New Palaeogeographical Maps in R
I’ve added a new research page linked from my homepage and the first thing up is an extended workshop that I ran on plotting palaeogeographical maps and occ...
Posts by Year
2022
2021
Building Palaeogeographic Maps in R
At the end of last year, I was looking at data from the Palaeobiology Database (PBDB) and wanted to draw a map of where fossils were found. I made such maps ...
2020
The joy of a hairline sans
I admire good typography. Both the look and idiosyncrasies of pretty fonts, and their arrangement and use in everything from books through billboards to titl...
Brunel Sinfonia Lockdown Projects
In my non-working time I’m a musician – playing tuba in a few local orchestras and wind bands, and piano for myself in my room. Of course playing together in...
Some palaeoart that colour my walls
At the moment, I, and many others, are spending much time indoors. Here in the UK, the lockdown is likely to continue for some time, in one form or another, ...
Two spaces or not two spaces?
I’ve seen many people notice a change made to Microsoft Word recently: typing two spaces after a full stop (or period if you’re so inclined) will now be show...
New Digs
Hi, it’s me again.
2018
Attenborough and the Sea Dragon
An introduction to Attenborough and the Sea Dragon.
2015
From now on
Ichthyosaurs
A new look
It’s spring cleaning time, so I’ve decided to shake up the blog (ha! yes this really is meant to be a blog) and give it a bit of a refresh by changing the de...
Progressive Palaeontology 2015
Dear All…
2014
Writing links
In the last post, I detailed a bit about my general writing workflow. I thought it would be useful to summarise the software that I’ve mentioned and give a b...
Where have I been?
So … hi there. How have things been with you? I’ve been away from this blog for a while, but don’t worry!: I haven’t been idle … not all of the time anyway.
200 years of ichthyosaurology
It’s been a while … I’m good at this regular blogging idea!
2013
A dash of new ichthyosaurs
There have been a couple of new ichthyosaurs named in the past month. Both are from the Lower Triassic and so tell us new things about the early evolution of...
Is there really an ichthyosaur renaissance going on?
The phrase ‘ichthyosaur renaissance’ was one that I first heard at the Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy in Lyme Regis, 2011. Thi...
Recently in my life
I haven’t posted anything here for a while: second year PhD syndrome has finally kicked in with a heavier work load. Hopefully this should ease a little towa...
The ichthyosaurian roundup of last year
Twenty-twelve was a big year for ichthyosaurology. For me, it was my first full academic and calendar years as a PhD student at the University of Bristol stu...
If you go down to the Triassic today…
(Well last week actually.)
A plethora of ichthyosaurs
If you’ve followed dinosaurpalaeo like I have, you’ll have seen Heinrich Mallison’s continuing series on the palaeontology of SW Germany. The latest instalme...
2012
2012 in review
Here is a review, part one of the year. It was conveniently prepared by Wordpress.com, hence it looks so pretty and shiny and has appeared this year. These a...
In the land of Svalbard…
Introduction
New, new, new
Y’know, it’s the same old thing: you wait ages for new ichthyosaurs, then several come along at once! I notice this seems to have started after putting up my...
Ichthyosaurian update
A little update to the site, with some ichthyosaur news.
New ichthyosaur species!
Not long after posting my recent Ichthyosaur taxonomy page, with its list of valid genera, I find myself needing amend it; but in a good way.
Ichthyosaurs all aswim
There hasn’t been much ichthyosaurs themselves over the past few posts. So, just to keep you die-hards happy, here’s a little montage featuring a gamut of ic...
Lookee here
Following common sense, and good manners. I have put up notice on the right of the main page that this blog is now licensed under Creative Commons Open Acces...
Open the doors, let the people come
A while ago, I promised that I’d talk a bit more about Open Access and the open access movement. Here is the blog post that I finally give to you, a little l...
It’s fun to stay at the SVPCA!
Yesterday, I was in Oxford, at the Natural History Museum for the annual set of joy that is the Symposium of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy...
Pages and pages and pages
Ichthyosaurs: a day in the life… is growing, the website that is. Following a hectic week of much reference checking and cross-checking, I have compiled a li...
News Flash! Changes to naming of animals procedure
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature today amended the ICZN to allow naming of animals via electronic publication.
Of Leicester, the apple in its own eye
This past week A few weeks ago, at the beginning of August, I went to Leicester; ‘why’ you might ask? That’s a very good question, and one that I might not b...
Grendel strikes again!
Remember this little critter?
Reaching out to teach
This past month I’ve been thinking a bit about public outreach in science. Several things have spurred this on:
A shadow grows in Academia
Hi there, and how are you? Do you remember me? I occasionally blog here.
Dinosaur ‘news’, or ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’
This morning has been somewhat of a dinosaur frenzy for me, and yes that is unusual. Whilst dinosaurs have been the mainstay of popular natural history for ...
Who’s useless at writing a blog: I am!
As I’m sure some of you may have noticed, I haven’t posted any new things recently — this month in fact. It has been quite a busy time: I’ve taken visits to...
Brevis: What on Earth is Palaeontology?
These brevia (using Latin so you can feel even better about reading this blog!) will be a series of short pieces about important or relevant topics that are ...
What I read today: nomenclature and synonymy
Today was a much simpler affair that yesterday’s ‘on homology’, and as such is somewhat shorter.
My blog so far
There’s a great little tool over at wordle.net. It allows to to input text, or set a URL, and will create a world cloud of this — more often used worlds are ...
What I read today: “On homology”
Here’s something new. I had planned to read many, many papers early in PhD, but so far have only managed to read many. This ‘what I read today’ section wil...
A little funny!
Something to keep you smiling. Thanks to Nathan for showing me this. A new palaeontology post will be arriving soon; keep your eyes open!
Ichthyosaurs in the news!
Hello there!
My PhD: Part 3: the return of the ichthyosaurs
In this, the final of my original trilogy describing my planned studies, I will talk about the ‘spin-offs’ from looking at the British genera and phylogeny. ...
2011
My PhD: Part 2: the ichthyosaurs strike back
In the last post, I talked about the British Late Jurassic ichthyosaurs. This will make up the first part of my thesis. The other main part will look at ic...
My PhD plans: Part 1: a new ichthyosaur
Well, having given a presentation on the plans for my PhD, I feel as though I can now share it with the world. That and I’ve had agreement on what I plan to...
Geological time
Wow, if all goes well this should be two posts in two days! I hope you are as impressed as I am.
Ichthyosaurs: what are they?
Well, I had planned to write once every week or so, but, as you can see, that hasn’t gone to plan so far. In theory that should mean that I have a significa...
Apologies
Apologies to those who have read this and want to hear more, I have another post in the works and plans for others in the future. Keep posted, especially tow...
Hello, and welcome
Hello readers and welcome,