familiar brand names and logos.

Small businesses are by nature more susceptible to trying financial times - it can be difficult to weather lengthy downturns and there has often been a bit of swapping around in the area as shops close and new ones fill the gaps. While there are a few empty premises at the moment, things have been relatively stable of late and I believe the Grassmarket is beginning to see its status and profile climb a little.

Last week, The Guardian added Edinburgh to its popular City Guide feature in the online Travel section. For these, it selects ten businesses in a few categories, writes a brief review and marks them on a map. A linked accompanying article collates the reviews. Mr Wood's Fossils makes the list of Independent Shops, which made me very proud, but also included were three other Grassmarket traders - Hannah Zakari, Deadhead Comics and I.J. Mellis, the cheesemonger. Red Door Galleries made the Craft & Vintage section, The Grain Store is in Restaurants, Under The Stairs in Cocktail bars and The Last Drop in pubs. Transreal Fiction, my old neighbour, and Anaglogue Books have also been featured by the same newspaper in the past couple of weeks. Publicity like this - unpaid recognition on merit alone - is a fantastic boon for small businesses like these and hopefully will help build the Grassmarket's reputation as a place to spend a few hours browsing shops, having lunch or just wandering around.

Marked cards

2011-10-17T14:25:00.001+01:00

Every time I sell something - from a piece of dinosaur bone for 25p to a dinosaur egg at £640 - I write out a little label with the information to go with it. I don't know how many I've written in 13 years I've been here but it's likely to be in the gazillions. I'll bet I've written 'million years old' more than 99% of people in the world. Probably there's no award of any kind I can get for that. No world record. Never mind.

The labels are important though. For a number of reasons. Firstly it means something to me that people leave with a little bit of knowledge about what they've bought. Even if they aren't particularly interested after a couple of days, the name and locality will be there for them should they ever choose to look. Or if they want to impress their friends with the age of their meteorite or whatever.

Secondly, hand-writing the labels is a small but effective act of customer service. Almost everyone is pleased to have the details written down - sometimes they've already been jotting it down on a scrap of paper as they browse, or taken a picture of the label on their phone. The fact they're hand-written at the time of purchase, rather than pre-printed is also helpful, I think. It suits the unique nature of the fossils and minerals themselves, and reinforces the idea that these aren't mass-marketed, manufactured products, but something a little bit special. We're a small business and don't spend a great deal on advertising. Word of mouth is our most efficient method of getting known, so treating the customer well is essential. I want people to remember the shop for the right reasons.

Which leads me to the last role of the labels - they act as a form of background advertising in themselves. There are a ton of little orange cards out there, each with Mr Wood's Fossils written on them. And the address. And phone number. Anyone curious about the fossil can pick up the card to see what it is. They can also see exactly where it came from and how they might go about getting one of their own, should they feel inclined. So while it can be a pain to write out the tags for a pile of thirty mixed tumblestones... it's usually worth it.

Creep on creepin' on

2011-10-07T11:49:00.000+01:00

Last week, two young women are looking at the trilobites.

'Ooh, look at these eels! How weird.'
'Those aren't eels - they're some sort of fish.'

Most weeks I'll be asked what trilobites were. To reply you need to gauge exactly how interested people are in the answer. Some are more than happy to listen to your five minute spiel about one of the most interesting animals to have graced the planet. Most aren't, though, and some variation of 'kind of like a slater that lived in the sea' is what they're after.

For a beastie that's given so much to science, I reckon they're still flying under the radar a little. As I mentioned a few weeks back, Attenborough's First Life last year got them some publicity, and some ten years ago Richard Fortey's Trilobite was something of a popular science sensation. His engaging enthusiasm for trilobites made for an accessible and rewarding read for people with no geological background. For a few weeks, trilobites made the papers. I can see that they're a harder sell than dinosaurs. Not as immediately recognisable as the iconic spiral of the ammonite, or as dramatic as giant shark teeth. They may be destined to remain the creepy crawly of the fossil record (I once had a woman return one to the shop as she 'couldn't sleep with it in the house'), but trilobites deserve a little more love, I reckon.

A present

2011-09-26T22:11:00.001+01:00

A taxi pulled up outside the shop today, and the driver got out. He came in and I recognised him from last week, when he'd found a couple of minerals he'd been looking for. I can't remember exactly what. I think maybe aquamarine and something else.

'Hi. Just wanted to say I was delighted with the crystals I got here the other day, and I brought you this.'
He put down a bottle of blackcurrant Lucozade.
'Oh. Thanks very much!'
'You're welcome. Bye!'
'Bye.'

Magic.

Dinner with the Denisovans

2011-09-23T16:33:00.000+01:00

And maybe a little more than dinner in a few cases.

I linked a couple of news stories to the Mr Wood's Fossils Facebook page today which are about the movement of humans across the globe. One was about how DNA studies shed a little light on how aboriginal Australians made their way there, and when. The other was a little more general, and concerned the gradual population of Asia with Homo sapiens.

When we humans spread ourselves around, it was eventually at the expense of our closest relatives. Neanderthal is the most famous non-human hominin to have been been out-competed to extinction, but let's not forget old Uncle erectus and Auntie Denisova. Who? Not much is known of the Denisovans. In fact, only a bit of finger bone and a tooth. It's thought they were part of a migration from Africa between that of the Homo erectus and modern humans, and the mitochondrial DNA results of the bone analysis suggest a common ancestor with both the Neanderthal and us at about 1 million years ago, then with the Neanderthals alone at a later date. So - once split, the Denisovans toddled off across Asia and made themselves at home.We know they lived in the Altai Mountains of Siberia around 40,000 years ago - that's where/when the fossils are from - but they probably were reasonably widespread.

They would have lived alongside both Neanderthals and humans, and those first groups of humans that passed through Asia on their way to Indonesia, Australia and points Antipodean show a higher percentage of shared DNA with the Denisovan line than those that came along later. Some level of interbreeding went on with the locals as these migrations passed through.

Anyway - just a little more to add to the storyline. There are a few sites that illustrate the human migration pretty well, though keeping these up to date must be a constant task. Have a look at these - The Bradshaw Foundation's Journey of Mankind, and the Genographic Project's Atlas of the Human Journey. It's far easier to understand when there's a map and a big arrow, I think.

Clash of the titans

2011-09-14T13:49:00.001+01:00

Planet Dinosaur kicks off on BBC1 at 8.30 tonight with a battle between two stars of the commercial dinosaur world. Carcharodontosaurus saharicus and Spinosaurus aegyptiacus were both busy terrifying what's now Northern Africa around the middle of the Cretaceous Period. They were huge animals. Enormous. With big teeth and claws. Which are readily available for sale! They are well represented in the remains found in the Kem Kem region around Taouz, Morocco, one of the biggest and most productive dinosaur sites ever found. Before material started coming out of there in quantity, the only dinosaur teeth relatively easy to buy were from a couple of US sites and they were far more expensive. The Kem Kem teeth are so plentiful they have allowed dinosaur fossils to be sold at prices affordable to children with a little pocket money. The better examples are, of course, more costly, but a dinosaur tooth is still a dinosaur tooth. The possession of real fossils can strengthen a passion for the subject and instill desire for further learning; create a depth of respect for history that doesn't always come from pictures in a book.

Spinosaurus has seen a fairly rapid rise in fame. When I was a kid, the dinosaur hall-of-fame included Tyrannosaurus rex, the undisputed king, Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, Triceratops and the sadly-missed Brontosaurus. Today's crop of dinosaur superstars has to have Velociraptor and Spinosaurus in there, too, thanks to the Jurassic Park factor. There's no disputing the effect a blockbuster movie or big-budget tv series can have. Amber sales are still influenced by the first of the Jurassic Park films, and Attenborough's programs on early life shown late last year sparked a noticeable run on trilobites for months after. Good for business, of course, and I'm looking forward to the day when a fossil sea urchin gets to the last round of X Factor. Probably never happen. Anyway. I hope Planet Dinosaur meets expectations; Spino vs Carch is a brilliant way to open.

Bear bones

2011-09-09T13:50:00.000+01:00

After a few years without, I've finally got a few cave bear paws in stock. The price went a little crazy, and I'm not sure I'll be able to buy them again unless a new find is made. Not unlikely, but just a case of wait-and-see. I came very close to buying a complete cave bear skeleton a while ago, but chickened out thinking I'd not have the space to display it. Wish I had now, as the price has trebled since. At this point, as some seem to get disproportionally upset by this, I should point out that these paws are from Ursus uralensis, which is not the true cave bear, but rather more similar to a modern grizzly. They still spent long enough in caves to fall down big holes and pile up in great numbers, though, so I'm not particularly bothered with the distinction. Fact is that cave bears were so named because most of their fossils were found in caves, so it was assumed that's where they spent most of the time. The same assumption can easily be made for uralensis, though they were clearly different animals.

Proper cave bears - Ursus spelaeus - lived all across Europe until a little over 27,000 years ago at the onset of the peak of the last ice age. Possible reduction in available foods and likely competition for shelter with humans are thought to be responsible for their demise. They looked like large brown bears, but had slightly wider skulls and heavier limbs. Their dentition was slightly different, too, and it's thought their diet was more vegetarian than that of brown bears.

The Carpathian Mountains have proved a huge source of cave bear remains, with sites in Romania and Slovakia being particularly rich. We had a cave bear skull once, which sold for a good bit less than it'd cost to replace now. Teeth are reasonably easy to keep in stock, and are good sellers, while claws are harder to come by and don't sell as well. We even had a baculum once, I remember. I had to make an extra little sign to sit beside it, saying 'Yes, really.' Baculum are penis bones, which almost all mammals have, to some extent. Not humans, as you may have noticed. I've linked the word above to the Wiki entry, to save you googling 'penis bone'. I'd advise against that. Walrus baculum, known in Alaska as oosik, can be two feet long, and were used as clubs. What a way to go.

Amber - caution

2011-09-02T14:23:00.000+01:00

The other day a woman approached Riley and said she was looking to replace an amber pendant she'd had when she was young. It had been very dear to her and had been lost. Might we have anything similar? Riley got out the bag of amber pendants we have before asking her to describe it. It had a seahorse in it, the woman explained.

'Ah', said Riley. Sadly he couldn't find a pendant that matched the one she lost. If seahorses were ever arboreal it was for a very short period in their evolutionary history. They just weren't cut out for climbing.

Fake amber isn't uncommon. Commercial amber is usually from one of three sources - the Baltic Sea, the Dominican Republic and the Chiapas Hills in Mexico. There are plenty of other places amber's found, but not in such quantities, and not of such quality. Amber is, of course, fossilised tree resin - in the case of the Dominican stuff, it's mostly from the hymenaea tree. In Baltic examples it's from pine or eucalyptus trees. I've seen insects 'planted' in reconstituted amber, and in plastic, and very often if it looks too good to be true, it possibly is... For something to become trapped in tree sap it has to be somewhere near a tree. If your prized piece of amber contains a seahorse, or a strawberry, or a digital watch, you should be suspicious.

There are ways to check for fakery, though. Ether or acetone (or paint thinner, or nail polish remover) will usually start to melt plastic but leave amber unharmed. Sticking a heated needle into the piece will give off a tell-tale smell. Amber gives off a pine sap smell (perhaps unsurprisingly) while plastic will give of the smell of burnt plastic. You knew that. Amber can be scratched by a coin, where most of the plastics used are a little harder. All of these are a little destructive. I'd expect were you to blow up pieces of plastic and amber with the same amount of gunpower, the fragments of plastic would fly further, but it's not really a test you'd want to put your amber through. Alternatively, you can putting your piece in some salt water. Amber should float. Or try a UV lamp - amber fluoresces as shown in this video.

Lastly, some sell copal as amber. This may simply through ignorance, however, and isn't really on the same level of deceit as bugs in plastic, if it can be called deceit at all. Copal is basically young amber - still resin from trees - and can be found containing insects in Madagascar, Bolivia, Colombia and a few other sites. These places produce material ranging in age from around 100,000 to 500,000 years old, where most amber is 25 million years old and more. Copal isn't as hard as amber, so doesn't work as well for jewellery. It tends to be paler in colour, too.

Frustration

2011-08-17T17:11:00.002+01:00

If I wrote a blog entry today, it would be a long and tiresome rant. So I'll spare you.

Approaching signal orange

2011-08-11T13:57:00.000+01:00

After a little more hoop-jumping the listed building consent application has been submitted, amended and appended. I had to provide a scale elevation showing the proposed colour and new signage. That's it over to the right. Now the plans are posted for three weeks to allow any objections to come in, and I have been assigned an application agent. Or whatever the role is called. Anyway. I'm told the application is to be a 'Fast Track Decision'. This was in bold on the letter, too. Which means I may expect a determination on the application by the 30th of September. Imagine my excitement. Within two months I might be allowed to paint my shop back to the colour it used to be.

Having asked around, I've found it's unusual for people to check before painting their properties. I've found out why, since..

Dog's life

2011-08-09T13:43:00.001+01:00

A skull found in Siberia looks like adding to the story of the dog. Dogs are descended from the grey wolf, but when and where it first began is still a developing story. The new find dates to around 33,000 years ago, and the shorter, broader muzzle resembles those of early dogs while the teeth are those of a wolf. Previously the earliest signs of domestication were about 15,000 years ago, so this pushes the date back hugely.

Once tamed, the gradual change to separate breeds - all dogs are the same species, Canis lupus, with the subspecies familiaris - happens in two ways. Initially there's an adaptation to the animal's environment. This leads to landraces - body forms, colouration, behavioural traits and so on that become a set of distinguishing features particular to a group of a certain habitat. Then there's the human intervention - selective breeding for purpose, temperament or latterly for aesthetics. Which leads, eventually, to the strange idea that a Great Dane and a Chihuahua are exactly the same species. It lends strength to the argument of the genetic 'lumper', I think.

Most had put the origins in Eastern Asia due to the huge variety of breeds with roots there; the thinking being it will have taken longer to reach that level of diversity. Even that's not clear cut. The most primitive breeds (closest to the wolf) are from Asia (Husky, Samoyed) but interestingly another of the oldest breeds, the Basenji, comes from Africa. It isn't descended from the hunting dog, or jackal, though; it's still from the same line. Genetic mixing within world breeds seems evenly spread. So although we're sure about dogs coming from the grey wolf, we don't know exactly where those wolves were.

I'd be very surprised if canine domestication didn't start in many places at many times. The benefits or having a friendly wolf in your family/community are clear. You have a bit of help hunting, an alarm system, something to keep your feet warm. The tendency to report the earliest find as being the first incident of something is a bit of a problem. It's the first known, but to make it sound like it's the actual first is opening a can of worms that will need dealing with later. I don't remember ever having seen canned worms for sale. I suppose the market was pretty much killed when that phrase got popular. I seem to have strayed somewhat, so I'll stop.

Welcome back

2011-07-29T16:18:00.000+01:00

The National Museum of Scotland re-opened today after a three year, £47M refurbishment. At 9.15am they pulled back the tarpaulin from a big animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex, which mucked about for a little while, aided by a few explorers in pith helmets. There was quite a crowd. Then there was a bit of drumming and some marching. I'd left by then.

Not because I didn't want to go in, but because I had to open up the shop. I'm a professional. My partner went to a preview night on Wednesday and was impressed, so I'm looking forward to getting in and having a proper look round. I've missed it while it was closed - it's always been one of my favourite places. The cavernous main hall, with its fish ponds and pillars was always amazingly relaxing considering it was often very busy.

There has been a gradual move in museums away from piling everything they have into cabinets and putting a huge list of numbered labels somewhere near the bottom. Nowadays the idea is to have far fewer objects and use the story of the item to flesh out a historical or scientific theme. As an educational approach it's far more engaging, and for those that miss the 'more is more' technique there has been a simultaneous trend towards open storage policies. Meaning you can have access to what's kept in the collections behind the scenes, to varying extent from museum to museum of course. Some have huge racking systems that can be pulled out, allowing a visitor to view rows of stuffed starlings, lines of antique china plates, or trays of Roman coins. And so on.

