Fossil coral with long straight polygonal columns closely packed together
It's #FossilFriday, so here's a lovely fossil coral (Lithostrotion).
It was found in the Carboniferous limestone which was deposited at a time when Yorkshire was underneath a tropic sea.
🏛️ Leeds Discovery Centre
📍 Norber, Yorkshire Dales
a large mammoth tusk in two pieces laid out on a table with glass-fronted cabinets to the left and draws of bones to the right
The weather is set for an icy blast here in Yorkshire - an ideal time to revisit the Ice Age faunas from the region.
There aren't many wooly mammoth fossils from Yorkshire, however this enormous tusk was excavated from Leeds in the 1960s.
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Leeds Discovery Centre
📷 Stuart Robinson
Thank you all for your support over the last year! Best wishes to all for 2026 - we have lots of exciting things on the horizon!
Our highlights of the year were definitely being invited back to Cliffe Castle Museum, where we chatted about Carboniferous fossils with visitors in the galleries, and Land of Iron, where we ran activities and led visitors through an interactive dive into the Jurassic seas.
Sadly there was no Yorkshire Fossil Festival this year, but we enjoyed running our activities at Geology Rocks at the National Coal Mining Museum, Lancaster Dino Fest, and Otley Science Festival.
2025, that's a wrap!
We've had a very busy year, particularly with talks - 7 in total across the region (Snainton to Clitheroe, Skinningrove to Huddersfield) on topics ranging from hyena dens to fossil forests.
You wouldn't want this star on your Christmas tree!
Starfish, like crinoids, usually fall apart soon after death. This Middle Jurassic specimen is beautifully preserved suggesting it was buried alive!
On that thought, Merry Christmas everyone!
#FossilFriday
📍 North York Moors
🏛️ Manchester Museum
A good guess! These are the cervical vertebrae of a particularly large Red Deer!
Stick your neck out and have a guess at which animal this is!
These bones were found in Dowkerbottom Cave, near Arncliffe in the Yorkshire Dales.
This animal still exists in the UK, however you'll not find it roaming wild in the Dales anymore.
🏛️ Leeds Discovery Centre
#FossilFriday
high spired snail shell in limestone block
Ever been fossil hunting around Malton and Pickering?
Chances are you'll have found one of these. This is Pseudomelania, a high spired gastropod that lived in the shallow carbonate lagoons of the Late Jurassic - a time when Yorkshire was altogether more tropical!
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Yorkshire Museum
Since yesterday was Lancashire Day, here's a Lancastrian #FossilFriday post!
This may look like an ammonite, but this is Gastrioceras, a chunky goniatite.
Goniatites are often found crushed in mudstone, however this one is beautifully pyritized and preserved in 3D.
🏛️ Leeds Museums and Galleries
We had an excellent time yesterday at Otley Science Festival, talking to visitors about Pholiderpeton - Bradford's Carboniferous tetrapod!
Lots of people successfully pieced back together the jumbled up skeleton of this incredible fossil and explored a range of other fossils from the Coal Swamps!
A busy couple of days for Fossils in t' Hills.
This evening we'll be discussing Carboniferous fossil trees with GeoLancashire from 19:15 (geolancashire.org.uk/events/)
Then tomorrow we're taking our Pholiderpeton puzzles to Otley Science Festival!
#FossilFriday
Friday 14th November, 19:15 at Hanson UK’s Ribblesdale cement works in Clitheroe.
Come along to find out about the undisputed giants of the Carboniferous and the forgotten fossil forests of the North West!
geolancashire.org.uk/events/
We're back at the Otley Science Festival!
This year, we're unjumbling the bones of Pholiderpeton, Bradford's Carboniferous swamp monster!
Come along on Saturday 15th from 10:00 to the Otley Courthouse and see if you can make head or tail out of these bones!
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Cliffe Castle
📍 Bradford
A spooky fossil for Halloween!
