Tom Sharpe
@tomsharperocks.bsky.social
Geologist, writes on the history of geology and palaeontology, especially in the late 18th–early 19th C, and on the history of geology in Antarctica. Patron Lyme Regis Museum. Author of THE FOSSIL WOMAN A LIFE OF MARY ANNING (Dovecote Press 2020).
Lovely unusual coloured version of Henry De la Beche's 1832 cartoon The Light of Science for sale at auction next month. Seeking government support for science, De la Beche draws a fashionable female figure with gas lamp, wristwatch & of course a geological hammer.
www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
November 23, 2025 at 8:15 AM
Lovely unusual coloured version of Henry De la Beche's 1832 cartoon The Light of Science for sale at auction next month. Seeking government support for science, De la Beche draws a fashionable female figure with gas lamp, wristwatch & of course a geological hammer.
www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6...
#PostboxSaturday: George V wallbox, Summertown, Oxford.
November 22, 2025 at 10:18 AM
#PostboxSaturday: George V wallbox, Summertown, Oxford.
22 November 1832: Mary Anning and Anna Maria Pinney consult JS Miller's 1821 'Natural History of the Crinoidea' to identify a fossil crinoid they had found the day before. It appeared to be a new species. The copy they used was given to Mary by Miller in 1824. It's now in Lyme Regis Museum.
November 22, 2025 at 9:55 AM
22 November 1832: Mary Anning and Anna Maria Pinney consult JS Miller's 1821 'Natural History of the Crinoidea' to identify a fossil crinoid they had found the day before. It appeared to be a new species. The copy they used was given to Mary by Miller in 1824. It's now in Lyme Regis Museum.
Reposted by Tom Sharpe
It's 'Black Friday', and me and my mate Spoon Baboon are very excited to see 'Art Shaped' creep back into the Amazon craft book chart. 😆😮
If you need a special gift for a mate, or even a primate, it's here . . . www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Shaped-s...
#edusky #christmas #christmasgift #christmasbook
If you need a special gift for a mate, or even a primate, it's here . . . www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Shaped-s...
#edusky #christmas #christmasgift #christmasbook
November 21, 2025 at 8:49 PM
It's 'Black Friday', and me and my mate Spoon Baboon are very excited to see 'Art Shaped' creep back into the Amazon craft book chart. 😆😮
If you need a special gift for a mate, or even a primate, it's here . . . www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Shaped-s...
#edusky #christmas #christmasgift #christmasbook
If you need a special gift for a mate, or even a primate, it's here . . . www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Shaped-s...
#edusky #christmas #christmasgift #christmasbook
As it's apparently the anniversary of the 21 November 1953 meeting at which the Piltdown skull was revealed as a forgery, it seems appropriate to repost this oddity which I saw in an exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne a few months back.
#FossilFriday: a curiosity seen on a recent visit to Sussex, the Piltdown Man Totem, c.1924, a plaster cast of the Piltdown skull which was carried by a local group of the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, an organisation set up as an alternative to the Scouts and led by artist John Hargrave (1894–1982)
November 21, 2025 at 5:30 PM
As it's apparently the anniversary of the 21 November 1953 meeting at which the Piltdown skull was revealed as a forgery, it seems appropriate to repost this oddity which I saw in an exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne a few months back.
You responsible for wielding the sledgehammer, @nigelmonaghan-nh.bsky.social?
The Ward Scientific Company sold these Rhomaleosaurus casts to various museums starting in 1866 (for $150). The original at the National Museum of Ireland was broken up with sledgehammers during a move in the 1920s. #FossilFriday
November 21, 2025 at 2:19 PM
You responsible for wielding the sledgehammer, @nigelmonaghan-nh.bsky.social?
OK, that Lias coprolite maybe isn't the most aesthetically pleasing example for #FossilFriday. In fact it looks a bit s**t. So instead here's some nice-looking Scottish coprolites from the Carboniferous Wardie Shales near Edinburgh which Buckland had made into a table. It's now in Lyme Regis Museum.