For an old fashioned, everything on the wall, cabinet of curiosities museum, try Oxford University's Pitt-Rivers Museum. It's a great place, that has deliberately kept its traditional style. Meantime - get yourself to Chambers Street to see the T. rex skeleton.

Red tape

2011-07-20T10:57:00.002+01:00

Okay, so not so soon, it seems. I've entered the horrendously bureaucratic world of listed buildings. The shop is part of a C(S) listed building, so I have to make a proper application. This will take six weeks, minimum. I need to give them the proper paint number, which I don't yet know. I need to give them a photo of the shop, which it seems I can't do by email as the file is 3Mb. I have to supply a site plan, but don't know exactly what is required, even though I asked. I did point out that they have the address, and that they could just look at Google street view, but that's not allowed.

I tried to register online so I could eventually submit my application, but the link didn't work. Another two phone calls and I've found another way to register and am in the middle of that process now. Once the application is in, I will get a visit from someone to have a look at the place and check I'm not planning to demolish the building with a jackhammer. Then there will be a three week period where signs are posted telling people the proposed change and allowing them to object. All to paint the shop back to the colour it was a few years ago.

Fun, fun, fun.

Colours

2011-07-20T09:56:00.001+01:00

I'm currently trying to get the front of the shop tidied up. It's looking a little sorry these days. I should have started the process a little earlier so it was ready for the festival, but that would have needed some level of organisation and foresight.

I've spoken to a company about a new sign for above the window. The old one was painted years and years ago in a highly stylised font, which is barely legible from even a short distance away. The new one will use the new(ish) logo and be visible from the bottom of Victoria Street, the way most Grassmarket visitors approach the area. People will be able to see what the shop sells from across the road. I'm hoping that'll help a little.

I've left a message with the guys that painted it last time, some seven years ago. I presume they can come up with something like the dark, coppery orange I have in mind. In the meantime, though, I need to run the idea past the council to check it'll be okay. It should be, as there are currently two orange shops nearby, and the pub next door was a bright orange a few years ago. There is an official application you can use, which costs some money and involves paperwork, but I was told the normal procedure is to phone a planning officer to get the go-ahead or advice on what might need to be changed. I finally got hold of one yesterday, who thought it would be fine, but asked me to email the listed buildings department with images of the nearby orange shops and one of the current Mr Wood's front. That email got bounced by their firewall for being too large. I sent them separately and they all bounced as the destination inbox was full. I might post them coloured-in sketches instead. I don't know how long it'll be to get the official approval I'll need before the painters start and the sign can be put up, but it doesn't look like being early August now.

Soon, though, there will be a new-look Mr Wood's Fossils.

Knew it

2011-06-29T14:49:00.000+01:00

A woman is sitting beside a couple of amethyst geodes.

'Are these made in volcanoes?'
'Not directly, no, but there can be a link. The crystals of amethyst gradually grow into cavities in a rock, which can be sedimentary or igneous. Very often, though, the original cavities are related to volcanic activity - they can be bubbles of gas in lava flows. When the lava cools and hardens the pockets of gas are trapped. These little caves can then be filled with mineral growth as the material the crystals need to form and grow is washed through the rock with the movement of groundwater.'
'Ah. I knew it. Because they look like volcanoes, don't they?'

Show time

2011-06-17T12:36:00.000+01:00

I leave on Monday for the show in Sainte Marie aux Mines in Alsace. Work, you know. Let's leave aside the fact that it's a beautiful place surrounded by vineyards, wooded valleys and peaceful farmlands. That the Kronenbourg brewery is in nearby Strasbourg. And that I'm staying in a lodge on an organic apple orchard with a group of friends. With a big barbecue area. Leaving all of that aside - this is a work trip.

On the list for this trip are lumps of North Sea mammoth, French ammonites, German urchins, Belgian brachiopods, Russian meteorites, Brazilian agates, Peruvian clams and Moroccan trilobites. Although it's a far smaller show than Tucson, people do travel from far and wide to sell there. I wonder if part of that is just because it's an amazing place to spend a little time. Remember - I do this so you don't have to. I know, I know. You're welcome.

Is there anybody out there?

2011-06-10T16:20:00.000+01:00

Different meteorites contain different stuff. Not a revelation, and I've probably mentioned this before. Most that are found are iron, but most that fall are stony meteorites - chondrites. There are a wide range of chondrites, but possibly the most important ones, for a very specific reason, are the carbonaceous ones.

Carbonaceous chondrites have organic content - and again there is quite a range. They are not common, and the challenge is to find as wide a range as possible - to try to form as complete a picture as possible. This will then provide a fair estimation of the 'starting point' of organic matter at the time the solar system, and Earth, were formed some 4.55 billion years ago. A line of thinking being researched now is common-source hypothesis, which suggests almost all organics are derived from a single source and that the early diversity stems from exposure to hydrothermal activity in their host bodies.

One of the biggest questions science faces is the origin of life. Evolution provides a comprehensive answer to the diversity and complexity of life, but so far the very beginnings are still to be revealed. It's a hot topic and there are many hypotheses currently being explored, but one that has come to prominence in recent years has been the idea that life, or at least the means to it, came to Earth from space. Not in a shiny silver rocket or flying saucer, but by way of a meteorite. This possibility is looking increasingly likely.

It follows that if the vast majority of organics in our solar system come from a solitary source that was being spread at the time of formation, the other planets were likely to have received their share. And, further to that, had the common source been outwith the system to begin with, surely the same material would be more widespread than just our solar system; would probably be elsewhere. Out there. Quick! To Area 51! Or whatever it is.

Mr Wood

2011-06-03T11:46:00.003+01:00

A guy walking past as I put the sign out the other day suggested changing the shop's name to Mr Stone's Fossils. A few friends asked when I bought the business whether it would become Mr Dale's Fossils. But it's not a name pulled from the air - there is a Mr Wood, and he set up the business in the first place. They really were Mr Wood's fossils.

Stan Wood was in the merchant navy. He sold insurance. And then he found a fossil, whilst walking his dog, and fossils took over his life. Something about his find sparked his interest and he quickly learned more on the subject. Stan has a vital thing for fossil hunters - the eye. Where others see rocks, he sees fish. It didn't take Stan long to become an expert in the obscure fauna of Scotland's Palaeozoic, and he worked with Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum and others to provide scientifically important material for study. During this time he discovered the famous Lizzie - Westlothiana lizziae - and the shop's logo, the stethacanthid shark Akmonistion zangerli, as well as a host of other rare and wonderful animals. Stan has not only featured in a series by that hero of natural history, David Attenborough - Lost Worlds and Vanished Lives - but was also the subject of his own BBC documentary, Stan, Stan, the Fossil Man. He has a string of creatures named after him and a discovery record to match any. As fossil hunters go, he's a celebrity. And he's still going, wading through the rivers of The Borders to find material that will soon be on display in a special exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland, before touring the country.

It's a name to be proud of, so it's always going to be Mr Wood's Fossils.

Shaken and stirred

2011-05-27T15:13:00.001+01:00

On April the 6th, 2009, there was an earthquake which killed 309 people in L'Aquila, Italy. Thousands of people were made homeless and a national disaster was declared. Two years later, though, there are still some after-effects being felt. Legal, not geological.

Increased seismic activity in the area had prompted the setting up of a committee to assess the threat posed. The group felt that while the main fault was clearly active, the consistent series of smaller movements they had experienced was ensuring energy was being released and that, consequently, the chances of a larger scale quake were lessened. Their findings were summarised and communicated to the public by a non-geologist from the group, a government official from the Civil Protection Agency. He felt the geologists had been relatively positive and gave the opinion that the threat of a major earthquake wasn't too serious.

And then...

Currently, six seismologists from that committee are to face trial for manslaughter alongside the government official. Apparently they are being prosecuted because the report offered 'incomplete, imprecise and contradictory public information.' For being wrong. Because they had falsely assured the public. Firstly are we to assume 'the public' will have taken this report as a cast-iron promise nothing bad would happen? I doubt that. Let's also leave aside the fact that some of the geologists feel their discussions had been misrepresented - that may be legal positioning in advance of the blame game ahead. Predicting earthquakes - while aided now by far more technology and understanding than ever before - is still a very, very difficult job. Even coming reasonably close to accuracy is mightily impressive, given the number of factors at play. So can these guys be blamed? Be given ten year prison sentences for not being able to predict natural phenomena? To me, that seems far beyond harsh. It's looking for someone to blame.

The logistical and financial nightmare of evacuating a city means it rarely happens. Lost trade, the risk of crime, moving the elderly and sick, etc, etc. There have been occasions when seismologists have been advised to play down potential risks to avoid widespread panic, too. Then where would the blame lie? Who would carry the can? If this prosecution goes ahead, surely there will be far fewer seismologists willing to offer risk assessment short of advising everyone to run at the first sign of a tremor. You could employ anyone to wave their arms about and scream, you don't need a seismologist for that. This is stupid and may have serious repercussions.

Shapes

2011-05-26T22:11:00.000+01:00

Today I was supposed to leave a little early so Kate could get to her book group. I got the grille up, the sign in and half of the storm doors closed. As usual in these situations, someone came in.

'Hi, the museum sent me down here, because they were too busy.'
'Oh, right. Okay.'
'Here, look.' He pulls a stone from his pocket and hands it to me.
'Look - here - a face. With one of those... you know. Like this.' He gestures.
'A ruff?'
'Yeah. And a big collar, look.'
'Mm.'
'And here is another face, a bit smaller, in this shape... here. You can see it better if you wet it a bit. See?.'
'Okay.'
'Look on the back. It looks like a number.'
'I don't... I can't... really see what you mean. I think it's igneous. A volcanic rock. You don't get... fossils in igneous rocks, though.'
'Do you not see what I see?'
'No. No, not really. Sorry.'
'I have another. Here, look at this.'
'Well this one looks like a piece of ironstone nodule I think.'
'Not a meteorite, you don't think?'
No. Sorry. Look, I really have to close up now. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.'
'Ok, no problem. It's just the museum folk sent me down here. Too busy.'

Star born

2011-05-20T15:47:00.000+01:00

There are over 4,500 named minerals on Earth. There will be plenty more found and named, too, unless the latest bunch of Rapture people are right about tomorrow and things all go pear-shaped. There haven't always been this many, though. At the moment it's thought that when the planet was formed there were only around sixty minerals. Discovering a new mineral must be quite a thrill - I met a guy once who had been named as official discoverer of a few, though I can't remember the names. A couple have been found recently that date right back to the origins of the solar system. Krotite and Wassonite were both found by careful study of meteorite sections.

Krotite was found in a meteorite from North Africa and contains a substance that can only form under conditions of temperature and pressure that match the creation of our solar system 4.55-4.6 billion years ago. Further study of the mineral might help scientists understand more about how minerals originally formed from the collapsing molecular cloud during that time. As the nebula cooled particles of matter began to group together and minerals were precipitated. Those minerals that form at the highest temperatures would obviously have formed earliest, and krotite would have been amongst the first.

Wassonite was discovered in an Antarctic meteorite which had been found some 42 years ago. The crystals of the mineral were too small to be seen until recent technology - the Bond-villain-esque ion beam - allowed a proper analysis. Wassonite is titanium sulphide. And really, really tiny.

As technology develops mineralogists will be able to find more and more minerals in meteorites. Meteorites are pretty tremendous in themselves, just for being a rock that's fallen out of space, but when you think of them as some of the first solids to have formed at the formation of our solar system, they gain a little something. Respect your elders.

Old school malware

2011-05-10T22:36:00.000+01:00

Phone rings.

'Good afternoon, Mr Wood's Fossils.'
'Hello, can I speak to Matt Dale, please?'
'Speaking.'
'Hello Mr Dale. Are you in charge of the company's computers?'
'Um. Yes'.
'I'm calling from the Computer Maintenance Department.'
'The what? Computer Maintenance Department of what?'
'Of Microsoft. Do you use Microsoft Windows?'
'Yes.'
'We are calling because your warranty has expired, which is why we have been receiving error messages in our department.'
'Which warranty? I haven't been getting any error messages. My computer's fine. What are you talking about?'
'Your software's warranty has expired, leaving your computer open to virus infection. We have been receiving error...'
'My software's warranty. Right. Well, I haven't had any error messages, and I have anti-virus. Everything's fine. Thanks for being so worried. Got to go now. Bye.'

Hang up.

Cut glass

2011-05-06T14:29:00.000+01:00

Obsidian is a volcanic glass made when lava cools very rapidly. It happens too quickly for a distinct structure to form and when fractured, the edges can be just over a molecule thick. Which makes for a pretty sharp edge. Unsurprisingly, then, it's perhaps best known for its use in prehistoric times as a source of arrowheads, cutting blades and the like. Less well known is that obsidian is used to make surgical scalpel blades now, as they produce a narrower cut than a conventional steel blade and result in less scarring.

Most obsidian looks black at first glance, but on closer inspection it is usually translucent if thin enough and dark brown, grey or even greenish in colour. Above left is a polished piece of rainbow obsidian. Layers of tiny bubbles arranged along flow layers create a colourful iridescent effect. There are other well-known forms called mahogany, where high concentrations of iron makes a red/brown pattern throughout, and snowflake obsidian, which has clusters of white cristobalite.

Apache tears (shown right) are little blobs of obsidian found near Superior, Arizona. They are found surrounded by grey/white perlite, which is a hydrated form of obsidian. These little pebbles have a folk story of their own. In the 1870s, a group of US cavalry and volunteers set out to attack a band of Pinal Apaches, prompted by repeated cattle raids on a nearby settlement. The Apache, seventy five strong, were attacked at Big Pacacho and most of their number were killed in the initial gunfight. The remaining warriors, rather than submit to the cavalry, committed suicide, riding their horses over the cliff to their deaths. The tears of their families, on falling to the white sands surrounding the base of the cliffs, were turned to stone by the creator, Ussen, to mark the memory of the fallen Apaches.

Certified

2011-04-29T16:25:00.000+01:00

Riley found this image on the net the other day. Sadly it was without context. Would be nice to know how extensive the publication is; whether it goes on to explain why it thinks the planet is only thousands of years old.

I get asked about the dating of fossils frequently, and it's a logical question. How do we know? People ask if they get a certificate of authenticity with their fossil and I have to explain that there is no world authority on everything fossily that supplies a thumbs-up sticker with every sale. With all sales in the shop the customer takes away a label with the basic details. Age, locality, name, etc. The fossils I sell do come with tags on them that tell us how old they are. There's a degree of trust involved here. The label I write then becomes a de facto certificate. It legitimizes the fossil somehow, and I sometimes feel a bit guilty about that. Why should people suddenly take what I write on a card as truth? I do not work out the ages myself. I don't do the tests personally. However - I have an understanding of how the dating processes work, and I know that the tests are repeatable, empirical, objective. Facts are objective. Truth is subjective. I feel comfortable that I'm passing on the best information I have when I sell something - it's important to me that I get as much right as I can. It's very much in the interests of the wholesalers to know as much about their stock as possible, and most do. When they provide detailed information, I'm happy with that. When there is some doubt or missing data, I'll try to look into it; try to find out more by spending a little time on the internet reading about the fossil or the site it came from. It's as 'true' as it can be.

Which takes me back to the original question - why believe the ages involved? My answer is - why not? For a long time I had a regular visitor to the shop who would ask me about my lack of religious belief and he told me he didn't believe the age of the Earth was 4.55 billion years old. He said that just 'felt wrong'. That he couldn't really comprehend that scale of time and that the biblically derived estimations of age as a few thousands of years were far more likely. In reply I'd tell him I didn't think that was justification enough to disregard the scientific view and embrace one based on far more dubious principles. The calculations involved, I mean. To get to be a scientist working in a specialised field takes years of study and a deep understanding of their subject. Why would I not put more store in what they say about that topic than someone who knows nothing about it? I'd far rather put my trust in tried and tested scientific processes than take the religious line without asking why. How can blind faith be regarded as more worthy than reason and critical thinking?