The Carboniferous swamps of the north of England were full of creepy crawlies... This is one of them, a spider-like creature called Mesotarbus.
📍 Westhoughton
🏛️ Manchester Museum
📷 GB3D Fossils
#FossilFriday
We're heading back to Cliffe Castle!
Join us on October 28th from 11:00 for a day of Carboniferous activities.
With your help we'll be reconstructing a coal forest and unjumbling the bones of Pholiderpeton.
Don't forget to bring along your own fossils for identification!
#FossilFriday
Autumn has descended on Yorkshire this week, the leaves have started to fall.
Most leaves rot away leaving nothing behind, but not this one!
The leaf became encased in tufa, a carbonate mineral formed by springs, to leave a perfect impression.
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Craven Museum
We post a lot about the Carboniferous swamp plant fossils - and for good reason, as these are incredibly important to both human history and science in Northern England!
These swamps were also home to a range of other creatures, including lots of fish and sharks...
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Gallery Oldham
Dark grey rock with small wheel- or cog-like fossils scattered across the surface
Close up view of the small cog-like fossils on the grey rock
Tiny fossil cogs?
Not quite, these are single segments (ossicles) of a crinoid stem.
In life, soft tissues would have run through the central hole. The radial groves and ridges would have prevented the sections of the stem from twisting in currents.
📍 Wensleydale
#FossilFriday
Some fossils leave an impression on you - or on the rock!
We spotted this impression of a spiriferid brachiopod on our way up Pen-y-ghent over summer. If you look carefully you can also see a crinoid ossicle.
We're hoping for the rain to stop so we can get back out into the hills!
#FossilFriday
Even in poor visibility on top of Ingleborough, we still found fossil plants!
This is in the Millstone Grit at the very topmost part of the peak.
#FossilFriday
Today's #FossilFriday post is a Sea Monster and some Seashells...
Why? Because tomorrow afternoon we are back at the fantastic Land of Iron Museum to take people on a tour of the Jurassic ocean!
🐬 The ichthyosaur Temnodontosaurus zetlandicus from Loftus
🐚 A shell-bed of the bivalve Bositra
Some fossils really stand out from the rock.
We spotted this vibrant solitary coral in the Yoredale series of rocks near Pateley Bridge.
#FossilFriday
This trilobite has a very cute name - Dindymene - at less than 1cm across it's more like Diddymene!
At 440 million years old this fossil is from some of the oldest rocks in the Yorkshire Dales, and appears to have been slightly distorted over the years...
#FossilFriday
🏛️ Sedgwick
📷 GB3D Fossils
Picture in your mind a shark tooth... We bet this isnt the shape you were thinking of!
The shark Ptychodus had a 'pavement' of these strange teeth for crushing hard-shelled prey. Ptychodus fossils have been found all over the world, including from Hessle near Hull.
🏛️ Sedgwick Museum #FossilFriday
Crinoidal limestone – limestone made of crinoids – what more needs saying?
#FossilFriday
📍 Hebden, near Grassington
For #YorkshireDay and #FossiFriday we're celebrating the giant ammonites of Yorkshire!
From the foreshores of Redcar with their monstrous Arietites, to the oolite of Malton with its mighty Perisphinctes - and beyond!
Post your giant Yorkshire ammonite finds in the comments!
🏛️ Whitby Museum
Lurking at the bottom of the limestone in the dales is a rather impressive conglomerate – a rock made up of pebbles of other rocks.
This piece was pulled out of a cave by divers and contains a few
gastropods in amongst the pebbles – can you spot them?
#FossilFriday
📍 Austwick
This weekend is Lancaster Dino Fest! But it's not just dinosaurs that had scales!
Come along tomorrow to St Nic's Arcade Lancaster to find out about the ancient scaly inhabitants of Lancashire and help us build a Carboniferous coal swamp!
🏛️ Manchester Museum
#Fossil Friday
