Duncan McIlroy
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dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Duncan McIlroy
@dmcediacaran.bsky.social
440 followers 180 following 190 posts
Ediacaran palaeobiologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Working on beautiful fossils in Newfoundland & UK alongside amazing students/colleagues with strong local community partnerships to support GeoEducation GeoConservation & ethical GeoTourism
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Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
charnwoodforest.bsky.social
👉 Join us for a free online talk by Prof Duncan McIlroy, as he shares the story of Charnwood Forest's newest fossil: Charnia brasieri!

📅 Tuesday 9 December, 7.30pm

🌐 Book you place now: www.charnwoodforest.org/event/free-o...
November 25, 2025 at 8:30 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
what a great crowd out to learn about #Charnia brasieri at the GeoCentre tonight and the celebratory cake from emthefairycakemother.
I can confirm that C. brasieri was delicious. I’ve decided that #Ediacaran organisms became extinct because they tasted so good.
November 25, 2025 at 1:38 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
alisabokulich.bsky.social
Paleo folks: Please recommend researchers (incl yourselves) interested in phylogenetic reconstruction in deep time, molecular clocks (discord w/ fossil clocks), foundational/methodological issues in phylo/paleo-reconstruction & who'd be interested in hanging w/ historians & philosophers of science ⚒️
November 24, 2025 at 12:02 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This week I found a partial #Charnia brasieri hiding in plain sight 🥷 in the cast of the #Ediacaran Mistaken Point E Surface that is housed at @johnsongeocentre.bsky.social where I’m giving a talk about C brasieri on Monday! Happy #FossilFriday
Leaf like fossil with zigzagged axis branches meet the axis at a steep angle, are curved (falcate) with transverse second order branches
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
thefosterlab.bsky.social
My alma mater, Leicester University, is dissolving its Geology Department leading to the loss of 14 staff. Palaeo is being completely axed, despite Leicester's long and storied history in this area (and its current strengths). Please sign this petition!!: www.change.org/p/save-geolo...
Sign the Petition
Save Geology at the University of Leicester
www.change.org
November 19, 2025 at 9:10 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Some more #Charnia content this #FossilFriday, but this time Charnia grandis reins. stat. It had been synonymized with C.masoni and mostly used for gigantic specimens of what is now C.brasieri but its strange rhomboidal branches are very distinct. the 1st branches are 45o and 2nd are at 90o
specimen of C grandis showing rhomboidal branching plaster cast at The Rooms opposing leaf like charnias parallel to current so not felled but growing along the seafloor in our opinion schematic showing the 1st and 2nd order branches of all the charnia species
November 14, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
susieoftraken.bsky.social
My students have set up a petition to persuade the University of Nottingham not to close our Plant Biology BSc course
c.org/VPhzVVrHPS

Please consider signing
Sign the Petition
Reconsider the potential suspension of Plant Biology Courses at UoN
c.org
November 9, 2025 at 11:55 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
A nice little article highlighting the British (charnian) specimen of Charnia brasieri from the bbc :-)
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Bradgate Park fossil named by researchers
Experts say the species lived on the seafloor around 560 million years ago.
www.bbc.com
November 6, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
charnwoodforest.bsky.social
🥳 NEW FOSSIL! Researchers from Canada have named a new species of fossil from the 560 million year old rocks of Charnwood Forest!

🌟 Its called Charnia brasieri, shaped like a frond, and could grow to a metre long.