Where it all went wrong

2011-04-20T13:05:00.001+01:00

I need a healing stone.
What sort of stone - do you know the name?
A healing stone - so my friend can take the next step.
Well I can give you this book to look through and you can...
Nah, nah, I don't need that. I'll just look... right - there it is. No, dinnae wrap it up, just give us it here.
You don't want to know what it is?
It's £3.50.
But a label with the name, I mean?
Nah, nah. Nae disrespect man, but that's where it all went wrong.
Where did it all go wrong?
Naming things.

Time of our lives

2011-04-19T10:46:00.000+01:00

Our planet is about 4.55 billion years old. Billion. That's four and a half thousand million, or 4,550,000,000. That's a really long time. We humans have only been around for a couple of hundred thousand years as we are now. We've really only been aware of these things for a relatively short time.

You've heard the metaphors before - if the history of the Earth were a 24hr period, etc. This site lets you work out your own metaphor. An easy one being that if the planet's history were laid out as a metre, recorded human history would be the last .002174mm. We just haven't been around that long. It seems like it to us, but we haven't. Until recently we were more concerned with where our next meal was coming from than the bigger questions - why we're here, how we got here. Where are we going? Who's that crouching behind the bushes? We're not geared up for thinking in geological time - we've not had any need to and it remains largely beyond our comprehension.

So. Why am I dribbling on about time and human insignificance again? Well - earthquakes have been in the news a great deal of late. Horribly tragic headlines from a number of countries. It seems to us, amidst the turmoil and disaster, that there have been an unusual number of big quakes in a short period of time, and the natural reaction is to look for a reason behind this. Is there a pattern? Where is it leading? We know a lot more about what causes earthquakes now, and roughly where they are more likely to occur. We can even have a stab at predicting events based on gaseous emissions, small tremors and so on, and seismologists are getting better at it. But as for discerning a pattern within a broader setting, that's just not possible. We view things from our own understanding of time. Geological time is another thing altogether, and current seismic happenings can only really be given their true context with proper hindsight. Not now, and not in the near future. Statistics based on so little information are next to meaningless, and there is no point scaring everyone with warnings of megaquakes, supervolcanoes, Godzilla attacks and so on. In the backs of our minds we know they can happen, but there's not much we can do about it. In a few billion years another galaxy will probably crash into ours, or the sun will turn into a red giant and eat us up. Gather ye roses.

Mother Earth

2011-04-14T17:32:00.002+01:00

This Saturday I'll have a stall at a pagan conference. A gathering of witches and druids and so on. It's the third year in a row and it's been enjoyable enough so far - I don't take a great deal on the day, but it costs very little to set up and I think I get a bit of business from it afterwards. I'm not a pagan. I'm very firmly atheist and don't hold any religion or spiritual belief in any great regard. On the whole they're a very friendly bunch - and I'd have to say I can understand the underpinning of spiritual belief with all things natural. Just seems more accessible to me than the more - what? - human-centred religions. An embracing of the natural world rather than some historic prophetic figure.

The world of science has a religion of its own, of sorts, and at its core it has some resemblance to many of the tenets of paganism. In the 60s, James Lovelock, an environmental scientist working for NASA on the possibility of life on Mars. developed an idea that became the Gaia Hypothesis. He worked on it through the 60s and 70s before publishing Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth in 1979. Gaia was the Greek goddess of the Earth. The Earth Mother: a central figure in many belief systems. The central idea of Gaia, very simply put, is that the planet is some sort of self-regulating entity, reacting to constantly changing conditions to maintain some sort of balanced environment suitable for life. A range of interpretations have emerged and broadly the hypothesis can be split into Hard and Soft Gaia, which in turn cover a spectrum of more specific definitions.

I don't have the time, the space or the ability to give an in-depth explanation of the full hypothesis. However - I'll give a brief summary a go.... Soft Gaia holds that most of the processes of life on Earth are connected and influence each other and their surrounding environment directly. That living beings have changed their habitat by their very presence. It's hard to deny there's some truth to this and science will always be learning more about how the natural world fits together and operates as it does. Soft Gaia does not claim the planet has an active part to play in this, though. Hard Gaia goes further, though again along a sliding scale of immersion. It suggests the Earth is more actively self-regulating, and to this way of thinking the extreme is a living entity in itself. Mother Earth watching out for herself, taking steps to redress damage inflicted by her wards. Within this, some believe that all life is intrinsically connected to the point of it all being part of one living whole, a being of beings. You can see how this begins to become quasi-religious.

The concept wasn't exactly universally embraced - Lovelock came in for a bit of stick from the scientific world. Nonetheless, it's stuck around and Lovelock has had a long and very successful career. He's a formidably bright guy, and has been an active environmental campaigner, turning to his hypothesis from time to time to reflect contemporary understanding of green issues. The increasing awareness of global climate change and the unfortunate effect humanity has had on pretty much everything around us has ensured Gaia has stayed firmly in the consciousness. Soft Gaia's highlighting of interconnectivity is a productive outcome - we have become better at anticipating the potential implications of actions we may have previously thought of in isolation.

To me, while a nice idea, Hard Gaia is almost a shrugging of responsibility; a dereliction of duty. Like most religions, I see it as a reassurance - someone, something is taking care of stuff. Taking care of us. It doesn't really matter what we do to the planet, because it can look after itself. I see the appeal, but we need to accept that there are consequences for what mess we humans make.

Wee things big

2011-04-08T12:04:00.000+01:00

I got a new toy - a USB microscope. It's not quite as effective as a proper microscope but it's fun to play around with, wasn't too expensive and is easy to use. Plug it into the computer, load a bit of software and muck around. I'm not entirely sure why I got it.

So now I need something to do with it. I think I might have a monthly competition on the Facebook page - name the mineral/fossil win a prize. Actually, monthly sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps annual.

When I stumbled into studying geology I was surprised at just how big a field it was. Maths, physics, chemistry, statistics, biology, etc. A large chunk of time was spent staring down a microscope at thin sections of minerals, learning to identify crystal shapes, growth patterns, associations and so on. I got there, eventually, but I never learned to love the microscope. Maybe that will change.

As you can see, I've had a play around with it now and these images are the results of two or three minutes fiddling. Haven't had to tinker with the images, though, and I'm pretty impressed with the quality given the price. Amber with bugs seemed the obvious choice and it looks like it's going to be quite useful for that alone.

Bring the hair

2011-03-31T13:38:00.000+01:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I want a mammoth. The Japanese team at Osaka's Kinki University made the news again this week. They hope to 'make' a mammoth within the next few years. They started the project a while ago, but had to abandon the work they had done on skin samples as they found the cell damage from ice was too advanced. Scientists at another Japanese university recently had success in cloning a mouse from frozen cells giving the Kinki team fresh hope. That aside, cloning techniques with other animals have advanced since then and the group hope a new find on their summer trip to Siberia will provide material in viable condition. Global warming has resulted in more mammoth finds in Siberia and the problem in finding one is mostly one of time and transportation.

The process involves the insertion of mammoth cells into elephant eggs with their own nucleus removed, to produce an embryo which is then implanted into an elephant to carry to birth. The optimism of the Kinki bunch is all very well, but significant problems lie ahead. Even if they find their material (and they may yet turn to previous finds in the hands of Russian academic bodies) and it's in decent shape, the percentage of prepared elephant eggs that turn out to be usable is still very low. While the numbers involved still make the project look like something of a long shot, it's a step along the way. I think at some point in the near future a mammoth will be born for the first time in nearly four thousand years.

There are some ethical considerations. Let's leave aside the negligibly weak 'playing god' argument and focus on the fuzzy little bundle of joy itself. If and when it's born, it'll be all alone. That's a fairly bleak thought, and brings to mind the footage of the last thylacine from the Australian zoo in the 30s. So if it's to be done, I think there should be more than one - and it's pretty safe to assume there will be. Having sunk so much time and effort into the campaign so far, it would be weird to stop at one, barring disaster. Another concern that has been raised is the spectre of commercialism. Is this being done for scientific or financial reasons? Let's be generous and say primarily the former, but it's unrealistic to discount the pull and potential of the latter. Make the most of it, I'd say - go the whole hog and make a Jurassic Park equivalent. Seems to be their ultimate intention, after looking into a bit more - Pleistocene Park. Mammoths and mastodons, woolly rhinos, cave bears, aurochs, smilodons, Irish elk - the works. Revenues can fund further research. And I get to see the hairy beasts.

Dinosaur mad, he is

2011-03-23T22:34:00.001Z

A slow March day. Maybe even summon up the energy to dust some stuff. Glance at the clock. 2.34.

Guy comes in, and up to the counter.
'You got any dinosaur stuff?'
'Yes - there are a few teeth to choose from - Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Triceratops... There's some eggshell, bone, coproli...'
(Interrupting) 'Any T.rex teeth? See, what it is... My boy, right, he loves dinosaurs. It's all dinosaurs at the moment. Dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs. T. rex is his favourite. Got any T. rex teeth?'
'No, afraid not. They're really expensive - I don't see very many and I couldn't afford to buy and sell them anyway. Have a look at these, though. Carcharodontosaurus were very similar to Tyrannosaurus in size and shape - they filled the same role in Northern Africa as T. rex in North America. Quite a range of prices - got some at £32 and the biggest is this one at £330. They look a lot like T. rex teeth.'
'Hmm. What about Velociraptor claws? Got any of those?'
'No, sorry. Claws are far, far more expensive than teeth. Dinosaurs grew and shed teeth constantly, so for every one dinosaur there could be thousands of teeth over its lifetime. The last claw I had was this size and £300 I think, but I haven't got one at the moment. There are plenty teeth to choose from though. I sell a lot of these Spinosaurus ones at £5 and £16.'
'He loves T. rex. Dinosaur mad, he is. Knows all the names and everything.'
'Well what about a bit of dinosaur eggshell?'
'What are these things? Snails?'
'They're ammonites. Sort of like an octopus that lived in a spiral shell.'
'I'll take one of these. And one of those things, there.'
'That's a brachiopod.'
'And one of these, too, please. What's this?'
'An oyster.'
'Right.'
'That's £15, please. Thanks. Bye.'
'Bye.'

Glance at the clock. 2.41. Reach for the glass polish and the cloth.

Here comes the sea

2011-03-17T17:18:00.000Z

On the shelf at the back of the shop there are some Mesosaurus brasiliensis fossils. Mesosaurs were long-necked reptiles that lived in freshwater lakes in the Early Permian. Big deal? The important thing about mesosaurs is exactly where they were found. Finds of the same age in Southern Africa and Eastern South America were one of the first signs of continental drift and plate tectonics in general. They had been swimming in lakes which had formed in rift valleys as the supercontinent of Gondwanaland began to pull apart.

Plate tectonics has been big news of late, sadly, with earthquakes causing horrendous destruction and tens of thousands of deaths in Japan and New Zealand. It may not make the news all the time, but it is happening all the time. The Earth's surface is comprised of a group of plates which are moved around by the convection currents created in the molten rock of the core beneath them. The relationship between the plates is complicated but their constant movement has shaped the face of the planet - the atlas would look very different were it not for continental drift. Far more is known about the processes involved now than even a few decades ago. David Attenborough remembers a skeptical geology lecturer dismissing the idea when he was at university. There is still a lot to be learned about how the plates interact, though. A fuller understanding may help seismologists predict earthquakes over the longer term, so it's an area that deserves to see a lot of research.

Africa and South America parted ways some 200 million years ago, but in Eastern Africa a similar process is happening right now. The Rift Valley in Ethiopia is a depression caused by the pulling apart of the continental crust as - very slowly - a new ocean is formed. It's not like you need worry about having to buy a new map or anything; it's going to take quite some time. In geological terms, though, the separation is happening pretty quickly, and the volcanoes and earthquakes are a sign of what's happening not far below the surface.

Internet Business Database Company Online Directory

2011-03-11T20:28:00.000Z

Most of the calls I get are not people wanting to buy things, but people wanting to sell things. Advertising. Electricity. Phone line rental. Most weeks I will get a call from someone from a company with a name made up from a small group of words. Internet, business, online, directory, marketing, database, company, and pages.

I'm not the best at remembering company names, really, but I do tend to have a vague idea of adverts I've paid for through the year. The first time I got one of these calls I was a little confused. Who? Internet Business Database? Hmm. You're checking to see if I want to make any changes to my listing this year? At first there's no mention of any cost, so as the guy runs through his checklist of contact details and keywords I nod to myself, make the right noises. Then it comes to the part about how much I need to pay for this year's listing. Good news, though - they can offer me an extra six months free as I'm an existing customer. I'm worried that I don't remember becoming a customer in the first place and tell the guy I need to check first. I tell him to call me back another day as I have a customer.

I run back through the books for a year, two years. No mention of Internet Business Database. I haven't paid them anything. The guy never calls back, but a few weeks later - a call from Business Directory Online. Similar spiel. This time I'm suspicious, so I ask how long ago I took out the advert. A pause, then 'Eighteen months'. Okay. I know fine well this time that I didn't. How much did it cost me last time? '£120 plus VAT'. I tell him I don't remember ever dealing with his company and that I don't want to continue the listing in any case. His reply was something along the lines of 'Oh - sorry - must be some mistake in our system. Bye'.

In the case of bigger companies with larger advertising budgets and more staff, I'm sure it's easy to lose track of which ads have been taken out in the year and assume the call is genuine. These scams must be effective enough to be worth pursuing because the calls, with small variations in company name, brilliant offer and small details, are frequent now. The last time I cut him off straight away with 'Don't bother' and hung up. Next time I'm going to string them along, though. Ask them why I still haven't received payment for the fossil they bought from me 18 months ago. I'll be happy to continue my listing if they send me the cheque for the balance of £314.

I have had a couple of slightly more sinister ones, telling me not that my listing is about to run out, but that I owe money for an advert campaign which has already been running. Those seem far more obvious to spot, though - not many internet marketing companies would do the work first and call later about payment. The people in this instances are aggressive to the point of threatening and I got incredibly angry with one woman who said I should expect to be taken to court by their legal department. I'm not really sure about what the proper thing to do in these circumstances. I should probably find out, really. Scum.

Earn your stripes

2011-03-03T12:45:00.000Z

One of the things I was glad to get at the show in Arizona was Zebra Rock. I'd seen it around for a few years and while I'd bought a piece for myself, I'd thought it too expensive to work in the shop. Last year I noticed some at a far more reasonable price and gave it a go - lots of little tumblestone-sized pieces and a few larger lumps. It went very well. This year I couldn't find exactly the same stuff, but the seller told me he had a lot of rough material at another venue. A couple of days later I found it, and picked out a few kilos from a huge barrel. I'll need to wash it and sand it down a little, but the extra effort will be well worth it.

It's unusual stuff, and there has been a lot of discussion on exactly how it formed. It was first found in Argyle Station, in East Kimberley, Western Australia in the 1920s by a geologist visiting from New York. This locality is now under reservoir water and more sources have been found nearby - the stuff I have is from Kununurra, a little further North.

It's a silicious argillite - that's clay or siltstone with quartz and is pre-Cambrian in age; over 600 million years old. What makes it special, though, is its amazing banding pattern. It varies from spots to (more frequently) stripes but usually surprisingly regular. It looks like it has been hand-painted. These bands and how they were formed is the subject for debate. Originally it had been thought that it was the result of deformation of original sedimentary layers, or possibly the introduction of an iron-rich mineral into a pale clay. The grain-size and texture is consistent across the pattern, though, which would suggest the first of these is unlikely and the structure of the patterning provides difficulties for the second. What seems the most plausible explanation is that hematite-rich bands are the result of a hydrothermal precipitation of sorts - mineral-saturated water moving through the body of rock distributing iron-rich patches as it built sufficient concentration. This paper provides a better explanation than I can, and looks at the part magnetism may have played. Be warned - it's complimacated and has far more words than pictures. It's enough for me - and most others - that it looks nice.

