When Charles and Emma Darwin bought the house that would be their family home for forty years, at Downe, sixteen miles south of London, one of Charles’ first improvements was to have the flints removed from the property’s chalky meadow.
Geology
Photo by Tarik Haiga on Unsplash
"Strata of Tilgate Forest" from "Illustrations of the Geology of Sussex" (1827)
The mind being but too apt…
In the fall of 2003 I walked the prime meridian, the line of zero longitude, across southeastern England, visiting many sites important to the history of science.
The North Downs • Photo by Clem Rutter (CC BY 2.5)
Some notion, however imperfect…
Not long ago, on a walk through southern England, I visited Down House, sixteen miles south of London, for forty years the family home of Charles and Emma Darwin.
The "Hall of Flat Beasts" at the Natural History Museum, London • Photo by Fernando Losada Rodríguez (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Swimming in Jurassic seas
Among the fossil hunters who opened our eyes to Earth’s antiquity, none is more justly famed than Mary Anning, who lived in Lyme Regis in Dorset, England, during the early-19th century.
Coumaknock, Mount Brandon • Photo by SteuveFE (CC BY 2.0)
In the mountain hollow
My newest book, “Climbing Brandon: Science and Faith on Ireland’s Holy Mountain,” was launched here in Ireland the other evening, by (appropriately) Brandon Books, which — like me — makes its home near the base of the mountain.
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
Chalk at the core of good geology
I spent my childhood clapping erasers in the playground after school.
The Kununurra region of Western Australia, where zebra rock is found • Photo by Reise-Line (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Nature illustrates its law and chaos
My daughter, a geologist, gave me zebra stones for my birthday.
Fossilized Hildoceras ammonites • Photo by Petr Hykš (CC BY-NC 2.0)
The ammonite’s fossilized legacy
A round gray stone sits on the window sill by my desk. The stone is cracked across the middle. It opens like a jewel box to reveal an ammonite, a fossilized sea creature shaped like the tightly coiled horn of a miniature ram.
A fossil trilobite • Photo by PxHere
An astonishing consensus in science
Clambering over sea cliffs in the west of Ireland looking for fossils. This cove at the end of the Dingle Peninsula has in the past proved to be a fine place for trilobites, creatures that scuttled the ocean floor hundreds of millions of years ago.
A fossil ammonoid • Photo by Hectonichus (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The secret life of an ancient stone
My daughter, a geologist, recently returned from a visit to the high Himalayan plateau. She brought me a gift: a gray, naturally rounded stone, of a size that fills the hand with a satisfying heft.