Assuming the community chest cards in the University of York Monopoly set are based on actual policy, I think I can see why UK higher education is in financial dire straits.

There are many amazing geological sites in Charnwood, which is why it's an aspiring UNESCO Geopark. One of the most dramatic is Bardon Hill Quarry, where faulted Ediacaran volcanic rocks are infilled with Triassic desert sandstones.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

#CharnwoodGeopark

I used to enjoy #FossilFriday over on the now-defunct Other Platform. Would be great to see it resurrected over here.

Here are some of my favourite fossils from this year so far.

Important discussions with our resident 8yo. Which would be better: a dachsolotl or an axhund?

#dachsolotl #axhund

I was today years old when I discovered that I wrote my undergrad dissertation on Jurassic oysters in a building made of Jurassic oysters.

HOWEVER, with it being Halloween and all that, York is currently knee-deep, nay, CHEST-DEEP in ghosts. I therefore thought it might be handy to produce a cut-out-and-keep guide to telling fossils and ghosts apart.

Looking forward to working with Cayton Primary School at the Rotunda Museum of Geology in Scarborough tomorrow.

Our #YorEarthHeritage workshop will focus on fossils and evolution, with the school getting to keep a set of wonderful ammonoid replicas made by GeoEd at The Fossil Shop.

Cyclists Use Lower Landing Only.

I'm lichen what's happening to this Carboniferous #Stigmaria fossil in the Fern Garden, York Museum Gardens.

The most likely candidate is the Staithes Sandstone Formation, which crops out at Coatham Rocks, or West Scar of Redcar beach.

So the piddocks bored into a mollusc-filled Early Jurassic sandstone nearly 300 years old, then unexpectedly found themselves relocated to a musseleum!

That would be enough for #MolluscMonday, but Jane also spotted that the plinth has a rusticated appearance because it has been intensely bored.

The sandstone is full of holes, and some of them contain articulated bivalve shells inside them. These aren't Jurassic fossils, but Recent piddocks!

If you look closely, however, as tapestry and ceramic artist Jane Riley (www.rookwoodandhoot.co.uk) did, you'll find that the mausoleum plinth has a natural rusticated fabric.

The sandstone used in the plinth is full of Early Jurassic mollusc fossils, such as mytilid bivalves.

#MolluscMonday

I don't know if #MolluscMonday is a thing over here on Bluesky, but either way, today is a good day to tell the tale of a musseleum.

The Turner Mausoleum, Kirkleatham, was built in 1740 to the design of James Gibbs, who incorporated a LOT of vermicular rustication (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustica....

When I'm not geologizing on the Yorkshire Coast, you might find me running fossils workshops for schools, leading outreach activities for museums, or guiding people semi-scientifcally around the streets of York.

I am very fond of urban geology, especially if it allows me to make low-quality jokes.

Some of you might know this already, but I'm a palaeontologist based in York. As a fossil-hunt trip leader, and co-director of the Yorkshire Fossil Festival, I spend a lot of time on the Yorkshire Coast. Here I am manhandling a sauropod footprint in Scarborough's South Cliff.