Kicked by Thunder Thighs

2011-02-23T11:01:00.001Z

A new sauropod has been found in a Utah site and named Brontomerus mcintoshi. Thunder thighs. Nice. The designation is on the strength of bones from two specimens collected in the 90s from the Hotel Mesa Quarry in Grand County, Utah, dated to about 110 million years old. Its hip bones suggest huge thigh muscles, hence the name. Comparing the bones with those of better-known relatives, it's thought the adults may have been around 14 metres long and weighed six tonnes. The heavy musculature of the upper rear limbs meant the animal could probably have delivered hefty kicks, either for defence or to establish dominance for mating rights. It may also have been able to 'stand up' for short periods, perhaps for browsing. Another suggestion is that the extra strength could have been to power very long legs - not enough material was found to support this idea, though.

A nice find. What really caught my attention, though, was the kicking given to commercial collectors in the article. A large chunk was given over to it. It describes the bones as 'rescued' from the quarry, and in this case I don't think the journalist means saved from the elements. The piece says the site 'has been looted by commercial fossil-hunters' and Dr Taylor, one of the researchers involved, describes the site as vandalised. He says commercial collectors smashed up the bones they didn't want - which seems unlikely to me. They may well have been broken but it's purely speculative to say how, why (if intentional at all) and by whom.

I definitely understand his frustration at not having more of the specimen(s) to study, and of course anyone collecting - privately, commercially or academically - needs to go about it correctly, respecting the site and material and recording helpful information. Seeing bone material used to weigh down a tarpaulin would annoy me, too. Reading a little more about the site's history shows the place 'previously known to private collectors' and that collecting had gone on there for some time. Difficult to see how the research team can feel all proprietorial about it - because they weren't there first and didn't find everything they wanted the site has been 'pillaged'? A bit rich if you ask me.

Roll up! Roll up!

2011-02-18T10:40:00.000Z

I have a couple of nice enrolled trilobites at home already, but bought this one in Tucson. It's a phacopid from Morocco, near Western Sahara. Think its name is Gravlops. Trilobites had a diverse array of body shapes and ornamentation, but most trilobites could roll up to some extent to protect their soft undersides with their exoskeleton. Some into balls like a hedgehog, some tucking into their broad headshield, some, like the tiny Agnostus, folding flat like a... like a... pastie? Phacops and its close relatives became masters of the ball defence, developing specialised grooves to enable a precise enrollment.

Many trilobites are preserved with a common sort of bend, their cephalon at a ninety degree angle to their bodies. It's known that many were burrowers and these bent trilobites may have died while poking out of their burrows, head resting on the surface, the rest tucked safely away. What would they have been hiding from? Trilobites were around for about 280 million years, so what they were eating and what was eating them changed a fair bit over that time. To begin with, in the early Cambrian 520 million years ago, they would have had to hide from nautiloids, eurypterids and the star of the Burgess Shale, Anomolocaris. With the rise of the fish in the Devonian, trilobites had something else to worry about. The final curtain, though, was the Great Dying, the extinction event at the end of the Permian, 250 million years ago, when 96% of marine species kicked the bucket. Rolling up into a ball doesn't save you from everything.

Scorched earth

2011-01-28T22:12:00.000Z

So - two full buying days and I'm running out of money. I always manage to spend more than I bring, leaving Tucson with a list of complicated arrangements to sort out at home. It's better than missing out on a good buy. After sorting out the fish, trilobites and shark teeth my main concern now is a bed that doesn't deflate fifteen minutes after lying down on it. I'm sleeping on the floor of a friend's selling room, watched over by the huge skull of a Tarbosaurus and a hadrosaur tail balanced carefully on a metal stand. I'm not scared of the teeth, but I'm terrified of knocking the table.

It's hot and dry here, and I keep forgetting to drink water. They're very big on dust in Arizona. Dust and gravel. Out of the city, though, the desert is beautiful. The Sonora has those iconic saguaro cactus lining the hills and I want to try to get a trip at some point next week - doesn't really matter where. In the past I've been to Mexico, Tombstone, Bisbee and a few places nearer Tucson. The Grand Canyon is reasonably close, and to my shame I've never managed to make it there. Maybe this will be the year.

Dead cow

2011-01-21T14:35:00.000Z

I recently got a new batch of files back from the photographer and can put some more lines up on the website. You know. At some point... Actually, I have managed a couple of new ammonite entries. Took me a little while to remember how to format the images. I have great plans for when I get back, though. Longer term procrastination.

Among the additions will be little pieces of a mesosiderite from Chile. Mesosiderites are a type of stony-iron meteorite with an even balance of the familiar iron-nickel material and a silicate mixture. There aren't very many known falls, and these pieces are from one of the larger ones in the endearingly named Vaca Muerta area of the Atacama desert. Dead Cow. Not a holiday hotspot. That's one above. Not very exciting looking, I know, but it came from outer space! Plus as meteorite material goes, it's very cheap. I have a couple more meteorite lines to put up, too - Seymchan pallasite from Russia and relatively run-of-the-mill NWA chondrite stuff. Not NWA like Dr Dre. They're from North West Africa.

Anyone collecting in the Atacama deserves to find something. It's the driest place in the world, with almost no rain at all. Not a nice place to spend a lot of time. Nobody goes hunting for meteorites in the Bahamas, or in Milan. It has to be somewhere inhospitable. If it's not sand, it's ice. If it's not ice, it's mosquitoes. Meteorites aren't picky about where they fall, but it's easier to find a meteorite in the desert than in a forest, under a branch of Debenhams, or at the bottom of the deep blue sea. In the desert, anything that's not sand is worth checking out. Finding meteorites must make it well worthwhile being dusty and thirsty all the time. Thankfully.

To the sun

2011-01-14T12:48:00.000Z

After a cold and icy winter, I'm looking forward to getting to Arizona this year. It'll be about 22C in Tucson over the next few days, which would be manageable. Haven't really been planning this trip much this year, so I'll have to work out what I need over the next week, pile my scraps of scribbled paper and have a guess at just how empty I can leave the bank account. The scary part. Then I need to gather all the stuff I want to take, get the suitcase from the loft and leave it in a huge pile for everyone to trip over for a week. I think that's the best way to prepare for a journey. I'll be flying to New York for a couple of days first, and while Edinburgh's snow has finally gone, there's plenty of it there. Hopefully there won't be any trouble with flight cancellations and so on - Riley has been delayed in returning from Ohio by the weather and should get back today.

This will be my 12th Tucson trip I think, and I've been pretty lucky with travel so far. A few delays, missed connections and so on, but nothing more than a few hours here and there. The thought of spending a couple of days in an airport is not appealing. £19.67 for a packet of crisps and some water, then sitting hunched over a book for hours on end. I hate all the waiting around involved - departure lounges, waiting for the line of passengers to finally be allowed to shuffle out of the plane, the queue for the passport control gates, and the agonising fifteen minutes at the baggage carousel. I do like some aspects of travel, though. I don't like watching movies I really want to see on a plane - the tiny screen and uncomfortable seat don't really do a film justice - but I quite like having a range of films to choose from that I haven't picked myself. You can feel better about watching a terrible film. And even though the food may not be much cop, I love it when the meal comes. Maybe it's just because something is happening. Even having to tuck your elbows into your flanks to butter your cracker and worrying your coffee is about to spill into your salad doesn't spoil it. Cramped dining. Thrills.

Prophet margin

2011-01-07T11:45:00.000Z

It's 2011. Happy New Year and so on. This week, a bunch of dead blackbirds fell out of the Arkansas sky and a tide of dead crabs washed up on Kent beaches. Portentous events? Spine-chilling omens? Apparently some sect or other expects the world to end in May this year. It's reckoned the crabs were killed by the cold. Sounds feasible to me - it's been freezing. It was also horribly cold last year, and last year - guess what - thousands of crabs washed up on beaches. The blackbirds? As well as in Arkansas, a bunch of birds met the ground with a fluffy thump in Sweden a couple of days later. Oh no! But have a quick look on the net and there are dead-birds-falling stories from 11th March 2010, 28th January 2009, and 23rd July 2008. On the first page of results. And the world keeps turning.

Far more people are fully expecting the apocalypse to come along in 2012. Only a year away! Quick - blow all your savings on cakes, fine wines and electronic goods! Well, actually, nearly two years as it's supposedly December 12th 2012. 12/12/12. Why? Because of The Mayan Prophesy. Except, it's not really a prophesy at all. All that happens is a calendar runs out then - a new one starts. The Maya are still around and are keen to point that out. They aren't smashing their piggy banks.

There have been loads of doomsday predictions throughout history. So far, obviously, none of them has been correct. This must have left scores of sects, cults and prophetophiles trying to bury their disappointment in a nice steak pie and convince themselves they're not secretly a little relieved. There was even a fair amount of nervous tension in what considers itself the civilized world as the year 2000 approached. Quite what was expected, I don't know. The Four Horsemen? Because it was a nice round number. Something significant ought to happen, because it's a round number. Why are people so keen for the world to end? Some bits of it are really good. I've never been to Tanzania, Japan or Peru and I want to. I think probably what makes people so excitable about the idea of Armageddon is that they have become convinced that they are among a chosen few that are going to do pretty well out of it. Everyone else will die, sure, but they are going to go somewhere really nice. The Rapture, or whatever version of it suits the theory.

Big business, prophesies of doom. All so negative, though. I will attempt to redress the balance a tiny bit. Prophesies of Alrightness. I hereby predict that the world will not end in May. It will not end in 2012. Everything is going to be relatively okay. Remember - you heard it here first.

Baubles

2010-12-24T11:24:00.000Z

It's been a cold and uncomfortable December, but today's the last day in my usual marathon Christmas run and I'm looking forward to three days off. This year I never quite got round to the whole decorations thing. Dramatic window display aside. One year Ryan brought in a set of fairy lights that have to be two miles long, with seventeen million bulbs. It took us a long time to snake it around the shop and when it was switched on it filled the place with a weird light. And a strange low hum. Festive. They're somewhere in the basement, along with a pile of tinsel and suchlike.

I ought to be better at things like that - seasonal window displays, themed cabinets and so on. I will use the feeble excuse that I'm far too busy with lots of very important things. Anyway. I'll be open on the 28th again and hoping that there's no more snow. I have the VAT return to look forward to. One of the very important things.

Happy Christmas.

Take us to our leader

2010-12-22T11:45:00.000Z

The theory of evolution provides a clear, demonstrable mechanism for development and diversification of life, for the origination of new species and an explanation of the multitudes of shapes and sizes of living things. New ideas and insights are formed and the theory is built on incrementally with new information, but the underlying principle has remained solid. It is a fact that evolution happens - how and why it happens we can, and will, still learn much more about.

What remains the big question for science - and where those of a religious nature may still look for the hand of a god - is the very origin of life on Earth in the first instance. At what stage can something be called 'living'? It's not an easy question, really. We're comfortable with thinking of single-celled forms as living - though it's not much of a life - but at what point does chemistry become biology? Genetic replication? It's a field of science that sees a great deal of research, naturally, and there are a number of lines of thinking - hypotheses with evidential support which should eventually produce a single dominant theory. This, in turn, will gradually gain acceptance outwith the scientific world and act as a platform for further research. It takes a while for an idea to be suggested, tested, embraced, reach the textbooks and become... general knowledge.

At the moment, areas of work that may provide a solution include oceanic hydrothermal vents (black smokers), ribonucleaic acid (RNA) storing information and developing to DNA, and iron and sulphur layers in areas of volcanism. Another possibility suggested is that material from elsewhere provided the initial source material for life on Earth. Of course, that doesn't solve the problem of the origins of life, merely shifts it elsewhere, but it could deliver an answer to what happened on our planet. Meteorites found in Sudan in 2008 contain amino acids, and other examples with these proto-proteins have been found in the past. It does seem very possible we may all be aliens.

Hermes vs The Elements

2010-12-17T15:07:00.001Z

It's been a very cold, very snowy December. You may have noticed. Aside from keeping people from walking around town to do their Christmas shopping by throwing them all over the icy pavements and freezing their eyeballs into glassy frostballs, the weather has meant it's been difficult for people to deliver parcels.

More and more people are relying heavily on online shopping, and that's understandable. It's easy and convenient. It's warm and you can sit down. I'm very glad I got my site up this year after too long spent thinking about it. The website's first December has helped balance a little of the drop in walk-in trade, and I'm very grateful for that. I'm careful to get things in first class post the next day, but then it's in the hands of the professionals. And this month, that's not been looking like much of a safe bet. Royal Mail hasn't been too bad, have to say. A little slower perhaps, but even without the weather that can happen in the Christmas run-up anyway.

I have felt badly let down by my courier, though. I have a contract with them by way of pre-paid consignment notes - far cheaper than just arranging a delivery as and when. I had a decent sale from a customer in London, who had called the shop on a Saturday. It was packed and ready for collection on the Monday morning, due for pickup later that day. Nothing happened. I phoned the next day and they were apologetic, but expected collection within a few hours. Again, nothing. On the Wednesday, on phoning, I was told no collections were possible across all of Scotland until the following Monday. The customer was okay with this - as long as they made it by Christmas. On Wednesday the following week I finally gave in and phoned around other firms. I gave up on two as I couldn't get through on the phone. Eventually I found an alternative, promised the customer they would have it tomorrow and waited. And waited. The guy showed up 20 minutes after I was supposed to close, but I was very grateful to see him. Cost me an arm and a leg, but I felt the customer's patience had been tried enough.

It's great when a parcel you've been waiting for arrives, but it's also a nice feeling to walk out of a shop with your purchase.

[EDIT] Turns out the parcel, which should have been delivered on Wednesday, is still in a London depot on Saturday morning. Looking like Monday now - two weeks after it was supposed to be collected for next day delivery. Two weeks, two companies and outright failure. Still waiting for the second firm to call me and explain.

Meanwhile, on Hobbit Island...

2010-12-07T14:18:00.000Z

Flores, in Indonesia, was home to a group of little folk called Homo floresiensis until around 12,000 years ago. They may have been a separate hominin species, or may have been a tribe of cretinous humans - small bodies, pinheads. I wrote a bit about them last year. They were found in 2004, when the Lord of the Rings films were fresh in the mind, so were unsurprisingly nicknamed Hobbits.

Anyway - some bones have been found in a cave on the island that seem to have belonged to a giant form of marabou stork, Leptoptilus robustus. Scaling up, it was probably about 180cm tall, which would have been nearly twice the height of the hobbits. Marabous are scary looking enough at their current size, so I expect they were given a wide berth. Not quite a terror bird, but I'd bet it made the hobbits uneasy. The article touches on the possibility of the storks eating babies, but that's purely speculative. Turns the usual stork/baby thing on its head.

The island must have been a strange place - dwarf elephants and humans, giant rats, storks and lizards. Islands are often a source of unusual forms of well-known animals. Cut off from the rest of their population, new species gradually develop, and often change in size. Dwarf forms and giant forms. Without the same predators, food sources and so on, the pressures are different and form eventually reflects that. Hence Darwin's finches and tortoises on the Galapagos, for example. Lilliput and Blefuscu as well, of course.

Paired up

2010-12-02T15:14:00.000Z

I got in a load of one our best sellers in time for Christmas. The ammonites from Majunga (or Mahajanga) in Madagascar are beautiful. The one to the left has been cut in half and the flat surfaces polished, but you can also get them polished on the outside, which shows the intricate suture pattern (below) off to best effect. From some layers the ammonites can be left as they are, when an opalescent layer within the shell shows a rainbow of colour. We sell a lot of these. While - generally speaking - the geologists tend to go for the rough, unpolished stuff, the polished ammonites are just appealing as objects, as decorative... things. Pretty things have a broad appeal.