November 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
OK, that Lias coprolite maybe isn't the most aesthetically pleasing example for #FossilFriday. In fact it looks a bit s**t. So instead here's some nice-looking Scottish coprolites from the Carboniferous Wardie Shales near Edinburgh which Buckland had made into a table. It's now in Lyme Regis Museum.
#FossilFriday: Seen on a recent visit to the Yorkshire Museum, a coprolite from the Lias of Lyme Regis presented in 1831 to @ypsyork.bsky.social by Oxford geologist William Buckland. This may be one of the many coprolites which Mary Anning was collecting at Buckland's request in 1829 and 1830.
November 21, 2025 at 7:35 AM
#FossilFriday: Seen on a recent visit to the Yorkshire Museum, a coprolite from the Lias of Lyme Regis presented in 1831 to @ypsyork.bsky.social by Oxford geologist William Buckland. This may be one of the many coprolites which Mary Anning was collecting at Buckland's request in 1829 and 1830.
Local laccolith luminously lit.
November 19, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Local laccolith luminously lit.
First snow of the season on the Lammermuir Hills. Hope Lucia has her winter woollies on.
November 19, 2025 at 8:48 AM
First snow of the season on the Lammermuir Hills. Hope Lucia has her winter woollies on.
Just spotted the typo: it was, in fact, on 18 November 1825 (not 1826) that De la Beche read his paper on the submerged forest at Charmouth.
18 November 1826: At a meeting of the Geological Society, Henry De la Beche describes the submerged forest at Charmouth shown to him by Mary Anning, crediting her with the discovery. She was well known at the Society and her name appears in the minutes from which the meeting reports were published.
November 18, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Just spotted the typo: it was, in fact, on 18 November 1825 (not 1826) that De la Beche read his paper on the submerged forest at Charmouth.
18 November 1826: At a meeting of the Geological Society, Henry De la Beche describes the submerged forest at Charmouth shown to him by Mary Anning, crediting her with the discovery. She was well known at the Society and her name appears in the minutes from which the meeting reports were published.
November 18, 2025 at 10:30 AM
18 November 1826: At a meeting of the Geological Society, Henry De la Beche describes the submerged forest at Charmouth shown to him by Mary Anning, crediting her with the discovery. She was well known at the Society and her name appears in the minutes from which the meeting reports were published.
Also at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007 was the motley crew of the then @hoggroup.bsky.social committee: Peter Tandy, Patrick Boylan, Cherry Lewis, John Mather, Alan Bowden and Ann O'Connor. Seems we had an unusual number of pirates as members of the Geol Soc in 1807.
November 17, 2025 at 10:04 PM
Also at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007 was the motley crew of the then @hoggroup.bsky.social committee: Peter Tandy, Patrick Boylan, Cherry Lewis, John Mather, Alan Bowden and Ann O'Connor. Seems we had an unusual number of pirates as members of the Geol Soc in 1807.
There was another distinguished guest at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007. How could I have forgotten that I shared a table with Mary Anning?
November 17, 2025 at 9:56 PM
There was another distinguished guest at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007. How could I have forgotten that I shared a table with Mary Anning?
French palaeontologist and historian of geology (and Cuvier expert) Philippe Taquet who died yesterday aged 85. I recall that he cut a fine dash in his embroidered tailcoat and medals at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007.
November 17, 2025 at 9:38 PM
French palaeontologist and historian of geology (and Cuvier expert) Philippe Taquet who died yesterday aged 85. I recall that he cut a fine dash in his embroidered tailcoat and medals at the Geological Society's Bicentenary Dinner in 2007.