🌐 Read more on our website: www.charnwoodforest.org/researchers-...
November 4, 2025 at 8:30 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
This #FossilFriday I’m excitedly sharing a new #Ediacaran #Charnia brasieri named for my PhD Supervisor & friend Martin Brasier who died 2014. I’ve wanted to name something for him ever since but I wanted it to be something special. When I saw the first one from Inner Meadow I knew it was the 1 🧵
leaf shaped animal fossil with sickle shaped branches meeting a a zigzagged axis Charnia brasieri sp nov Shaped of the currently valid species of Charnia and their branch types seafloor reconstruction of Charnia brasieri as a procumbent organisms living among microbial matgrounds
October 31, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
p-stewens.bsky.social
Fossils are cultural objects - and this is not some woke b*llshit that people come up nowadays to spoil the fun in #palaeontology; this classification actually has a long history.
If you're curious how fossils became #culturalproperty under int'l law, check my new paper: doi.org/10.1093/lril...
A classification unearthed: the history of palaeontological objects as cultural property in international law
Abstract. Fossils are an overlooked yet threatened category of cultural property. This article traces how they became protected by international law under
doi.org
October 28, 2025 at 8:26 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
A bit late on #FossilFriday but this Ediacaran Mistaken point specimen has been on my desk haunting me this last month. It is the paratype of #Beothukis mistakensis. All know specimens of this sp. on the E Surface are oriented nearly perpendicular to the palaeocurrent doi.org/10.3389/fear...
fractal like branches in 3 rows attributed to #Beothukis mistakensis. Fossil is a latex mold so what the bottom of the organism would have looked like if you had pulled it off the seafloor. From Mistaken Point Newfoundland
October 24, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
palaeontosoc.bsky.social
Have you completed or commissioned a piece of palaeoart in the last year? Nominations are now open for The Marsh Palaeoart Award! 🎨🦕🌿🐌🐟🎨
You can self-nominate, or nominate an artist you think deserves recognition. Check out our website for more details - palaeosoc.org/grants-prize...
October 22, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
jackjamesmatthews.bsky.social
Thank you to GSA for the invite to deliver a Pardee Keynote talk on the topic of UNESCO International Geodiversity Day at #GSAConnects25. Together, we can increase public engagement with the story of our planet.
October 21, 2025 at 3:07 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday from the #Ediacaran of Newfoundland and our #InnerMeadow site, teasing this beauty of a #Charnia which will get a name any day now. This specimen was found just a couple of weeks ago (after acceptance of the paper) & is c. 35cm long & 8cm wide (before retrodeformation)…,,
fossil with alternating falcate branched with 2 orders of smaller rangeomorph branches. it is a negative relief on top of a grey siltstone.
October 17, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
dadonadyingplanet.bsky.social
I've never really listened to Benjamin Zephaniah's poetry before but this one's certainly worth a few moments of your time.... it's beautiful!

... then remember to get mad as hell with Jenrick, Farage and their hate-filled sycophants. Don't let these bastards dictate the narrative!
October 16, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
marcelbarelli.bsky.social
#MaryAnning will celebrate the #UK première at
@leedsfilmfest.bsky.social
Leeds International Film Festival (30 oct-16 nov 2025)
www.leedsfilm.com/whats-on/mar...

@tetzoo.bsky.social @bobnichollsart.bsky.social @stevebrusatte.bsky.social @nhm-london.bsky.social @morethanadodo.bsky.social
Mary Anning — Dir. Marcel Barelli
The pioneering fossil collector’s youth is brought to life in this charming Swiss animation.
www.leedsfilm.com
October 16, 2025 at 9:59 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
taphonomist.bsky.social
Bacteria 🦠 🧫 play a crucial role in how animals become fossils!
Read about how decay experiments demonstrate that bacteria from the gut dominate the thanatomicrobiome (the internal microbiome of decay) and probably control fossilisation in our new paper!

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The relationship between microbial community succession, decay, and anatomical character loss in non‐biomineralized animals
A fundamental assumption of hypothesis-driven decay experiments is that, during decay, the loss of anatomy follows a sequence broadly controlled by the intrinsic compositional properties of tissues. ...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 15, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
allochthonous.bsky.social
Reading William Whewell's 1832 review of Lyell's Principles of Geology, Vol 2, in which he coined "uniformitarianism", and I just love this passage summarizing what in many modern geological textbooks would describe as the principle of uniformitarianism.

babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hv...
Screenshot of part of a scanned page from a 19th century scientific journal. Text reads: "Now it appears that, in the present order of things, certain changes do go on, both in the position of portions of the earth, and in the forms of certain organised beings. The volcano and the earthquake are seldom long idle; the ocean is an unremitting assailant of the solid earth; the countless host of streams and showers second his attack, on the other side, by efforts formidable from their multitude and perseverance. The coast yields; the crest of the mountain descends; large tracts of the earth tremble and change their elevation: the volcanic island lifts its head above the waves. Here, at least, are some elements of mutations in the form of the earth and of the bed of the sea. The more we examine such causes, the more constant the more extensive, the more powerful, does their operation appear. In the course of progressive ages, what effects may they not produce? And what limit are were to place to the time during which their work has proceeded? We know that this past period must be long; we know not how long. Who shall prove to use that the forces which we ourselves witness are too weak, or unfit, to produce all the facts of position which the earth's crust exhibits? Such is the reasoning of the advocate of the geological adequacy of the existing dynamical laws of the world."
October 15, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
jackjamesmatthews.bsky.social
🌟 New research positions working with the Geopark - share with anyone you think might be interested:
charnwoodforest.bsky.social Charnwood Forest Geopark @charnwoodforest.bsky.social · Oct 14
🔎 The Geopark and our partners are looking for two researchers to join exciting and innovative projects, funded by the Collaboratory Research Hub:

🌳 PhD on nature & wellbeing
🦖 Research Placement on public understanding of fossils

🌐 More info on our website: www.charnwoodforest.org/collaborator...
October 14, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
asls.org.uk
…the tar which used to boil in it to the heat, like resin in a fagot of moss-fir, was as strange a mixture as ever yet bubbled in witches’ caldron—blood of pterodactyle and grease of ichthyosaur…

