Urban fossil hunting fun from a 19th century wall built 1822-66 in Ledbury, Herefordshire. These brachiopod shells and crinoid stems, and colonial coral, are preserved remains of animals that lived in a warm shallow sea about 430 million years ago. I don't know which quarry these ashlar blocks originated from but they're Much Wenlock Limestone. They can be found on the Barrett Browning Institute facing The Homend, named for poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, which is appropriate as I was there for the literary festival. There are also crinoid stems in the cobbles paving Church Lane.

#FossilFriday #fossils #UrbanGeology #urbanism #Herefordshire #WenlockWednesday

Happy Black Country Pride Day to all the lovely Yam Yams out there!

I was reading a geology website, about Wren’s Nest, and my favourite bit was the image where they’ve labelled the location of Dudley 427,000,000 years ago with a big arrow, lol. Priorities!

#geology #Dudley #Silurian #WenlockWednesday #TheBlackCountry #BlackCountry #BlackCountryPride #BlackCountryPrideDay

My favourite fossils aren't records of the dead, they're fossils showing the processes of being alive. The graded spacing of the ribs on the whorl of this 430 million year old fossil snail shell show periods of faster and slower spiralling growth. Poleumita funatis, about 2x2cm. Some fossils show regrowth after damage from accidents, disease, or attempted predation. /life finds a way

#30DaysWild #FossilFriday #fossils #Silurian #WenlockWednesday #snails #gastropods

I don't usually bother the fossil Friday tag with common Wenlockian marine fossils, but for the second of 30 Days Wild, the Wildlife Trusts' annual event, meet Big Dave the Dawsonoceras who was an orthoceratoid (like a squid in a conical shell) who swam in a warm shallow sea about 430 million years ago. Big Dave was a peak predator in his time. After Dave died and his shell came to rest on the seabed it became home to many smaller encrusting colony animals such as bryozoans. Fossilised Big Dave is about 10x5x4cm and the largest Little Dave bryozoan covers about 5x1.5cm of the surface. You can see the internal structure of one of one colony of encrusting animals in a photo below. I found Big Dave when I was walking and litterpicking in the woods. He was sticking out of a muddy bank of glacial till, which around here is a type of soil-with-rocks deposited by glaciers at least 150 thousand years ago.

#30DaysWild #larking #WenlockWednesday #fossil #fossils #FossilFriday

I need to break my addiction to picking up random fossils now I can't give them away via local educational programmes. I just bent down to look at strata when suddenly a rugose coral appeared in my hand... closely followed by several different species of brachiopods... oops. Although this solitary horn coral does have a colony coral epibiont so maybe I'll use that as an excuse.

#WenlockWednesday #fossils #larking

Went for a walk in the woods.
Best moment: seeing a roe deer. Also fabulous fungus.
Worst moment: misjudging the stability of a gravel bank and landing sock-deep in river mud, lol.
Worst find: plastic barrel, with "corrosive" warning label, fly-tipped next to a stream where "corrosive" contents were probably dumped.
Best find: fossil rugose "horn" coral with encrusting sponge epibiont.
Pick of the litter: 2016 "strike gold team GB" Strongbow cider can (no Olympic archery medal since Alison Williamson in 2004).

#rambling #hiking #fossils #WenlockWednesday #mudlarking #larking #litterpicking