The chambers of the ammonites shell have mostly been filled in with honey and amber coloured calcite crystals, the green/grey sediment the shells were deposited in, and sometimes the reddish polishing powder used in preparation. The combination of colours in the spiral pattern varies, and people go for different effects - some prefer an even colour throughout, some go for a mixture.

Most commonly, the site produces Cleoniceras cleon, Phylloceras inflatum and Douvilleiceras mammillatum, but there are also nautilus - Cymatoceras sakalavus - found there, like the one on the front page of the shop site. I've seen some huge examples, over a metre across, but mostly those have been cobbled together from pieces of a number of specimens. Usually, the biggest I have in stock are around 22cm across, and those are impressive enough.

Hammer of the gods

2010-11-24T09:39:00.000Z

Hi. Do you have any of those hammers that find meteorites?

Find meteorites? Do you mean geological hammers? We have those - just over there in the corner.

No, I mean ones that detect meteorites in the ground, so you can find them and dig them up.

Do you mean a metal detector? Not all meteorites are made of iron, but lots are and many others have high iron content. So that's how a lot are found. I don't have metal detectors, though. Sorry.

No, I mean a hammer that attracts meteorites and finds them for you. Then you dig them up.

Attracts them? Like a magnet? A magnetic hammer? You'd have to be very close to the meteorite for that to be much use.

I just want to find a meteorite.

Cardboard, bubblewrap and rocks

2010-11-19T15:59:00.000Z

Yesterday morning I had four big boxes of fossils and minerals delivered from a friend down in England. They sat in the corner staring at me while I had some customers. Then mid-morning I picked out some jewellery lines for the website from a supplier who was driving around Scotland in a van. Not quite as much, but small, shiny things that need weighed and priced with fiddly labels. Finally, just after lunch another friend arrived with a carload of stuff for me to look through. I bought a lot - mostly replenishing standard lines.

At the end of yesterday afternoon I had three big bills and three big heaps of new stock to plough through. As much as I love getting new things in, I do sometimes procrastinate when it comes to pricing it. Well - when it comes to everything. I started today with the best of intentions, but have strayed from the task somewhat. Next week will be better. And I must tidy up the basement a bit, too.

Factual selection

2010-11-10T12:10:00.000Z

I read an article this morning calling for a reappraisal of the work of Patrick Matthew, a Scottish farmer who is credited with the initial idea of evolution through natural selection, some 27 years earlier than Darwin's famous work was published. Matthew addressed the subject in an appendix to his 1831 book 'Naval Timber and Arboriculture'. Not surprisingly perhaps, his revelation flew under the radar somewhat while Darwin and Wallace went on to greater fame.

The essay, by a geologist at New York University, points out that Matthew placed greater importance on the effect of extinction events and the spates of rapid evolution that followed them, suggesting Darwin was inclined to stress a more linear evolutionary process. This seems a little like a tip to the old punctuated equilibrium versus gradualism argument. Well - okay - a lot like that. I find the insistence on divisions like these an oversimplification and helpful only in the very limited sense of understanding the processes that take place. As we know, evolution is far too complicated to state that one method is the one true way and that the others are wrong. Undoubtedly the blank canvas of a post-extinction event world offers the opportunities for speedy adaptation to new roles and habitats, but the continuous reaction to constant environmental change is always there in the background.

Essentially, Darwin produced a fully developed theory and while Matthew got there first (as Darwin later acknowledged, though he had been unaware of the work while he was working on his own theory) it was not the thorough examination the idea merited. That aside, Matthew was not the only one to have put forward the notion before Darwin. What it comes down to, ultimately, is that Darwin was the one to fully explore and expand on the concept of natural selection, and that's why his place in the history of science is entirely justified.

We're doomed

2010-11-05T11:22:00.000Z

A few years ago I read Bill Bryson's book 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', which I thoroughly recommend. It's a broad oversight of the planet's history, which obviously covers a lot of geological ground. Bryson comes to the subject as an enthusiastic layman and his explanations are entertaining and easy to follow. However - a large proportion of the book is about the numerous very bad things which are likely to happen to us at any given time. He points out that we face painful and terrifying deaths in the microscopic form of a supervirus, in the ginormous, rocky shape of an incoming asteroid, in the hot, nasty lava of a supervolcano and so on. Great stuff, though it might have you looking over your shoulder a little.

Anyway. I mention the book because a group of scientists at Imperial College London and Purdue University in Indiana have, since 2004, been producing a Impact Events Calculator, designed to force meteorophobes into their custom-built underground bunkers for the rest of their lives. Cans of tuna, beans and sweetcorn in dimly lit concrete vaults and a wobbly iron-spring military bed. For ever. I'm not speaking from experience. I'm resigned to my fate; if the meteorite comes, I'm ready to embrace it. I'm getting away from the point a little. What it does is work out what would happen when a meteorite of specific size hits Earth. You type in the dimensions, where you want it to land and at what angle, etc. Then click the button and check the results. I've just wiped out a large part of the Eastern Seaboard of North America. It was an accident.

They have recently updated it to tweak the user interface, but also to include additional effects such as wave height from ocean impact, and a couple of others. The next upgrade will allow you to pick your impact site. Virtual revenge at the click of a button. It's fun to play around with, but then you realise that... You know. It might happen. Look out!

The reaper

2010-10-29T12:43:00.000+01:00

The IUCN - the International Union for the Conservation of Nature - recently published a report at the UN biodiversity summit in Japan warning of the scale of the problem facing the planet's animals. One fifth of the world's vertebrates are now facing some level of extinction threat, with a new species making the red list every week. It's not very positive news.

A friend is currently in Mongolia and had a trip through the Gobi desert for a few days. Whilst there he saw bactrian camels, and more than he was expecting to. He met a number of the local nomadic people, and each told him numbers had been increasing significantly for two decades and the spreading desert meant this was likely to continue. Bactrians have the IUCN status of Critically Endangered and they state that the population is declining. There are Non-Governmental Organisations being well paid to ensure their protection. This could be viewed in a number of ways. Firstly that the NGOs work has been successful and the recent growth in numbers pointed to by anecdotal evidence is the result. Secondly that population levels in different areas of their habitat are moving in different directions with an overall downward trend. Thirdly - and cynically - that there is a possibility some organisations are exaggerating the plight of the camel and still taking funding. This most likely happens on some scale, but I'd expect the IUCN's monitoring process is robust enough to have a decent grasp on the bigger picture.

Sadly, there's no doubt the number of species close to extinction is higher now that it's been since we started keeping track and it's definitely exacerbated by human activity. Global warming aside, the main problem has been habitat loss through logging and land cultivation for farming, but pollution, hunting and over-fishing have also had heavy tolls. Palaeontologists know very well that there have been far more dramatic drops in biodiversity in the past - the fossil record shows this clearly. The difference is that this time we have a level of responsibility. We can do something about it. There are some positives here. Conservation efforts such as hunting restrictions and captive breeding have prevented the loss of a few species, and an increased global awareness should help slow down the growth of the red list at the very least. There's a story today on the work of The Frozen Ark, in Nottingham, where DNA samples of thousands of endangered animals are stored. In case. The point of being able to resurrect 'lost' species is not too far away, and while there is an ethical debate surrounding the field of cloning and the like, it would be completely irresponsible not to act now to preserve what we have; to give the animals we have affected so badly just a touch more hope.

Simply put

2010-10-26T11:41:00.000+01:00

'What's this?'

'It's a marble that has the shells of early relatives of the ammonites all through it. These are the shells here... Most fossils are found in limestones, and marble is a limestone that's been metamorphosed under high temperatures and pressures. Usually the rock's deformed by this process and any structures it contained, like fossils or bedding planes are lost. In this case, though, it's probably only been heated and the fossil shapes are still intact. They're called orthocone nautiloids. The orthocone part means straight-shelled and the black and white stripy parts - here, here and here - through the stone are the chambered shells filled with white calcite crystals. When the animals were alive these chambers would have been filled with a mixture of liquid and gas and the nautiloids could regulate their buoyancy by adjusting the mix. They had tentacles that protruded from the front of their shell and their body, which would have been fairly soft and flexible, was protected by the extended first chamber. Its later relatives, ammonites, mostly had spiral shells instead of straight and looked very similar to today's nautilus. They now think octopuses are the most closely linked, though.'

'But - what are they? Are they fish?'

'A squid in a cone.'

'Oh, riiiight. Cool.'

Carried away

2010-10-21T11:03:00.000+01:00

It's a quiet week, so the arrival of the new Mr Wood's Fossils bags is the highlight so far. Finally got round to getting some done with the new logo and colour scheme and I think it's a big improvement. Here are some before and after shots, so you can judge for yourselves.

The reverse has a simplified logo above the address, phone number and website. You probably aren't quite as excited about the new bags as I am; I realise that. That's okay. The whole re-branding exercise was an interesting process - getting the logo restyled, the new website, business cards and so on. I think all that's left really is the front of the shop. It's looking pretty tired, so it will need to be done fairly soon. People like the stencilled fossils on the front and it would be nice to keep them, so perhaps I'll go for the orange-copper colour with darker fossils over the top.

I tried some t-shirts once, but there was a mistake with the order and none came that were my size. I wasn't really sure why I had ordered them and without one for me to wear it all felt a bit pointless. I gave most away to staff and friends within the fossil trade, and they indulge me by wearing them in Tucson and Sainte Marie each year. Maybe I'll try again and make sure I get a couple my size this time.

I'm a bit scattergun with my marketing approach. I'm never sure which adverts are effective, and due to the unusual nature of the business, I'm called all the time by people wanting me to advertise with them. I'm trying a couple of new ways to push the website in the lead up to Christmas this year and hopefully one of them at least will prove useful. Not many people think immediately of fossils as gift ideas, but they are usually well received and I get a lot of repeat customers at Christmas. It'd be good if I can extend the range to the whole of the UK through the website. And maybe - this year - the bags will catch the eyes of a few more shoppers.

A change is gonna come

2010-10-20T11:32:00.002+01:00

New Scientist has an interesting article on the complex workings of evolution. In summary - it's more complicated than people think. This shouldn't be big news, but the link with Monday's story on chaos theory was nice.

The author, Keith Bennett of Queens University in Belfast, likens the traditional symbol of the evolutionary process - the tree of life - to a fractal. The cumulative effect of iterative changes creating branching structures repeated at different scales throughout the whole. The relationship between microevolution and macroevolution is a controversial one, with a history of great scientific debate. Microevolution is the change of genetic traits within a species or population - perhaps a colour change in a group of birds' plumage for example - and macroevolution is the actual change from one species to another. For the most part I see one as a natural extension of the other, occurring over longer periods of time and having a more dramatic effect. Macroevolution can only come about through continual small changes.

Bennett is a palaeoecologist and suggests there are slightly different groups of driving factors behind the two scales of evolution, which may be the case to a point. If they are part and parcel of the same overall process, however, I'm not sure of the benefits of separating the two so distinctly, which he seems keen to do. The research behind the article points to a steady stream of speciation, reducing the influence of environmental change. He thinks macroevolution may be primarily driven by internally generated genetic alterations, rather than external influences such as climactic or habitat changes. To me, this slightly misses the point that the success or otherwise of any genetic changes are very often a result of how that modification affects an individual organism within its environment. If it brings it any advantage in terms of camouflage, feeding, breeding, survival in general, then that trait will be more likely be passed on to subsequent generations and gradually becoming widespread. If the environment is changing, then the efficacy of any mutation will be reflected in that to some extent. Environment may not be the main driving force, but it certainly plays a big role.

The main point of the article, I think, is that evolution is not predictable and any pattern we may see within developments are only discernible with the benefit of hindsight. It's a wonderful thing.

Order from chaos

2010-10-18T13:02:00.000+01:00

While I was studying geology we had a series of classes on the subject of chaos theory. Our professor was very enthusiastic about fractals and their practical application within geology and other fields. At the time, research was being done using fractals to look for potential economic mineral localities, attempting to predict the seemingly random. To us, it was mostly about the pretty patterns, but his energy and love for the topic was infectious. Can't say I spent a great deal of time afterwards looking further into the theory, but at the time I found it fascinating.

Benoit Mandelbrot, probably the man most associated with chaos theory, died in Massachusetts the other day, aged 85. In the late '70s and early '80s he published breakthrough work which looked at breaking down apparently chaotic natural forms into sets of scaled repeating patterns which built to larger, self-similar forms. The maths of fractals is a little scary, but the patterns are nice... An early form used triangles with three Koch Curves to produce what's called the Koch Snowflake, there's the brilliantly-named Menger Sponge and almost certainly the best-known, the Mandelbrot Set. I recommend spending a few minutes looking through the gallery links from the Wikipedia entry for fractals. Beauty in mathematics. Fractals have since been used to develop techniques of measuring things previously considered unmeasurable - coastlines, mountain ranges, clouds and so on. The parent science of chaos theory will have a huge range of influence - there is a great deal of fruit still to be picked from these strange trees.

Re SVP

2010-10-13T11:32:00.000+01:00

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology was established in 1940 as a means of gathering resources and aiding communication to advance the science. It's based in Illinois but has nearly 2500 members spread across the world. Their annual meeting is going on right now in Pittsburgh, and is always the source of a good number of interesting articles.

One of the presentations was by Michael Habib of Chatham University in Pittsburgh, and concerned the impressively huge species of azhdarchid pterosaurs that have been found in recent years. Quetzalcoatlus, the best known of these giants, had a wingspan of between 10-11m, and Habib reckons they could probably fly 10,000 miles at a go. It's quite a claim, and his calculations necessarily involve a little speculation - on body mass, wing size and shape, etc. - but as Habib himself points out, 'what's important is that the numbers are all big'. My kind of science. These things didn't fly like a madly flapping pigeon, but would have soared like a stork, spiralling over thermals to gain height and winds to provide lift. Quite why they'd want to be travelling such distances is another matter. Sometimes I can't even be bothered to go to the shops. Recent studies looking at their probable feeding methods seemed to rule out continuous flight as a way of life, favouring a land-based heron-style approach; wading in shallow water and stalking in short vegetation. Big as they were, I doubt they could sneak in a quick 10,000 miles between snacks.

Interestingly, not very long ago it was being suggested these things may not have flown at all. A paper last year looked at flap rates and weights of modern birds and thought these giraffe-sized pterosaurs just wouldn't be able to get off the ground. Reaction to this suggestion was fairly dismissive, it has to be said. On a very basic level - why else would they have massive great wings?

Theoretically speaking

2010-10-08T11:29:00.011+01:00

For the first time in a while, my one-time-regular Creationist visitor dropped in this morning. I enjoy our conversations, though they can go on a little. He is friendly, articulate and - unusually for someone with his views - he is prepared to listen to arguments running counter to his thinking. Amongst other things, the Theory of Evolution came up once more.

He sees Darwin as a pigeon fancier reading too much into the Galapagos finches, and while accepting of micro-evolution (it's nigh on impossible not to be now without looking a little silly) he maintains there is no evidence at all of macro-evolution. This head in the sand approach is surprisingly common. Refuse to accept it and it can't exist. This is one of the things that winds me up a bit. Flat denial of the glaringly obvious. When people say there is no transitional fossil evidence it's akin to pantomime flat-earthism. It's behind you. Oh no it's not. It's BEHIND you. This YouTube cartoon by NonStampCollector neatly summarises a few of the standard Creationist lines of attack on the Theory of Evolution with clear, concise rebuttals. It also shows an all too common defensive technique - that of evasion and denial. Evasion of direct answers and denial that answers have been provided.

