Leicester Cathedral Publishes Plans for the Tomb of King Richard III – Fossils to Play a Role

Church authorities at Leicester Cathedral have announced plans for the burial tomb of King Richard III.  The impressive tomb, is the proposed final resting place of Richard of York who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in in 1485, although there is a strong campaign to have Richard’s remains returned to York for burial.  Leicester Cathedral’s  plans are for a stone tomb, carved with a deep cross and set upon an engraving of a white Yorkshire rose.  The project is likely to cost something like £1.3 million to complete.

King Richard III

The stone that is intended to be used is Swaledale limestone, highly appropriate as this stone is from Swaledale (naturally), part of the magnificent North Yorkshire countryside.  Although this stone comes in various colours, greys, off-white and even with a blueish hue it is highly fossiliferous.  The limestone was formed at the bottom of a shallow sea that covered much of what was to become the United Kingdom back in the early Carboniferous geological period.

Swaledale Fossil Limestone

It is coarse grained and contains a substantial amount of fossil remains of  invertebrate marine creatures, most notably the flexible stems of sea lilies otherwise known as crinoids.  Crinoids belong to the same phylum as starfishes and sea urchins, they look superficially like plants (hence the name sea lily), but they are in fact an animal.  Entirely marine, crinoids have been around since the Cambrian and can still be found today.  Typically, crinoids consisted of a hold fast to anchor them to the sea-bed and a flexible stem made up of calcite plates (called stem ossicles or columnals), which supported umbrella-like branching tubular arms that were able to trap food items in passing currents.  When the creature dies, the minute organic fibres that held the stem ossicles together rot and the stem disintegrates.

In the ancient limestone beds of Swaledale crinoids were so numerous that their fossils form a substantial part of the rocks.

When polished, the fossils show up very clearly and the details of the stem ossicles can be seen very clearly.

Fossil Rich Carboniferous Limestone 

Rock fit for a King!

Picture credit: Open University

We are not sure whether there is any record of Richard of York being an avid collector of fossils, but if the tomb is built, visitors to the Cathedral will be able to view evidence of  life in a prehistoric sea as well as learning about the last Plantagenet King of England.

The fossilised stems of crinoids are also known as “St Cuthbert’s beads”.  St Cuthbert was a monk at the monastery located at Lindisfarne, otherwise called Holy Island (Northumberland), local legend states the Cuthbert would make rosaries by threading a thin piece of thread through columnals that he had collected on the shore.

For models and replicas of ancient creatures including Palaeozoic and Mesozoic animals: CollectA Prehistoric Life Figures and Models.

Mary Leakey Has Google Doodle

The Google Doodle for February 6th honours Mary Leakey, an English palaeoanthropologist who with her husband Louis Leakey made important fossil discoveries helping to piece together the evolution of hominids.  Together, this husband and wife team proved that the cradle of human evolution was centred around eastern Africa and that the human family tree was much older than had been previously thought.

Google Commemorates what would have been Mary Leakey’s 100th Birthday

100th anniversary of the birth of Mary Leakey.

Picture credit: Google

Google Doodle

The image marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mary Leakey.  It is always gratifying to see such organisations honour the contribution made by scientists and we at Everything Dinosaur, keen to promote the role of women in science are delighted to see Mary honoured in this way.  The picture shows Mary working on hominid footprints (trace fossils) with her faithful dalmation dogs which she often had as company on her excavations.  These trace fossils, we suspect are the famous Laetoli footprints.  These hominid footprints (two adults and a juvenile) were discovered in 1978 by Mary Leakey.

In 1959, Mary discovered a 1.7 million year old fossil hominid, a type of Australopithecine.  Mary along with her husband Louis (Mary was Louis’s second wife), discovered fossils of Homo habilis and went on to help re-write the evolutionary story of our own species.

The Leakey family are still very much involved in early hominid fossils.  Mary died in 1998, but Richard Leakey her son, and Richard’s wife Dr Meave Leakey have made important discoveries in their own right and have helped to support the development of a number of scientific research projects in eastern Africa.

To read an article on the continuing work of the Leakey family: More Discoveries from Lake Turkana.

Mary Leakey

It is important that the contribution of scientists such as Mary Leakey are honoured.  Mary was a pioneer in Africa, a woman working alongside her male colleagues to help increase our understanding of the evolution of hominids and their radiation out from east Africa across the rest of the continent.  It is thanks in part to the work of the Leakey family that we today have a much better understanding of the evolution and development of our own species.

Mary’s work in places such as the famous Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania provided inspiration for other women who wished to pursue an academic career in the sciences.  Fossils found by Mary and her husband have formed the basis of a number of extensive research programmes with the aim of plotting and clarifying the evolutionary path that led to the eventual evolution of our own hominid species – Homo sapiens.

Happy anniversary Mary!

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.

Remembering “Good Mother Lizard” and Charles Othniel Marsh (1831 -1899)

Today is “Mother’s Day” a day celebrating mums around the world, otherwise known as “Mothering Sunday” not every country recognises this day as a special day for mums.  For example, in Australia, “Mothers Day” is celebrated sometime in May we think, but it gives us an excuse to write about one of our favourite ornithopods – Maiasaura.  Today also marks the anniversary of the death of one of the most influential palaeontologists of the 19th century – Charles Othniel Marsh.

Maiasaura

Maiasaura was a large, flat-headed duck-billed dinosaur that lived in North America.  It is a member of the Ornithopoda.  The first fossils of this dinosaur were discovered in the Badlands of  Montana thirty-four years ago by a team of American scientists led by palaeontologist Jack Horner.  The site the team uncovered consisted of a number of dinosaur nests, eggs, baby Maiasaura, adults and juveniles.  The location was renamed “Egg Mountain” and represents the fossilised remains of a Maiasaura nesting site.  More than two-hundred individual specimens have been excavated, providing scientists with evidence of the nesting behaviour of dinosaurs.  Maiasaura was formally named and described by Jack Horner and Robert Makela.  The name means “Good Mother Lizard” and in contrast with most of the Dinosauria, it takes the female form of the Latin term for lizard – saura.

An Illustration of a Maiasaura and her Nest

“Good Mother Lizard”.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Careful study of the fossils found on “Egg Mountain” led to some intriguing insights into ornithopod nesting behaviour.  For example, many of the baby Maiasaura were clearly too large to be newly hatched, but they were evidently still living in the nest.  The conclusion made was that these dinosaurs stayed in the nest whilst the parents or a parent looked after them, bringing them food.  Some scientists have postulated that Maiasaura were strongly social creatures, living in large herds.

Charles Othniel. Marsh, no doubt would have been fascinated by the fossils of Maisaura.  This pioneer of palaeontology passed away on March 18th 1899.  This American palaeontologist; who organised and led many expeditions to the newly opened up western United States; named and described at least twenty-five dinosaur genera, famous dinosaurs such as Apatosaurus and Allosaurus as well as a huge number of other prehistoric animals.

Appointed professor of palaeontology at Yale University in 1860, he persuaded his uncle George Peabody to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale and he helped build up an extensive fossil collection.

So on Mothers Day we remember “Good Mother Lizard” and one of the founding fathers of the modern science of palaeontology.

For models of Maiasaura and other ornithopods (whilst stocks last): Wild Safari Prehistoric World Figures.