Reposted by Tom Sharpe
Philippe Taquet, chasseur de dinosaures et ancien directeur du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, est mort
Philippe Taquet, chasseur de dinosaures et ancien directeur du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, est mort
Destiné à reprendre l’industrie textile familiale, cet esprit libre a préféré la vie de chercheur d’os, découvrant plusieurs espèces d’animaux disparus, tout en menant une carrière institutionnelle de premier plan. Il s’est éteint le 16 novembre, à 85 ans.
www.lemonde.fr
November 17, 2025 at 10:55 AM
Philippe Taquet, chasseur de dinosaures et ancien directeur du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, est mort
Plaque at Valley of Geyers on Kamchatka marking the site of the burial of Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova's ashes in 2010. It's a spectacular place she found, but not the easiest to access (only by helicopter from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky). Glad I got the chance to go there when I did.
November 16, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Plaque at Valley of Geyers on Kamchatka marking the site of the burial of Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova's ashes in 2010. It's a spectacular place she found, but not the easiest to access (only by helicopter from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky). Glad I got the chance to go there when I did.
More on Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova here: forpost-sz.ru/en/a/2021-12...
November 16, 2025 at 6:41 PM
More on Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova here: forpost-sz.ru/en/a/2021-12...
Yesterday's meeting on women in geology brought to mind Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova (1913–2009) whose name I came across at the Valley of Geysers in Kamchatka in the Russian far east. She discovered the site in 1941 and is commemorated on an interpretive panel there. Her ashes are buried there too.
November 16, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Yesterday's meeting on women in geology brought to mind Tatyana Ivanovna Ustinova (1913–2009) whose name I came across at the Valley of Geysers in Kamchatka in the Russian far east. She discovered the site in 1941 and is commemorated on an interpretive panel there. Her ashes are buried there too.
Mary Anning got a few mentions today, but it was 215 years ago today that everything changed for the Annings, the day her father was buried. The family had been doing well & business was good. Richard was a man with plans. Suddenly they were in debt with no means to pay. Then Mary found an ammonite.
November 15, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Mary Anning got a few mentions today, but it was 215 years ago today that everything changed for the Annings, the day her father was buried. The family had been doing well & business was good. Richard was a man with plans. Suddenly they were in debt with no means to pay. Then Mary found an ammonite.
Another great talk today was on women in volcanology by @volcanologist.bsky.social who’s unearthing some wonderful, previously unrecognised contributions and observations by women travellers and others. Lots more to be learnt here such as who are the women in Tempest Anderson’s volcano photos?
November 15, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Another great talk today was on women in volcanology by @volcanologist.bsky.social who’s unearthing some wonderful, previously unrecognised contributions and observations by women travellers and others. Lots more to be learnt here such as who are the women in Tempest Anderson’s volcano photos?
And Mary Anning herself (although I suspect an imposter in the form of Leanne Hughes) joined us online, here telling us not only about her costume but also more about her finds and with her BGS colleague Laura Burrrel-Garcia about the challenges fieldwork presents.
November 15, 2025 at 6:24 PM
And Mary Anning herself (although I suspect an imposter in the form of Leanne Hughes) joined us online, here telling us not only about her costume but also more about her finds and with her BGS colleague Laura Burrrel-Garcia about the challenges fieldwork presents.
Great series of talks today at the Yorkshire Museum on Women in geology with @toriherridge.bsky.social kicking things off with a talk on Mary Anning and on networks of women geologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
November 15, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Great series of talks today at the Yorkshire Museum on Women in geology with @toriherridge.bsky.social kicking things off with a talk on Mary Anning and on networks of women geologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Great to be back in the wonderful Yorkshire Museum today for a day in women in geology organised by the Yorkshire Geological Society.
November 15, 2025 at 10:50 AM
Great to be back in the wonderful Yorkshire Museum today for a day in women in geology organised by the Yorkshire Geological Society.
#PostboxSaturday: an EIIR pillar box by a damp York Minster this morning.
November 15, 2025 at 10:27 AM
#PostboxSaturday: an EIIR pillar box by a damp York Minster this morning.