As touched on in the cartoon, there are many demonstrations of macro-evolutionary lines in the fossil record. There are plenty of examples if you want to look, want to see them. Evolution newsgroup TalkOrigins have collected a list of examples with my favourite being the development of birds from dinosaurs. There are still many gaps in the fossil record, of course. There are gaps in our understanding across the whole scientific spectrum and always will be. Reducing a hole in our knowledge to where a theory for all intents and purposes becomes fact will still leave unknowns. Intelligent Design is essentially exploiting those gaps in an attempt to provide a role for a creator. While I get the desire on the part of the theist to do that, I see no problem in simply saying 'We just don't know how that works yet.'

Another familiar analogy brought up by my visitor was a version of the tornado-built jumbo jet thing. Equating the 'sudden appearance' of a complex object such as a human eye with the construction of a 747 by a tornado from the contents of a scrapyard. I think he used a car-from-barbecue model in his comparison. It is a complete misrepresentation of evolution to present it as a random process. It's not random. It's more a case of trial and error leading to progressive change - a mutation will only 'work', be passed on to future generations if it proves to be effective or beneficial. That the outcome can appear to show signs of an intelligent guiding hand is the result of an iterative process working over a great deal of time. Continual refinement; adaptation to surrounding environment and events. The sense of direction is entirely false, an imposition - Homo sapiens as a 'destination' where there is no need for one. The dead ends of the tree of life are not afforded the luxury of contemplating their origins. Humans are an enormously successful species with the highest level of self-awareness our planet has seen. It's in our nature to be introspective, to be ego-centric. We are here, so we wonder why.

Solitary confinement

2010-09-29T12:46:00.002+01:00

This is a small business. There's me and one other staff member who does Saturdays and fills in when required. Currently that's Riley. there aren't many times of the year when having two people in the shop would be useful, and that's handy in keeping running costs to a minimum. However - there are days when it's very, very quiet. No customers, paperwork finished, no postal orders to wrap. On those days the view from the counter can seem a little too familiar and the chair a little too uncomfortable.

I am often jealous of those with an office full of colleagues. You have people you can discuss problems with, share advice, and just generally chat about... stuff. I'm lazy, and when I'm not busy I can slip into a near-catatonic state. So if you see me slumped over the counter, come in and say hello.

Lost and found

2010-09-23T13:20:00.004+01:00

There's a story today about two new ceratopsian dinosaurs, Kosmoceratops richardsoni and Utahceratops gettyi, bring found in the rich Cretaceous deposits of Southern Utah. Kosmoceratops in particular is an oddball, with fifteen horns including a strange 'fringe' draped from the top of its crest. The site - the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument - is an important site in a state packed with dinosaur localities. During the Cretaceous, what's now Utah was part of Larimidia, separated from the bulk of the rest of North America (called Appalachia) by a shallow sea.

Most people are familiar with ceratopsians; Triceratops has always been among the dinosaur favourites. It's a large group, though, with a range of sizes and ornamentation. 'New' dinosaurs are found surprisingly frequently, adding to the pile. Sadly, though, earlier this year the ceratopsians lost one of their number. The mighty Torosaurus, which had an enormous skull and weighed in at around six tons, was identified in 1891, only a couple of years after Triceratops, and from the same Hell Creek deposits. The paper in July suggests Torosaurus is simply a large adult Triceratops, stripping it of genus status.

This happens from time to time, and it's easy to see why. When working from incomplete fossils - almost always the case with dinosaurs - an animal can be described and named from a part of the skeleton. Different parts can be accidentally given different names. In cases like these, the name used first gets seniority and the more recent gets consigned to history's dustbin. Since Linnaeus, natural sciences have had their lumpers and splitters. Splitters are those who would find some small anatomical difference - say, a seagull that had a larger head than its friends - and get all excited.

"A brand new type of seagull! Wow! I'm going to call it the Mekon Gull and publish a paper!"

The lumper tends to dismiss it as simply a gull with a big head.

"Ha ha, Look at that seagull. It's got a big head."

At times, the names allocated on evidence of slightly dubious strength have stuck. Later, these can collapse, the genus or species status retracted and old bighead gets to be a normal seagull again. In dinosaur terms, one of the biggest departures is that of Brontosaurus. Everybody loved Brontosaurus, the thunder lizard. Then one day it was discovered he had been an Apatosaurus all along. I think many of the other sauropods had had their suspicions for some time. Still - what happens in the Jurassic, stays in the Jurassic.

Papal bull

2010-09-16T11:26:00.002+01:00

Today the Pope is visiting Edinburgh. He's having lunch with the Queen in Holyrood and then being driven along Princes Street and up Lothian Road. Police are expecting 100,000 people to come and wave. I'm not expecting there to be a big overlap of our target markets. If there was a Venn diagram of Mr Wood's customers and Pope wavers, it might look like Pluto and the sun. Quiet day for me, probably.

Aside from the visit affecting my business, it's not really a subject that is suitable for the blog, but I did read about Cardinal Walter Kasper's views of the United Kingdom and his subsequent withdrawal from the trip. He likened Britain to a third world country due to the variety of people he sees after landing in Heathrow. I can't think that living such a strange, insular life in the Vatican helps build much of an understanding of the world as a whole, so perhaps it's good the Pope is getting out and about. He might be able to update the church's archaic views on homosexuality and contraception that are so damaging to the third world countries Cardinal Kasper finds so unsettling.

Welcome to Edinburgh. Multicultural and proud.

Politicians are human too

2010-09-14T11:28:00.004+01:00

We're used to the odd mistake by our MPs - some more odd than others, obviously - but Conor Lenihan, Ireland's Minister for Science has taken the the oatcake. Tomorrow night in Dublin, there is to be a book launch, at which Mr Lenihan will be the speaker. A great many people in Ireland are wondering what on Earth he's doing by appearing at the event - a Gorillas and Girls party - at all. Hopefully, by this morning, Mr Lenihan is too.

The book he's launching is by John J. May and called The Origin of Specious Nonsense. Now, you may have guessed from the title, but John J. May has a bit of an issue with Charles Darwin and the whole Origins of Species thing. He seems very angry about it. He bills his book as 'the most controversial book in decades' and it doesn't take much digging to find a few examples of the specious nonsense alluded to in the title. Kindly, John May has filled his site with hilarious rants and pages of senseless, dribbling bilge. It genuinely is worth a dredge through if you have the time, if only so you can comfortably discount almost everything the man has to say. He's not the most literate of men, but he points out that he was self-educated and can at least communicate his deranged points clearly enough.

The scandalous thing here is not that another woeful attempt to 'debunk' the theory of evolution has been published. If anything the content of the book only serves to strengthen the case of its target. The problem lies with the presence of the Minister for Science at the launch of an anti-scientific book. And it's not like he may have been taken in by the subtlety of May's attacks. From the front cover all the way through it's an all-out assault on one of the most important scientific breakthroughs in history. Darwin's idea is demonstrably supported by overwhelming amounts of observable evidence from countless fields of study. The fact that May's book is a pitiful attempt to undermine it for religious reasons is neither here nor there. The only way Lenihan can save face is to show up for the event and use his speech to highlight the piles of inaccuracies and misdirections in the book. That would be both rude to the author and undignified for a politician. He's really dug himself into a hole here. Interesting to see how he tries to get out.

Not a fan

2010-09-06T16:44:00.003+01:00

A group of four women are outside the door peering in. Three are keen to have a look around. One is not. Her friend attempts to persuade her.

‘But don’t you like fossils?’

‘No I don’t.’

She points at the amethyst geode near the door.

‘What about that one? Don’t you think that’s beautiful?’

‘No I don’t. I think it’s disgusting. I hate it.’

‘But what about the smaller ones?’

‘The smaller ones are alright. I’m going to the hat shop. Come on.’

A man looking around couldn't help but laugh and I was a little lost for words. One of the four bravely stayed to have a look around, and I was very tempted to ask if her friend was always so... rude. I didn't, though. It was a strange over-reaction. The big geode is the one thing that people tend to love most, and this was the first time I'd heard anyone express their dislike at all, let alone so vehemently.

Polar opposites

2010-09-03T11:39:00.007+01:00

Every so often throughout the history of the Earth, its geomagnetic field has switched. Magnetic North and magnetic South swap seats. There's no discernible occurrence pattern - gaps between flips range from a few thousand years to tens of millions of years. The process usually takes quite some time, say 4,000 - 10,000 years, as the field weakens slowly, then switches and regains strength at a faster rate. Rocks in a site in Nevada appear to show the process can happen far more quickly, though, and this is not the first such find. A 1995 paper on a site in Oregon showed similar findings, but the suggestion has proved controversial.

The field is generated by the movement of iron-rich molten rock beneath the Earth's surface. There is a system of convection currents moving the magma around and changes in the flow may result in disruption to the magnetic field. The flow can be influenced by the absorption of subducted slabs of crust material, but also possibly by meteorite impacts, major episodes of vulcanism, earthquakes and so on. There may be another, weaker field produced by the iron in the crust layers, too.

Currently, the field is weakening and has been for over 100 years. The rate of weakening has risen recently and this may suggest we are heading towards a flip. Or it may not, as it may just regain strength. Again, these fluctuations happen all the time, and it is still well within 'normal' limits. As it seems to be completely random, we cannot say we are due for another soon, but there is a theory that it will happen in 2012. Seems far too specific to me, and unlikely for that reason alone.

Whether in two years or not, it will happen at some point. How is it going to affect humanity? Some think the weakened field will expose the Earth and all its inhabitants to harmful cosmic radiation. Safe to say that - as we are all still here - humans have survived many flips in the past and there's no reason to expect dramatic changes in our life. Like death rays from space. There don't appear to be any extinction events linked to any previous flip. We may have to abandon our compasses for a bit, that's all.

El caníbal

2010-09-01T09:42:00.005+01:00

Since 1994, bones have been collected from a cave system in the Atapuerca Mountains of Northern Spain. Around 800,000 years ago, the caves were home to Western Europe's earliest known Homo species, though there is still debate over whether they belong to H. heidelbergensis, H. erectus or even a new species, H. antecessor. The bones from the spoil heaps bear the signs of butchery. There are score marks from stone tools and breaks where they have been broken apart to get to the marrow. In Gran Dolina these butchered bones are of bison, deer, sheep and at least eleven humans.

These proto-Spaniards were cannibals. The butchered human remains are found regularly - amongst those of other animals - in layers covering a span of at least 100,000 years, so the idea that cannibalism may have been a last resort in hard times has been discounted. The climate would have been mild and the landscape suitable for many rich food sources. It looks like the dead folk were just another source of nutrition. The way the bones are discarded and mixed suggests there was no ritual attached, as there is in many more recent cases of cultural cannibalism. Signs show that the skulls were cracked open and brains eaten, too. Nice.

One other - speculative - possibility is that it was routinely carried out as part of a turf war. If the surrounding area was prime real estate, there may well have been rival groups competing for territory. So far, all the cannibal victims look to have been children or teenagers. Weak, easy targets? Early natural deaths? It has so far proved impossible to determine whether the dinner was related to the diners - that might eventually provide a big clue as to what was going on. In any case, cannibalism is far from unusual in palaeocultures. There is a fairly strong track record of it, and probably the tendency not to be looking for the signs of it might mean it's even more prevalent through hominid and human history than currently thought. Ask Sawney Bean.

In other caves of the Atapuercas, bones of lions and bears were found. Sounds like a rubbish place to live. If the lions and bears don't get you, your neighbours might.

Nice to be nice

2010-08-26T10:52:00.004+01:00

I have heard a number of times from religious people that their ethics are either informed by or totally derived from their faith. It happened again recently. At times, this is meant to imply my lack of faith leads automatically to a lack of moral code. Which, naturally, I find more than a little offensive. Personally, I feel if you need to learn what's right and wrong from a book written a very long time ago, then there's something amiss. I believe myself to be a moral person and have always thought that people have an innate sense of ethics, that it is a beneficial attribute for both society and the individual. Ultimately, if it is innate and broadly beneficial, then 'niceness' is likely to be a trait passed on.

I was pleased to find this article on Nature's website suggesting a broader effect of the benefits of altruism, outwith the family structure. The evolution of morality has been accepted for some time, but these findings from mathematical analysis show that the general process of natural selection can result in inherited altruism and that no specific set of circumstances is necessary. Maybe all those ants carrying bits of leaf everywhere are going to parties.

Hot stuff

2010-08-23T15:29:00.005+01:00

A woman was looking through the tumblestones and picked up a piece of man-made silicon. It's unused stuff from silicon chip manufacture and looks great polished - silvery and strange. She held it up and asked me:

'Is this stuff artificial? It says so on the label here.'
'Yes, it's man-made.'
'Does that mean it can't be baked in an oven?'

'Um. You could, I suppose. Why?'

I wasn't really expecting that question. Turned out she made brooches by baking stuff. We talked about melting points. She didn't buy any.

Goodnight Moon

2010-08-20T15:53:00.003+01:00

The moon is shrinking. According to astronomers looking at data from a NASA orbiter, it has lost about 200 metres of its diameter. It's all wrinkly. This isn't unusual - like planets, the moon had a hot core when it was formed and as the core cools, the surface contracts. So if the moon is still contracting, it might still have a bit of heat left in its middle. Maybe there's a dragon or something in there. I hope so.

The moon is very popular. With werewolves, lunatics, astronomers and everyday people like Craig. It was 'born' around 4.527 billion years ago, when something very big and heavy smashed into the newly formed Earth. The big lump knocked off became our moon, so it's not made of cheese, but of the same stuff Earth is made of. Rock and dust and all that. Don't be sad that's it's getting smaller. It'll be a long time before it disappears. By the way - ASTRONOMERS = MOONSTARERS.

Whodunnit?

2010-08-17T09:53:00.004+01:00

There's a television programme called Cold Case, where unsolved crimes are re-examined in the light of new evidence. I think. I haven't seen it. What was I going to say? Oh, yes. The case of the dead elephants. There are a number of ideas as to the demise of the mammoths, mastodons and other exciting megafauna of North America about 13,000 years back. You know - when all this was fields. At the same time, a paleo-Indian people known as Clovis, famous for their stone spear points, seem to die out. The demise of the big, hairy animals and the spear-toting man would appear closely linked.

Well, three years ago a nuclear scientist, Richard Firestone, and geologist Allen West published a paper suggesting a supernova explosion some 41,000 years ago fired out a series of comet-like missiles, one of which piled into North America around 28,000 years later (that's about 13,000 years ago, to save you the maths). Aha - a suspect. The story went that initially there had been an early shockwave, 34,000 years ago, of tiny, hot, radioactive, magnetic iron-rich lumps from the supernova which had hit earth and caused considerable misery. Famously, three mammoth tusks found in Siberia and Alaska were pitted with flecks of what's thought to be this early supernova grit. Secondly, the impact of the comet at the 13,000 year-ago point had an immediate and severe effect on the wildlife, particularly anything right underneath. Then thirdly the landing created a series of wildfires that spread across the continent burning up all the vegetation and generally roasting stuff. Firestone and West proposed the extent of these fires was sufficient to eventually result in the extinction of the missing North American megafauna and the Clovis culture.

These claims were received with a degree of scepticism and recent research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lays out a number of concerns. There is evidence enough to support the meteorite impact, and there are certainly signs of large-scale fires at around the right time. What's dubious is the sweeping nature of the hypothesis. It seems very unlikely to me that such wildfires would be quite so all-pervasive and apocalyptic. I'm sure populations took a big hit but people, plants and animals usually find a way through things one way or another. So - was the death of the mammoths down to a big space explosion? Verdict - not guilty. Not completely. Aren't I decisive?

Spoils of war

2010-08-13T16:06:00.005+01:00

This week Zimbabwe put some blood diamonds on sale, after a ban had been lifted by the regulatory body. The trade watchdog, under the eye of the UN, has a system called The Kimberley Process to ensure every diamond-producing nation can show its diamonds are from legitimate mining sources. Zimbabwe, as you'll probably know, is a bit of a mess of a country and their army took diamond mines by force some time ago.

