HOGG was delighted to join and support a campaign to lobby for this result for re-establishing access to Hutton's section ....we are hopeful...but wait with baited breath! The edinburgh Geological Society led the 'charge'...so congrats to them for persisting with pressure.

Wishing all our friends, followers, and well-wishers a peaceful and relaxing few days ahead x

Holiday greeting cards from ~ 1880 by London based publisher De La Rue based on the newest paleontological discoveries of the time 🦖🎄🐘

21 December 1830: Mary Anning writes to Oxford geologist William Buckland to tell him of her latest find, 'a young Plesiosaurus...without exception the most Beautiful fossil I have ever seen'. It was purchased by one of her wealthiest clients, her friend, Lord Cole, for the huge sum of 200 guineas.

N.B. Davy was well known in his time as active in geological circles & was instrumental, with George Bellas Greenough, in founding @geolsoc.bsky.social (1807). Here is the diagram on geology in Davy's 1813 'Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry', drawn by Thomas Webster. www.jstor.org/stable/40258...

Want to support #History of #Geology and get a good book?📚 #Books for sale here, more to come: www.bressan-geoconsult.eu/forbes-ends-...

Iguanodon ✅ Megatherium ✅

December 11, 2002, the UN celebrates the first International #MountainDay ⛰️ Swiss geologist Albert Heim (1849-1937), famous for his work on the geology of the Alps, was also a gifted artist, sketching mountains showing their geological layers. ...

And...we all know what happened next....well, two months later....and if you don't....then watch this youtu.be/o2B646EJ7f8

Late afternoon, Wednesday 10 December 1823: Mary Anning discovers and begins excavation of a near-complete skeleton of Plesiosaurus. Recognising this as 'the first and only one discovered in Europe', she sent scale drawings to some potential purchasers. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

A detail from Levi Walter Yaggy's chromolithographic 1887 chart, Physical Geography: a classic mid-century Iguanodon dominates the 'Pre-Adamite' Mesozoic, dwarfing the timid-looking bipedal dinosaur half-heartedly added above. Whole image viewable on the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection.

In 1834 Henry T. De la Beche (1796–1855) drew the remarkable & innovative "The Earth Supposed to be seen from Space" as the frontispiece for his book 'Researches in Theoretical Geology'. Considered the first accurate 'off planet' depiction of the Earth, it is the precursor to Blue Marble.

My review is out of Richard Howarth's _The Emergence of Geophysics: Journeys into the Twentieth Century_. www.episodes.org/journal/view...

Greenly's geological map of Anglesey is a masterpiece. Surveyed in minute detail as a lone project between 1895 and 1919 using 6 inch and 25 inch to the mile base maps, his summary map of 1 inch to the mile remains the standard geological map of Anglesey, over 80 years later!

Cracking talk following the HOGG AGM this afternoon. Prof. James Cheshire (UCL) on 'Mapping the Ocean Floor'. Terrific insights into Heezen & Tharp's map + many more; a tale of science meets art in creative cartographic expression - the reality of their map was more nuanced than the standard story!

November 22, 1842, contemporary sources describe clouds of ash "rolling up in great masses, wreathing as smoke from a pipe does, but on an enormous scale" over Washington and Oregon - one of the early documented eruptive episodes of St. Helens (who repeated this spectacle 138 years later)🌋

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.

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

Just witnessed the ceremonial unrolling of some beautiful and often rather intriguing geological wall posters at the @theul.bsky.social. Here's a selection.

Her account was subjected to the habitual skepticism of G.B.Greenough in his 1834 Presidential address to @geolsoc.bsky.social, a critique of Lyell's mountains formed by gradations vs elevation via volcanic force from below. He dismissed her account as she was not a naval officer observer of repute.

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.

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.

Hello again from Napoleon C, where a large crowd has gathered for the #HSS2025 distinguished lecture! Our speaker is Conevery Valencius, whose research draws connections b/w #histSTM, #EarthScience & #envhist. Her talk tonight is entitled "Boom: What History of Science Needs to know About Shale."

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.

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?

#FossilFriday In 1828, Mary Anning found the first pterosaur skeleton outside Germany. W. Buckland made the announcement of Mary’s discovery & named Pterodactylus macronyx in allusion to its large claws bit.ly/1sEqnhU #WomenInSTEM #MaryAnning

9 November 1812: local newspaper reports the discovery of a fossil 'crocodile' 17 feet long at Lyme Regis. This was the recovery by Mary Anning of parts of the post-cranial skeleton related to a fossil skull found by her brother a year before. It was described and figured by Everard Home in 1814.