—Hugh Miller, MY SCHOOLS & SCHOOLMASTERS (1854) – also on @gutenberg.org
3/4
gutenberg.org/ebooks/30737
Immediately beyond the granitic gneiss of the hill there is a subaqueous deposit of the Lias formation, never yet explored by geologist, because never yet laid bare by the ebb; though every heavier storm from the sea tells of its existence, by tossing ashore fragments of its dark bituminous shale. I soon ascertained that the shale is so largely charged with inflammable matter as to burn with a strong flame, as if steeped in tar or oil, and that I could repeat with it the common experiment of producing gas by means of a tobacco-pipe luted with clay. And, having read in Shakspere of a fuel termed "sea-coal," and unaware at the time that the poet merely meant coal brought to London by sea, I inferred that the inflammable shale cast up from the depths of the Firth by the waves could not be other than the veritable "sea-coal" which figured in the reminiscences of Dame Quickly; and so, assisted by Finlay, who shared in the interest which I felt in the substance, as at once classical and an original discovery, I used to collect it in large quantities and convert it into smoky and troubled fires, that ever filled our cavern with a horrible stench, and scented all the shore. Though unaware of the fact at the time, it owed its inflammability, not to vegetable, but to animal substance; the tar which used to boil in it to the heat, like resin in a fagot of moss-fir, was as strange a mixture as ever yet bubbled in witches' caldron—blood of pterodactyle and grease of ichthyosaur—eye of belemnite and hood of nautilus; and we learned to delight in its very smell, all oppressive as that was, as something wild, strange, and inexplicable. Once or twice I seemed on the eve of a discovery: in splitting the masses, I occasionally saw what appeared to be fragments of shells embedded in its substance; and at least once I laid open a mysterious-looking scroll or volute, existing on the dark surface as a cream-coloured film; but though these organisms raised a temporary wonder …
October 10, 2025 at 1:56 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday, brought to you this week from the #Ediacaran Johnson Discovery Surface in Discovery UNESCO Global geopark. This lovely #Bradgatia like #Fractofusus shows the wonderful fractal-like branching of the #Rangeomorpha for your enjoyment. @discoverygeoparknl.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Reposted by Duncan McIlroy
jackjamesmatthews.bsky.social
📅 5 years ago we had an online conference about geoheritage, and a few of us thought "wouldn't it be good if there was a special day for geodiversity".

🇺🇳 So we worked together to create it.

🏞 And now the world talks about geodiversity on Oct 6th.

😊 Happy #GeodiversityDay
geodiversityday.bsky.social UNESCO International Geodiversity Day @geodiversityday.bsky.social · Oct 6
🥳 Happy Geodiversity Day!

⭐ As we celebrate with the theme 'One Earth, Many Stories', read this message from the new UNESCO Chair in Geodiversity and Geoconservation:

🌐 www.geodiversityday.org/post/unesco-...
October 6, 2025 at 1:48 PM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
this is a fabulous story :-)
tomsharperocks.bsky.social Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · Oct 6
#MolluscMonday: James Sowerby's illustration of Ammonites bucklandi from the Lias of the Bath district, in vol.2 of Mineral Conchology (1818), the description brightened by the tale of William Buckland being proclaimed an 'Ammon Knight' by his friends for his mode of carrying a large specimen.
Illustration from Sowerby's Mineral Conchology of the large ammonite he named after William Buckland. It shows a large spiral shell with its inner whorls missing. Extract from Sowerby's published description: 'Found in the Blue Lias of Bath and the neighbourhood, measuring from a foot to 21 inches or more in diameter, and rather remarkable for having frequently lost the inner whorls; which circumstance, by a sort of friendly pun, has given rise to the name given it, in honour of a meritorious and enlightened Geologist, the Rev. W. Buckland, who having found a large specimen, was induced by his ardour to carry it himself, although of considerable weight, and being on horseback it was not the less inconvenient; but the inner whorls being gone so as to allow his head and shoulder to pass through, he placed it as a French horn is sometimes carried, above one shoulder and under the other, and thus rode with his friendly companions, who amused him by dubbing him an Ammon Knight; and thus the specimen was secured, by diverting the tedious toil otherwise hardly to be borne. May his zeal for information always be rewarded: may his abilities continue to meet that attention they have hitherto so deservedly gained: may his horn be exalted with honour.'
October 6, 2025 at 11:01 AM
dmcediacaran.bsky.social
Happy #FossilFriday ! When we were in the late stages of publishing the new #Ediacaran #Lydonia jiggamintia i was in very early phases of learning digital painting (I have been sculpting for a while now). and realized i wanted to try to depict a matground covered seafloor starting to reclaim #sciart
depiction of #ediacaran microbe covered seafloor reclaiming (pink) fractofusus necromass being simultaneously overgrown by a papillate yellow sponge relative #Lydonia jiggamintia
October 3, 2025 at 12:47 PM