Other countries under close scrutiny include Sierra Leone, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. Hard to miss the horribly inconvenienced Naomi Campbell in the news this week after she had been given some dodgy rocks by Liberian dictator and all-round-unpleasant man Charles Taylor at a party thirteen years ago. She was disappointed because they were all grubby, but did she know their history? Best to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she's as slow-witted as her public pronouncements and behaviour suggest.

So what are blood diamonds? Are they red? Does Leonardo DiCaprio have some? Basically, they are diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance insurgency or other conflict. Very often there is forced labour involved in their collection, and - as in the case of Zimbabwe - the mines are often taken violently from their commercial owners in the first place. So - all in all - they are not something that should be encouraged. The Kimberley Process has helped, though, and the World Diamond Council now estimates that around 1% of the stones on the world market are suspiciously obtained. Still too many, but at least the worst of it is under control.

Feldsparkle

2010-08-12T10:34:00.006+01:00

Feldspars are a group of minerals that constitute around 60% of the rocks on the Earth's crust. The pink and white bits in most granites are feldspars. They are found in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks and have a complicated triangular composition diagram to confuse students of geology. They are alumino-silicate minerals with a balance of either sodium, calcium or potassium filling slots in the molecular structure. The presence of these last three determine the type of feldspar the mineral is. There are also some rare barium feldspars, the wicked uncle of the family. Nobody talks about barium feldspars. They were even booted out of the triangle diagram for insubordination. There are lots of different sub-groups, and further divisions within those. Maybe you can see why I specialised in palaeontology towards the end of my degree.

So far, so what, right? Well, some of these many minerals can be very pretty... See how I bring it down to my level? Bottom left here is moonstone, which is a variety of orthoclase. Up to the right is the colourful labradorite, from the plagioclase group. Sunstone is an oligoclase variety which has tiny plates of hematite that give it a golden shimmer. Amazonite is a pretty green microcline and there are gem varieties of 'normal' orthoclase and albite. I suppose the point is that - brain-eroding chemical shenanigans aside - feldspars are a big group of the most common minerals on the surface of the planet. You'd think they'd be pretty drab, dull things with an inferiority complex. Most of them are, I suppose, but they also have their gems. Even the most ordinary minerals can be beautiful. It's like the ugly duckling or something, isn't it? Don't cry now.

Pennies from heaven

2010-08-06T10:16:00.004+01:00

I realise it was only last week I wrote about the awkward relationship between the commercial and academic geological worlds but another article - this time about meteorites, in New Scientist - caught my attention today. It centres around the Gebel Kamil crater in Egypt, found last year by some Italian scientists but also by others - to the dismay of the research team. Now, of course my inclination is going to be to defend attacks on open-market trading in geological material. I'm a fossil dealer. However, I did a post-grad course in Museum Studies, and worked in museums for a while, too. I understand where the academics are coming from to a degree and I do try to keep a balanced view. Honest.

The main thrust of my argument last week was the enormous provision of material from the commercial sector and how it would be detrimental to science to cut that off. This stands for meteorites as well. I have three or four friends who are meteorite hunters - that's what they do for a living. Anyone wishing to study the material they find can do so easily enough - buying a few small pieces will be far, far cheaper than going out to collect their own samples. The New Scientist article suggests at one point that material in the hands of commercial collectors is forever lost to science. I think that's both partially untrue and potentially damaging. Most collectors I know will happily make their stuff available for study on request. I know that someone has to know it's there in the first place, though, and I can see that as a problem. Lots of collections are offered to museums eventually, but that doesn't solve the issue. Again, pro-actively fostering relationships between collectors and the academic establishment can only be of benefit.

Coming back to the Gebel Kamil site - to me the piece misses a number of points. The Italian team's lost bottle? Who is to say they were the first people there? That seems a remarkable claim. Secondly, why should science have automatic rights to all the material? It's fair to say a better estimate of total fall weight can be attempted with more of the meteorite in situ, but who knows how much of it has been collected in the 5000 years since it fell? Ultimately, what has happened is that the scientific community has found the site of a meteorite fall and given it an official name. It will undertake a full analysis of the rocks and crater and we will learn a bit more about meteorites. This is still happening, commercial collecting or not. It is of no real use to the researchers to possess all of the meteorite, but I'd argue it's of some value to science as a whole to have the background interest in the subject raised by the commercial market.

The use of UNESCO as a safeguard for specimens and sites of vital importance to science could be more effective if properly applied and enforced, but there aren't many instances where this is the case. As an example, China have a blanket ban on the export of vertebrate fossil material. This seemed brought in essentially to protect their feathered dinosaur stuff - and rightly so. Very important palaeontological specimens that academics should be able to access. It's a sledgehammer to crack a nut, though. Also banned for export are two types of fossil fish, Jianghanichthys and Lycoptera, that had provided a steady income stream for very poor parts of China. They are of no scientific interest. Australia is pretty much the only place where customs will take an interest if you go through the border with a Chinese fossil fish. The approach mentioned towards the end of the New Scientist piece is a good one, I think, but essentially is simply exploiting the existing situation. Academic bodies sponsoring local collectors to provide material for them instead of buying from dealers. But - doesn't that just make these sponsored local collectors... meteorite dealers?

Ahhh. I'll write about something else next time, I promise.

A week to themselves

2010-08-04T16:39:00.005+01:00

Mothers get a day. Fathers get a day. Sharks get a whole week. So greedy. But anyway - it's Shark Week this week. Right now. So go and hug a shark. Well - okay - go and... Go and... How do you celebrate Shark Week? It's been running since 1987, the brainchild of the Discovery Channel who pack their schedule with relevant programming.

Sharks get a rough time of it from us lot. Some of us are afraid of them, others fascinated, but we're all at least impressed. Some of the best-sellers in the shop are fossil shark teeth, so I owe them a great deal. Sharks are the lions of the sea. Or to avoid any letters of complaint from sealions, maybe sharks are the tigers of the sea. They have been around for a long time and proved themselves thoroughly effective predators but seem to have met their match in humans. Most species of shark face some level of extinction threat - and may be lost within the next few decades at current rates of decline. The process of collecting shark fins for a stupid soup is revolting. I'd suggest that anyone wanting shark fin soup should collect the ingredients themselves, by hand. So - all power to Shark Week if it at least raises awareness a little.

Zuppa di gamberetti

2010-07-30T09:21:00.003+01:00

Some Triops cancriformis - horseshoe or tadpole shrimp - have been found in Dumfriesshire. They have remained unchanged for over 200 million years (not these specific individuals) and are thought to be the oldest living species on the planet. They are found across Europe, but are rare and until now had only been found in one locality in the UK - a pond in the New Forest.

In the back of American comics you used to get adverts for Sea Monkeys. As a kid I thought the adverts were really weird and was curious to know exactly what happened. Did one of them really have a crown? A trident? This was before the days of the internet. They are brine shrimp and you can buy a packet with a powder of dried embryos which will hatch out in a tank full of salt water and instantly transform your life into a world of wonder and joy. The 'eggs' can stay in cryptobiosis (ta da!) for as long as fifty years. Anyway - Triops are now sold like this, too. I don't think it's the same species, but probably Triops longicaudatus. In captivity they commonly grow as big as 6-8cm, but in the wild the ones found in Europe and Africa can be up to 11cm. Quite often a kid in the shop asks if the trilobites are fossil Triops. You can see the resemblance.

Triops have both male and female reproductive organs. I don't know where I was going with this, so I'll just stop.

All aboard

2010-07-29T14:02:00.004+01:00

Most people are well aware of the problem some parts of the United States have had with the teaching of Creationism in schools. It hasn't been a big issue here, really. But at the end of June, the Learning Outside the Classroom charity awarded its Quality Badge to a place near Bristol called Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. LOTC offers accreditation to visitor attractions and education centres that provide hands-on learning experiences outside of the school environment and doesn't appear to have any religious associations. The manifesto on their site is clear enough and it's a very positive idea - recommended resources for teachers, and so on.

A brief look through the Noah's Ark Zoo site shows that while they superficially purport to an open-minded approach to scientific education - on subjects like evolution, the origins of life and so on - there is a distinct and overt religious agenda. Were it not for this scientific subject matter and context, I wouldn't have a problem with the LOTC's endorsement. After some concerns were voiced by another accredited organisation, the LOTC remarked that they had also awarded the Quality Badge to a couple of religious groups. This evades the point that other groups were offering religious education rather than addressing matters scientific. Noah's Ark Zoo has a large model of the ark, showing giraffes next to Tyrannosaurus rex. And beside the monkey house is a board with the top ten reasons why monkeys are not like humans. Their website is packed with pages of material written specifically to refute the Theory of Evolution - laying bare the feeble claims of open-mindedness. There are a great many links to sister sites with even more bad science. Essentially, Noah's Ark Zoo is clearly providing a demonstrably inaccurate view of fundamentally (ha ha) important scientific topics. It's teaching WRONG STUFF to kiddywinkies. And that's a BAD THING which should not be encouraged, let alone endorsed by any level of educational establishment.

For the record, I believe there should be some level of religious education in (and in this case - out of) school, but that it should be objective and cover the basics of the history and tenets of the major faiths. It should not stray into areas it has no business.

Open ground

2010-07-26T14:41:00.005+01:00

The article on the big Sotheby's fossil auction in Paris in Saturday's Independent had a comment from a conservator at the Natural History Museum in London that I found a little disappointing.

The quote:

"We try not to buy on the commercial market. For a start we have limited funds, but we also don't particularly want to encourage the sale of fossils that may be dug up without the details of the find being recorded, which would mean the loss of important scientific information."

It's not like it's a vitriolic attack on the fossil trade or anything, but I do see this as being a bit negative. There is a long history of commercial fossil collecting and it has always had a vital part to play in the development of science. Mary Anning is a fine example, as is Stan Wood for that matter. For a while there may have been a slight tendency for some in the academic world to regard fossil dealers as a necessary evil, or even an outright threat to scientific discovery, but this opinion has generally waned and the benefits of working with the trade is mostly acknowledged now.

The provision of material by professional collectors ensures a steady supply of new finds, and at a time when most museums are under considerable financial pressure it makes no sense to discourage this. Although Mrs Cornish points out that the NHM has limited funds, it still enjoys a more privileged position in this regard than the majority of museums with geological collections. Most bodies would find it difficult to raise money for fossil-collecting expeditions and even if they could, there's no guarantee of finding anything of great value. In most circumstances it makes financial and practical sense to get the pick of the material from the trade. Most collectors will make sure the important finds go to science for sensible sums and plenty donate material that is of interest.

My main point, I suppose, is that it is unfair to assume professional collectors will gather their material in a careless manner, ignorant of best practice. Clearly there will always be examples of geological vandalism and theft, but this will be almost impossible to eradicate. I would have thought it would be far more beneficial to actively encourage 'proper' collecting. It's great that museums foster relationships with local amateur collectors, but this might well be extended to professionals. The relatively recent publication of the Scottish Fossil Code by Scottish Natural Heritage was the result of a lengthy consultation with representatives of all aspects of palaeontology. Amateur collectors, commercial collectors, dealers and academics were all asked for their views. The outcome was refreshingly positive - encouraging people to go out and look for fossils using the guidelines set out clearly in the code. This can help ensure the preservation of the vital geological information. Ultimately, if nobody goes out and digs it up, nobody gets to see it, study it, learn from it. And it's lost.

The fossils belonging to Mr Wood

2010-07-24T09:29:00.006+01:00

I am Mr Dale. I am often asked if I am Mr Wood. I am not, but there is one. Stan Wood started the business and is a famous fossil hunter. I am also often asked if I am Mr Woods. I am not. There is one - my friend Mark, a sports journalist. Once or twice, people have asked if I am Mr Woods-Fossils. I am not and there isn't one of those. Oh - and once somebody thought we were a shop that only sold fossil wood. Mr Wood Fossil, like Mr Carpet or something. I'm one of those people that get a little annoyed by the misuse of apostrophes and so on. Doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but the simple things like a basket of carrot's grate*. So. While technically these are now Mr Dale's Fossils, I didn't really consider changing the name of the shop when I bought it from Stan. I like the name and it would be throwing away the established reputation needlessly. Plus the association with Stan is something I don't want the business to lose.

Now and then people come in and tell me that they, too, are a Wood or Woods. I think more as comment on what they presumably see as a very minor coincidence rather than an attempt to claim the shop's stock as their own. A few weeks ago, though, a couple came in and straight to the counter.

"Are you Mr Woods?"

"No - there is a Mr Wood, but I'm..."

"It's just that we are called Woods, aren't we Dave?"

Dave confirmed this.

"Isn't that hilarious? We're called Woods and this shop is Mr Wood's Fossils. Isn't that amazing?"

"Er. Well..."

"Lovely shop. Goodbye Mr Woods."

* I know this is rubbish.

Wet monkey

2010-07-22T09:45:00.002+01:00

Yet another fossil monkey find; this time in an underwater cave in the Dominican Republic. The Hispaniola monkey, Antillothrix bernensis, was found last year by scuba divers and is thought to have been pushed to extinction in the 16th Century after the arrival of the Europeans to the Caribbean. It's not an 'old' fossil, possibly from about 3,000 years ago, but does offer a bit more of a clue to the morphology of the animal -very few examples have been found.

Everybody seems to be finding fossil monkeys everywhere and I have found none. NONE. How is this fair? I might have to close the shop this afternoon and have a good look around the Grassmarket.

Sandy monkey

2010-07-15T09:49:00.005+01:00

A fossil hunting group from the University of Michigan was looking for whale material in Saudi Arabia when they found a partial skull of an early primate. The paper, published yesterday in Nature, reveals the dating at around 29 million years old and at a time when key evolutionary steps were being taken by our monkey ancestors. This date is only based on accurate datings of nearby finds, though, and the new material has yet to be properly dated. Saadanius hijazensis would have lived in mangrove swamps and been around the size of a baboon. From wounds found on the skull, it looks like it met an unfortunate, bitey-headed end.

The exact dating might yet prove a bit of an issue. Some reporting on the topic has suggested the find brings forward the times of divergences to Old World monkeys and apes from genetic evidence, but this seems difficult to support to me. Firstly, this is one find and more sampling is needed before enough is known about the animal to be clearer about its position on the 'tree'. Secondly, there is no defined time boundary where every living primate suddenly pings into a new species - its a gradual process and in many instances more primitive groups will co-exist with those more developed for considerable periods of time. At the very least, it's a great insight into the facial features of a primate from an important period of their development. Hopefully, a specific expedition for this site will be carried out soon, more examples will be found and a better reconstruction can be made. The finder, Iyad Zalmout, had to leave the skull where he found it for a few days as he had a tight schedule looking for other material. He was worried it might get stamped on by a goat. It wasn't.

Open, close, open

2010-07-14T13:00:00.002+01:00

Back to work after the longest break I've had in years. It always takes me a couple of days to get back into the swing of it, and today's downpour has helpfully cut down customer numbers to a slow trickle. For a few years we've opened the shop on Sundays during the Festival and the Christmas run-up, but found that through the rest of the year it's not really worthwhile. This is the third year of Sundays in July and so far it's more or less worked out.

Yesterday the shop was shut as Riley had a trip for his doctorate and I was still driving North from the ferry. I've been very lucky so far, keeping the shop open at all times with only one other staff member, so I don't mind one day too much. Hopefully nobody travelled a long way to find the locked door, but it was unavoidable - I asked around friends but a Tuesday is not as easy to cover as a Saturday. Apologies if you came down.

Thar she bites

2010-07-01T13:40:00.003+01:00

A whale with enormous teeth has been found in the Pisco-Ica desert of Southern Peru. Named Leviathan melvillei, after the Moby Dick author, its estimated length was 14-17.5m, roughly the same as today's sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus, though fully grown male sperm whales can reach over 20m. The find was made in November 2008 by Klaas Post, from Rotterdam Natural History Museum, who was with a mixed group of museum and university palaeontologists led by The NHM of Paris.