A powerful bookplate.

Have you seen the amazing Hutton Hat? Handmade from Shetland Wool, showcasing three key Hutton Geosites - Edinburgh, Siccar Point, and Glen Tilt. You can bag one of these in exchange for a donation to our crowdfunder - hurry, there are only 10 left! www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/siccar-point

And here is an insightful analysis and contextual evaluation that gives meaningful interpretation to the poem and accompanying cartoon: scholar.archive.org/work/ffqptqg... Btw....can you spot the palaeontological ignorance of the illustrator and recognise the bowler-hatted/caped figure?

October 31, 1791, French adventurer Diedonné de Dolomieu writes a letter to Swiss mineralogist Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure requesting help in identifying a strange "grayish limestone" ...

October 29, 1882, birthday of Scottish mineralogist and petrologist Samuel James Shand. At college his first interest was chemistry, to this he soon added an avid curiosity about geology, combing both in his study of igneous rocks and mineral assemblages ...

Ganly (1809–1899) worked for Richard Griffith at the Valuation Office, Dublin but was de facto a geological rather than land/valuation surveyor. The detail on later editions of Griffith's impressive Geological map of Ireland (1852, 1853 & 1855) was due to Ganly. It should be the Griffith/Ganly map!

30 October 1846: a newspaper reported that a fund had been set up by the geologists at that year's @britsciassoc.bsky.social meeting in Southampton to raise money for ailing fossil dealer #MaryAnning, 'an old woman' (she was 47), following a fire at her home in Lyme Regis.

#Halloween Special X: The legend of a Patagonian Monster 🧪⚒️ #histsci wp.me/p3ihHu-3xF

A couple of days ago, a HOGG member paid an homage visit to Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland. 'Shaky Toon', as it is known, is v. important in the history of seismology. It boasts the oldest seismological observatory in the world: 'The Earthquake House', built in 1874. 🧵1/2

The exact date given by the Ussher-Lightfoot*-Chronology for the creation of Earth is October 23, 4004 B.C. in the early morning hours. *John Lightfoot strongly influenced Ussher with his chronology published 6 years earlier

#HPS #HOPOS

HOGG will be at the GA FoG, discussing history of geology matters with friends & colleagues old & new, giving out our postcards & we'll have top-notch books for sale at bargain prices, & if we can squeeze into the crowd on the stairway we'll point out key things to see on the Smith & Greenough maps.

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...

Interesting and well-crafted French animation film of Mary Anning - great for watching with children or grandchildren and for learning French! We wonder if this will be dubbed into English at some stage? We suspect that is a high probability.

#AdaLovelaceDay: that Ada's contemporary, Mary Anning, was much more than a fossil dealer is clear from her letters with her observations on coprolites, the orientation of Pentacrinites and their association with fossil wood, and her dissection of living marine molluscs to understand fossil sepia.

Prof Mike Searle’s comprehensive new geological map of the Himalayas is now complete and has been handed over to his long-time colleague Marc St-Onge at the Geological Survey of Canada for digitisation! Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project

Last night's Hutton event at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh: Prof Colin Campbell on the Hutton 2026 Tercentenary; panel of Angus Miller (Edinburgh Geol Soc), Rachel Walcott (National Museums Scotland) & Colin Campbell (James Hutton Institute); a surprise appearance of a young Hutton; and our venue.

In Edinburgh yesterday I took the opportunity to check out the fence which has closed off the Radical Road along Salisbury Craigs on Arthur's Seat for the last 6 years. Good news is that access to the classic Hutton sites should be restored next year. www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/new...

Very happy to announce that the Handbook of the Historiography of Earth and Environmental Sciences I coedited with Elena Aronova and Marco Tamborini is now available, for free (open access) via this link: link.springer.com/referencewor...

October 1, 1829, Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, Scottish geologist and President of the Geological Society at the time, visits the village of Predazzo in the Dolomites to study a strange outcrop ...

Happy Departmental #Birthday to us! Our shelves are still happily full of wonderful books but I’m just wondering how on earth the ones on the top shelf got there or were retrieved?!? (Loving the ladder too even though a H&S nightmare … ) #libraries #books #NHM #Collections

A Planorbis discus from the Bembridge Limestone of the Isle of Wight, presented to the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social by none other than Lord Tennyson. There rolls the deep where grew the tree!

October 2, 1902, Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is published by Frederick Warne & Co. in London. Potter illustrated the adventures of a rabbit child herself, but she was also a self-taught naturalist (especially an expert on mushrooms) and interested in minerals & fossils ...