In this new blog post, we share insights from the eight months she spent assessing, cleaning and repairing some of the most at-risk and important material in the archive, as well as some unexpected surprises our paper conservator found along the way… morethanadodo.com/2024/09/05/a-s…

September 14, 1769, birthday of German naturalist & explorer Alexander von Humboldt. He started as a mining engineer & had a life-long interest in how volcanic forces shape Earth. Drawing by Humboldt of magmatic dikes near Predazzo in the #Dolomites ⛰️ tinyurl.com/3z7swstv

#OTD in 1825, geologists Roderick and Charlotte Murchison first met #MaryAnning at #LymeRegis. They had called at her shop to be told by Mrs Anning that Mary was on the beach: 'I soon discovered her with her dog, hammer & basket – a fine intelligent young woman', he wrote.

In fact, Owen arrived with a letter of introduction from a mutual friend, Lord Cole. He intended to flatter and patronise #MaryAnning with a view to learning more about the local fossil marine reptiles, an unnecessary approach as she was always generous in sharing her knowledge.

The famous #MaryAnning 1811 #ichthyosaur skull (found by her brother) & now Natural History Museum had its first public display in, surprisingly, not London but #Edinburgh, in February 1814. More here from the latest issue of Edinburgh Geological Society's 'The Edinburgh Geologist': researchgate.net/publication/38…

Florentino Ameghino, the father of Argentinian paleontology, was born #OTD 1854. He became a national icon for his role in creating national science and culture. wp.me/p3ihHu-Af #histsci

The new edition includes a chapter 'Milestones in the history of Scottish Geology' authored by History Of Geology's Duncan Hawley and Tom Sharpe, it is illustrated with some stunning maps and diagrams.

And here is the cottage where Lapworth stayed 1872–1877 whilst undertaking his classic fieldwork at Dobb's Linn and unravelling the 'mystery' of the Southern Uplands that inaugurated the Ordovician Period

September 22, 1888, 1st issue of the #NationalGeographic Magazine published. In 1967 it will popularize plate tectonics by featuring a series of ocean floor maps 🌐 education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/plate…

And people might wonder who 'Fearnsides' is? Well, William George Fearnsides (1879-1968) was a versatile geologist, known as 'Bones'. Appointed 1st Geol. Prof. at The University of Sheffield in WW1 & WW2 he found & secured vital minerals for the 'home front'. Oh, he kept The Geological Society going in WW2!

Here is one of the exposures at Lapworth's 'classic' locality, Dob's Linn, near Moffat, where he worked out his graptolite zones, 1872-77. A remarkable piece of work.

September 23, 1832, Darwin recovered his first fossil at Punta Alta (Buenos Aires, Argentina). He collected a considerable number of fossil mammals from South America. Those discoveries sparked the theory of #evolution wp.me/p3ihHu-ji #histsci 🧪⚒️

England's First Lady Geologist, Etheldred Bennet (1875–1845) shorturl.at/mbKZ1 who achieved much, is now commemorated in her home village of Norton Bavant, Wilts. with a board unveiled today History Of Geology is proud to have helped fund this. Go visit! maps.app.goo.gl/BfUqx22kEZRaFJ…

September 25, 1839, birthday of Karl Alfred von Zittel. Pioneer of paleontological & stratigraphic research in Germany, he studied the history of #geology. In 1848 he 1st used the term "Ammonite" for an extinct group of shelled cephalopods 🐙 Artwork by tinyurl.com/yyhx9qtj

A picture depicting continental drift, from Thomas Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth (1689). Burnet didn't have the mechanism right; he thought of the earth as hollow and absorbing the Flood waters. He thought God made the world like clockwork, running without intervention.

INHIGEO Anniversary Series for August 2024 inhigeo.com/anniversaries.… Published 100 years ago “A European support to continental drift: Emile Argand and his "Tectonics of Asia"

September 29, 1839, German mineralogist Carl Friedrich Christian Mohs dies after a short sickness during a field-trip to Agordo in the #Dolomites. Published some of the 1st field-guides for #mineral ID. His hardness scale is still used & known today scilogs.spektrum.de/geschichte-der…

September 30, 1861, German naturalist Hermann von Meyer publishes the first description of Archaeopteryx - the iconic old feathered one - based on single feather found in the limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria deviantart.com/pelycosaur24/a…

September 30, 1905, birthday of German-Jewish geologist Erika Martha von Hoyningen-Huene, pioneering paleontologist of early mammals paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/for…

On September 30, 1861, Hermann von Meyer wrote a letter describing Archaeopteryx lithographica wp.me/p3ihHu-1Bw ⚒️🧪 #histsci