The site would have been a shallow lagoon between 12-13 million years ago and remains were also found of baleen whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles and seals. Although the researchers think the animal may have resembled Physeter in size and appearance, the Leviathan had teeth in both upper and lower jaws - the sperm whale has lower teeth only. This suggests melvillei may have behaved more along the lines of an orca, preying on seals, large fish and even baleen whales. It's the teeth that are the most interesting aspect of the find. When first found, it was thought the teeth might be elephant tusks. On the 2008 expedition a near-complete skull was found, 3m long, as well as a jaw and some loose teeth. These are 12cm in diameter and up to 36cm long, dwarfing those of modern toothed whales.

Into the valley

2010-06-21T13:18:00.004+01:00

I leave for the Euromineral show in Sainte-Marie aux Mines, Alsace tomorrow morning. It's the smaller of the two shows I regularly go to, but cheaper and offers a few different dealers. It's not exactly tiny - there are around 900 dealers and over 20,000 visitors. The setting is refreshingly green after the desert of Tucson, too. It's close to the German and Swiss borders, in an area famous for its wines, and every little village has its own vineyards. If I wasn't working so hard, I might be able to go around a few and try some. And nearby is Montagne des Singes - Monkey Mountain. This is as great as it sounds - a fenced-off hilltop full of Barbary macaques. I've probably mentioned this before, but it's worth bringing it up again. There are also a lot of storks flapping around. Storks are good.

Sainte-Marie aux Mines was a silver mining town and Euromineral has its origins in a local mining exhibition in 1962, which developed into a regular event and then a small scale trade show after only four years. It has grown steadily ever since, and now takes over the town for around a week as the streets are closed and tents put up. The locals put up with a lot of noise and mess for a while, but the town does well from it and everyone is generally made very welcome.

I used to camp in one of the town's two campsites but prices rose, amenities declined and I gave up a few years ago. Now I stay with a group of friends in an organic cider farm a few miles away. Lovely place, but can get busy with mosquitoes. Riley will be running the shop while I'm away.

Bigmouth strikes again

2010-06-16T11:01:00.002+01:00

I love animals, but for the most part I'm not that bothered by birds. Birds of prey are generally a bit more interesting, with their air of arrogant menace. I appreciate the beauty of feather patterns and colours. The mechanics of flight are fascinating. Chicken sandwiches are nice. And so on. For me, though, the most interesting thing about birds are their origins. These things are what we have left of dinosaurs, and it's easy to overlook that. Take a closer look at an ostrich, for example, and you can start to picture its reptilian ancestry.

All that said, some birds stick out as being worthy of a bit more attention. Pelicans for example. Who doesn't have a soft spot for pelicans? They have been in the news a lot recently for unfortunate, oily reasons, but I saw an article on the BBC site about a fossil pelican that caught my attention. The main point of the article is that the 30 million year-old fossil is pretty much the same as modern species. News! Pelicans stay the same for a long time! It is reasonably newsworthy, though, as changes in most bird morphologies have been considerable in that time. This shows that either the pelican has found the perfect form for its niche or it has reached an equilibrium point where the compromise of flight and flappy-jowled beak has proved difficult to get beyond. Whatever the reason, it looks like the pelican has found a good ecological spot and is sticking with it. Now we just have to stop drenching them in oil.

Biting back

2010-06-11T14:18:00.002+01:00

A dig in the Turkana region of Northern Kenya six years ago has thrown some light on the diet of hominids living in that area 1.95 million years ago. A recently published report shows that the site contained butchered remains of at least ten different animals, with a few surprise inclusions. Alongside the bones of small birds, fish and antelope were those of hippos and even crocodile. Seems like these Homo habilis weren't content to play it safe. Must have been quite the feeling for the hero of the hunt to return to camp dragging a crocodile. I would probably have been the guy at the back of the party, shamefully hiding my haul of one sparrow and two trod-on lizards under my matted beard.

The site produced a huge number of bones and the stone tools that were used to prepare the meat and the findings provide a good insight into not only the diet but the habitat of the time. What's now a very hot, dry area would have been considerably wetter back then. It's thought the additional calorific intake provided by increasing the amount of meat in the hominid diet sped development of the brain. That will be my excuse from now on. Researchers think the meat was eaten raw, and it is unknown if there was garnish of any sort. Cooking was an important breakthrough in the story of human evolution.There was a great Horizon programme about it last year, I think. Well worth a look if you can find it.

Shark art

2010-06-08T15:04:00.012+01:00

A couple of months ago I commissioned a painting of the shop logo shark, Akmonistion zangerli, from the palaeontological artist Bob Nicholls. He sent me this preliminary sketch (left) before starting work in the middle of May. He finished last week and sent me a picture of the completed work, which should arrive in a couple of days. You can see the picture below. The little fish are Acanthodes, a foot-long spiny shark abundant in the Early Carboniferous.

Akmonistion was found in the early 80s by Stan Wood in the Manse Burn Formation, a 330 million year old series of rocks in Bearsden, Glasgow. The most complete specimen found is in the collection of Glasgow University's Hunterian Museum, who employed Stan as a fossil hunter for a time. There were some truly weird sharks (see Helicoprion) patrolling the

seas of the Carboniferous and Akmonistion was certainly one of them. It was a stethacanthid shark, about the size of a big dogfish, and males had an anvil-shaped brush-like fin crested with little denticles covering the flat surface on top. These spiky, scaly bits were also in a patch on top of its head. A number of suggestions have been put forward for their purpose; display, as a weapon of sorts or even a way of hitching a lift by clamping on to a larger swimmer. Perhaps the most plausible is that they were used much like a stag's antlers, in a battle to prove dominance. Some pieces I have read on them say that only male stethacanthids have been found with the spiky anvil, and in fact only males have been found at all, suggesting that the females have been given another name entirely. It may be that Symmorium, a contemporary and similar shark of which apparently only females have been found, is the girl to the stethacanthid's boy - and consequently the reason behind the strange fin. I'm not sure about this, as I have also read articles about the Bearsden material that suggests both male and female sharks were found - some sexual dimorphism in the number of denticles (and presence of claspers) - but female stethacanthids. I'll need to ask...

Anyway - Bob's work is always great, so it's no surprise that the commission has turned out so well. I'm looking forward to getting it framed and up on the wall.

Hypermarket

2010-06-04T16:53:00.004+01:00

The brand new all-singing, all-dancing Mr Wood's Fossils site is now live. It's been a long time coming, but it looks great and I'm really pleased with it. Still a couple of little tweaks to be made, but it's up and running.

It's an online shop, with a cart and so on, making it a big step up from the old site. There are links to the blog, the Facebook page and even an RSS feed - and I'm still not entirely sure what that is. Next step is to add a bit more stock to it, and while I have the images for a few more, I'll need another photography session to cover a few more lines. Anyway - take a look by clicking on here.

What's the time?

2010-06-02T09:44:00.002+01:00

Neanderthals in the news again, this time with a story about some tools found in roadworks in Kent. On the face of it, the story itself is an interesting one, with the sediments containing the finds being dated at between 100 and 110 thousand years ago. Significant because Britain is generally thought to have been empty of people - Neanderthal and Homo sapiens - at the time. This was at the start of the last Ice Age and around 40,000 years before the island was supposedly inhabited by hominids again. It's known Neanderthals were nearby in Northern France at this time, and to me it seems unlikely there weren't a few making it over the relatively short stretch of water and ice. Sea levels were fluctuating considerably and there were at least patches of land in what's now the Channel at time between 100,000 and 60,000 years ago. They weren't known as seafarers, but the lure of all those tasty mammoth would have been a powerful draw.

The point I'd like to take up, though, is the reservations of others in the scientific community about the accuracy of the dating technique used by the research team. Given that the point of the story here is that the dating of the finds puts Neanderthals in Britain well before it had been thought they'd arrived - it all falls down if the technique used is not scientifically robust. In this case, the team from the University of Southampton and Oxford Archaeology used Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) which measures the length of time since some minerals were exposed to daylight. It can be a useful and reliable dating tool within certain parameters. Some have pointed out that these dates are at - or exceed - the limits of time range of OSL's effective application, which may throw a little doubt over the results obtained.

I have a bit of a personal issue with this topic. Proponents of Young Earth Creationism are keen to attack geological and archaeological dating techniques, and I get to meet a few of them - only now and again - in the shop. It's usually an interesting experience, and usually frustrating. Without wishing to tar them all with the same brush, typically they have the idea that there is a large body of scientists that doubt the efficacy of dating techniques. This is not the case. There are, of course, scientists out there with these beliefs, but they are a tiny minority. Young Earthers seem to think that if they can discredit carbon dating - almost always the only method they have heard about - all of natural science will collapse and people will turn to religion. Presumably theirs.

There are a number of tried and tested approaches used to determine the age of rocks or sediments which produce repeatable results and can very often be cross-checked with more than one technique. Their reliability is not in any doubt when used correctly. So - where a dating method is used with surprising results or in potentially ineffective circumstances it is vital that the evidence and outcomes are examined more critically than ever. The scientific process relies on impartial observation and careful peer review. It's worth being as sure as you can be, and worth admitting when you aren't.

What do you call a squid with two arms?

2010-05-27T12:55:00.005+01:00

Nectocaris pteryx, of course. Which means, erm, finned swimming crab. One of the many weird squidgy things found in the famous Burgess Shale of British Columbia in Canada was a 5cm long blob with fins, stalked eyes and a pair of tentacles. There had been only one specimen collected originally, and while a few researchers had studied it - including Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris - it wasn't until this year that it has been more firmly identified as an early cephalopod.

A group has studied a further 90 specimens collected by the Royal Ontario Museum and has recognised features of later relatives that give credence to the cephalopod tag. This is significant as it drags the origins of cephalopods back in time by a good 30 million years to 505 million years ago.

Unlucky for some

2010-05-26T12:34:00.008+01:00

Opals have a reputation for being unlucky, and there are various possible reasons floating around the internet it turns out. The most plausible is the negative press the stone got from Sir Walter Scott's novel 'Anne of Geierstein'. I'd never heard of it. Apparently somebody dies after their opal gets wet and turns colourless. Prior to the book, opals were considered very lucky. Power of the press.

Lucky or unlucky, opal can be a beautiful stone. Like jet, it's another stone saddled with the unfortunate designation of mineraloid, because it's essentially hydrated quartz. The water content varies up to between 15-20%, and this will affect the stability of what can be a temperamental stone. There's quite a range - milk, jelly, fire, boulder, cherry - but when most people think of opal it's of the precious gemstone types. The vivid flashes of colour that can be seen in some varieties is due to the way the quartz is arranged in its construction. Tiny spheres of quartz are packed together in grids and this structure will diffract light passing through to create a play of colour.

It's a bit of a pain to work as a gemstone - it's prone to cracking and usually the best display face will require careful positioning. Like with most gemstones now, there are a few synthetic forms available now. Gilson opal was the first effective one, developed in the 70s, but I saw some Japanese stuff a couple of years ago that looked amazing. Expensive, but amazing. The bit shown above is from Welo in Ethiopia. The material has been around for a few years, but I've thought it a little too expensive for me to find a market for. Last year, though, a new site was found, there were a bunch of new sellers around and the price was very good. I bought a load and I'll get some more this year.

Subtle dig

2010-05-21T09:44:00.005+01:00

Yesterday an American guy came in and came up to the counter pretty quickly, his wife hanging back by the door. He seemed a little edgy.

'You have someone that carbon-dates all this stuff for you?'

'No - carbon dating is only useful up to about 40,000 years, but there are other pairs of isotopes that are used for longer time periods. And other methods..... [explanation of other dating techniques] ...and the material is almost always identified at source by the collector.'

'Ah - so you rely on the word of others?'

'Well, of course - why wouldn't I? It's in the best interests of the collector and seller to provide as much accurate information as possible about their product.'

'Did you know the Grand Canyon has been underwater five times? You can tell from the rocks.'

'Well - do you mean during its formation?'

'So is there someone that authenticates all these ages for you?'

'Err, well, no. There's no official body for the authentification of fossils - you might take something along to a museum or find a university with a geology department, though. It comes from all over the world - lots of different localities and the experts in those particular sites and fossil faunas will be spread all over, too. I have spent a long time studying geology and palaeontology, though, and most people in the trade know their subject pretty well.'

'So - you DO have to reply on the word of others. That must make it difficult for you, working here.'

'No. Not in the slightest.'

I was expecting him to go on. He seemed to have an issue with the dating, and I've found that the underlying reason is almost always a belief in Young Earth Creationism. He seemed to think he had made some significant point, however, and left with a curt goodbye. I have had similar conversations before, where the individual questions the ages of the fossils in the shop, makes some vague reference to upside-down trees, the subjectivity of time, buried laser guns or something and then quickly legs it feeling they have left my belief in the scientific process rocked to the core.

I find it strange. If you have these deeply-held beliefs, don't be afraid to test your thinking on them - see how they stand up in conversation. If you think I'm being naive, insincere or even deceitful by accepting and passing on the word of people who have invested a large chunk of their life studying certain fossil beds, tell me why. This guy - to me - was being hypocritical. I find it hard to believe he has never taken the word of another at face value. He didn't get round to telling me about his beliefs. I may have him pegged wrongly, but I don't think so. I'd have liked to discuss it further with him; find out why he doubted the ages. Anyway. Whatever floats his boat. Or Noah's.

Octopurse

2010-05-20T10:30:00.003+01:00

There's a little bit in the news today about the argonaut. It's often called 'paper nautilus', but it's an octopus; a little one that floats around near the surface of the ocean. Females are bigger then the 1-2cm males, but still only reach around 10cm. What's interesting about them, though, is that before they lay eggs, the females secrete calcite from the tips of a couple of specialised webbed tentacles and form a spiral shell. She will live in the shell, sticking the head and tentacles out the front, but the main purpose seems to be to protect the eggs. Most octopuses lay theirs in holes in rocky substrates. In their lairs. I wish I had a lair.

Argonauts are known to bob around just below the water surface and draw in a pocket of air to store in the shell, and this leads to another function of the shell. This air bubble can be used to control the buoyancy of the animal, greatly reducing the effort needed to move up and down through the water column. Effort that can then be expended by the argonaut in more profitable ways - going to the pub, making rock buns, etc. Obvious advantage.

A squashy, tentacley thing living in a spiral shell in the ocean? Hmm. Sound like an ammonite? The closest living relative of the ammonite is the octopus, not the spiral-shelled, tentacle-flapping nautilus, BUT this isn't a cephalopod family heirloom; the argonaut has developed this afresh, the clever little pulpbag. What's going on? Covergent evolution? Could be. Octopuses are brilliant.

Sharp stone!

2010-05-14T15:40:00.002+01:00

Was watching BBC's Horrible Histories this morning with my son before school and this sketch came on. It's generally a very good show - informative, engaging, and certainly teaches my son about history while he's unaware...

Anyway - coincidentally I got three little Neolithic scrapers in the post today. I don't know masses about archaeology, but there's something appealing about 'caveman tools'.

Written in the sand

2010-05-11T14:29:00.002+01:00

An article in yesterday's New York Times about the interpretation of trace fossils found in a layer of the micritic limestones of the Green River Formation. This famous site is where I get most of the fossil fish I sell, so it caught my eye.

Strange patterns in a layer of the rock had led to some interest. Anthony Martin of Emory University identified fin and mouth marks associated with graze feeding on the substrate, and due to the estimated size of the fish responsible, suggests Notogoneus osculus. The significance of the find is that it had previously been thought the oxygen levels would have been too low at this depth of 35 to 50 feet to allow fish to swim along the bottom of the lake. This would also help account for the unusually large number of fossils from the site - a de-oxygenated layer greatly boosts the chances of fossilisation. The fact that this Notogoneus had been grubbing around the lake bottom shows that - at least for some time - there was enough oxygen down there for fish to feed.