Timothy A. M. Ewin

Natural History Museum, London · Department of Earth Sciences

Understanding the varied environmental, biological, and geological processes which control preservation in the fossil record is crucial for assessing their impact on our perception of ancient biodiversity. Despite this, there are few large datasets which have been used to quantify the preservational state of whole clades or animal groups, and the f...

The comprehensive taxonomic study of fossil brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) requires the plates of the disk and arms to be cleared of matrix as fully as possible to reveal significant characters, such as spine articulations, ornament and clear plate boundaries. However, this needs to be done delicately, as the plate surfaces and boundari...

Forcipulatacea is one of the three major groups of extant sea stars (Asteroidea: Echinodermata), composed of 400 extant species, but only known from fewer than 25 fossil species. Despite unequivocal members being recognized in the early Jurassic, the evolutionary history of this group is still the subject of debate. Thus, the identification of any...

Abundant new material of articulated asteroids from the Taba Starfish Bed (Lower Cretaceous, Barremian) of the Agadir Basin, western Morocco, allows reappraisal of this important fauna, and the recognition, to date, of five taxa belonging to the Astropectinidae, Odontasteridae, Goniasterididae, Terminasteridae, and Asteriidae. Betelgeusia orientali...

The comprehensive taxonomic study of fossil brittle stars (Echinodermata: Ophiuroidea) requires the plates of the disk and arms to be cleared of matrix as fully as possible to reveal significant characters, such as spine articulations, ornament and clear plate boundaries. However, this needs to be done delicately, as the plate surfaces and boundari...

The top of the Whitby Mudstone Formation (Lias Group, Toarcian, Bifrons ammonite Zone) is exposed low in the geological Site of Special Scientific Interest at Ketton Quarry, East Midlands. A rare burrow of Fustiglyphus annulatus Vialov from this part of the succession, not reported from the Whitby Mudstone Formation hitherto, was collected from flo...

Rhenopyrgids are rare, turreted edrioasterid edrioasteroids from the lower Paleozoic with a distinctive and apparently conservative morphology. However, new, well-preserved rhenopyrgid edrioasteroid material from Canada, along with a review of described taxa, has revealed broader structural diversity in the oral surface and enabled a re-evaluation...

Cyclocystoids are a poorly known, rare, extinct class of bi-facially flattened, disc shaped echinoderms, ranging from the Middle Ordovician to the Early Carboniferous. Articulated cyclocystoids are relatively common in the Ordovician but are rarer in younger strata. Here we describe Perforocycloides nathaliae new genus and species, from the early S...

Many of the most diverse clades of Late Palaeozoic echinoids (sea urchins) originated in the Devonian period. Our understanding of diversity dynamics of these Late Palaeozoic clades are thus informed by new systematic descriptions of some of their earliest members. The Proterocidaridae are a diverse and morphologically distinct clade of stem group...

Substrate is a poor ichnotaxobase, yet it has been widely used for distinguishing the clavate (club-shaped) borings commonly produced by bivalves. A chert nodule from the Upper Cretaceous of Morocco encloses the external mould of a clast of unknown composition (rock? wood?) which had been extensively bored, producing both small cylindrical and larg...

Three new ophiuran species, Enakomusium whymanae n. sp., Aspidophiura ? seren n. sp., and Ophiotitanos smithi n. sp., and an unnamed specimen assignable to the genus Dermocoma are described from the Callovian to Oxfordian Oxford Clay Formation of Great Britain. These determinations are based on new finds and a critical reassessment of historic spec...

Two plant fossil-bearing beds from the middle Barremian of Belgium were analysed to ascertain how experimental designs affect conclusions regarding palaeodiversity at a local scale. We analysed eight lateral samples per bed taken regularly every 3 m using an exhaustive sub-sampling method. The Clench equation was used to evaluate the completeness o...

There is little published evidence for the direct impact curators and curatorial knowledge have on museum activities and the communities they serve. There is also little direct justification for curators, nor explicit recommendations for museums to continue to resource them. In the last 20 years, the numbers of curators in the UK have fallen. In or...

The lost plant fossil and fish locality of “Monte Colle”, near the village of Bolca, Verona province, northern Italy has been considered to be of Eocene age since the middle of the nineteenth century. However, upon re-examination of the plant fossils, especially the specimens of Aularthrophyton Massalongo, which closely resemble the fossil conifer...

In early 2014 the GCG carried out an on-line survey to investigate: the present status of geological curators, potential networking with other groups, support levels for electronic delivery of our journal and newsletter, subjects requested for future workshops/training events, the need for a database of natural history collections, how to deliver s...

Fossil crinoids are only rarely described from complete skeletons, that is, from the attachment structure to the ends of the arms. The crinoid Floricolumnus (col.) girvanensis Donovan & Clark was originally described on the basis of its distinctive column only, particularly the inflated, serrated nodal columnals; the crown remains unknown. Floricol...

Based on short shoots and isolated leaves collected from the upper Barremian coaly clays of the La Huérguina Formation (Uña–Las Hoyas basin, Iberian Ranges, Spain) a new species of the fossil conifer genus Glenrosa Watson et Fisher emend. Srinivasan is here described for the first time in Europe. Glenrosa falcata sp. nov. displays the characteristi...

The large, distinctive nodal columnals of Floricolumnus (col.) Donovan & Clark, 1992, are well documented from close to the Rhuddanian/Aeronian (Middle/Late Llandovery) boundary in Scotland, Wales and North America. Silurian rocks of the Cincinnati Arch in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana have been studied for nearly two centuries and have recently unde...

A specimen, originally described as ‘Pentacrinus’ from the Middle–Upper Jurassic of central Japan, is re-analysed and now recognised to be a new species of the genus Chariocrinus Hess, 1972, from the Lower Cretaceous. Chariocrinus japonicus sp. nov. has nine columnals per noditaxis, low columnal height, a pentalobate to sub-pentagonal articular fac...

A small collection of well-preserved crinoid attachment structures from the Upper Devonian Pilton Formation of north Devon indicates the presence of two distinct species. Sostronocrinus mundus (Whidborne) lived attached to an unlithified sedimentary substrate by the vertical insertion of a robust, terminal rhizoidal holdfast abetted by robust, unbr...

A fun activity, aimed at younger family audiences, requiring minimal direction from museum staff was developed to run alongside the display of a life size reconstruction of a pliosaur. The activity involves cutting out the jumbled bones and body parts of a pliosaur from a worksheet and then reassembling the creature by studying the complex shapes o...

A geology outreach event for children that is both fun and educational is described, with instructions on the materials involved. A layered cake of sand and plaster and paris, is prepared before the event, with a fossil incorporated. The excavation of the fossil, with appropriate instructions provides learning outcomes about fossils, complemented b...