Rock It

Fossils

2010-10-19T22:50:00.002+01:00

Went to Leeds Museum today with fossils, all different ones again.

This was a nice recognisable one, a lobster!

Fossils, various ones

2010-10-05T21:54:00.000+01:00

Took various things to Leeds Museum today. There are some fossils I seem to bring all the time though, like the teeth. People love great big teeth!

This is a pterosaur tooth -

This would have eaten fish.

Herbs And Dragonflies's thrilling new possible future project! we need votes!

2010-08-05T06:39:00.001+01:00

Working with loads of volunteers, Herbs And Dragonflies are hoping to create a garden using native plants. They'll show the garden at Gardeners' World Live, a big flower show, next year, before planting it in a permanent home in a community garden in Leeds.

I'm on the shortlist for a grant from the Big Challenge and all votes would be really appreciated! http://www.bigchallenge.org.uk/shortlisted_entry.aspx?id=b9cc5539-d13b-419b-b244-f385fd20983a You only have to click 'vote', no emailing or anything.

If we get the grant we're hoping to propagate as many of the plants as possible ourselves, working with lots of different voluntary groups. We're hoping to have loads of alpine strawberries in the garden! We're also going to run events where people can work together to create art for the garden. We're thinking of doing mosaic-making days, maybe clay too.

Not decided on a final position for the community garden yet so feel free to recommend a site.

Voting closes 3pm on Wednesday.

Leeds Museum

2010-08-04T00:55:00.006+01:00

I took all different sorts of fossils to Leeds Museum today (except trilobites - I forgot them) and it was full of people because the school holidays have started. There were lots of dinosaur lovers there! Luckily we have dinosaur fossils!

We had a Triceratops tooth -

A Rebbachisaurus tooth -

These are both herbivorous animals and the teeth are worn flat from a lifetime of eating tough plants. The next one wasn't a herbivore!

That's a Spinosaurus tooth. This was a relative of Tyrannosaurus Rex. They looked fairly similar, but had sails on their backs.

We had a bone too -

That's from an Ankylosaurus, an armoured dinosaur. This is part of its rib and is very well preserved, so the structure inside the bone is visible.

I took the cross-sections of plant stems again and they were very popular this time too. I also brought in my favourite fossils, the jellyfish!

I'm there again in 2 weeks.

Leeds Show

2010-08-04T00:50:00.002+01:00

We are going to do a table display at Leeds Show this weekend. We're sharing a table with Herbs And Dragonflies; the Rock It half of the table will be our geological timeline with plants on it - both fossil ones and living ones.

Leeds Show is at Leeds Grammar School on Saturday and Sunday.

Leeds Museum

2010-07-21T22:05:00.003+01:00

Went to Leeds Museum today and was back in the Life On Earth gallery because the minerals exhibition has finished now (I had actually taken the fluorescent minerals to the exhibition since the last blog post in April - I just stopped updating the blog or I'd have ended up writing the same each time!)

I decided to bring in fossils seeing as I hadn't talked about them for about 6 months. I chose my favourites - plant fossils. Plus a few others.

It was pretty busy, even though the summer holidays haven't started yet. These were some of the most popular fossils -

That is a cross-section of a treefern trunk.

That's a palm tree stem. We also have a conifer cross-section but I don't think I've got a pic of that. They're all petrified - preserved in silica in 3D, and coloured with different elements which contaminated the wood as fossilisation was occuring. The one I forgot to photograph is the most colourful!

This was the rarest fossil we brought in, and one of the non-plants -

It's a fossil cockroach wing (the bit in the middle of the photo on the edhe of the rock, just below the dark bit. Click on the photo to enlarge it). Fossilised insects are pretty difficult to find because they're so fragile so rarely get preserved.

Fluorescent minerals

2010-04-13T22:49:00.000+01:00

Took the minerals and light to Leeds Museum again today - it is the school holidays so it was very busy.

One girl tried to lick this piece of calcite, think she mistook it for an icepop!

More fluorescent minerals

2010-03-30T21:42:00.002+01:00

We took the fluorescent minerals to Leeds Museum again; this specimen was one of the most popular -

It is blue amber from the Dominican Republic. This amber is pretty unusual and appears blue when viewed in daylight from above over a dark surface (like in the picture above).

It just looks like normal amber when viewed in artificial light or over a pale surface.

But ultraviolet light makes it appear completely blue.

Extra exciting mineral!

2010-03-17T23:30:00.000Z

Since we last went to the museum we've acquired more fluorescent minerals, and one of them has other weird properties too. Hackmanite is also tenebrescent and phosphorescent.

Tenebrescent minerals change colour after exposure to sunlight, and change back again in the dark. Only a small number of minerals do this.

This is the hackmanite after being in the dark, it is pale pink -

The colour will change (very slowly) with exposure to sunlight, but the change happens much faster when the mineral is placed under a UV light. While under the (longwave) light it fluoresces bright orange/pink -

When I removed it from the UV light (after about half an hour) the colour had changed to darker pink -

The mineral was left in the dark overnight and by morning had faded to pale pink again.

Hackmanite specimens from different localities change to different colours -

Hackmanite from North America usually appears bright pink after being in darkness and turns pale pink or grey when exposed to light.
Hackmanite from Asia (like the specimen shown) usually appears pale pink or white after being in darkness and turns bright pink or purple when exposed to light.

The other effect it has occurs with shortwave UV light. While under shortwave UV it will fluoresce white-ish, but will continue to glow for a few seconds after the light has been turned off. This is phosphorescence.

We'll definitely bring this mineral to Leeds Museum next time we go (Tuesday 30th March, 2.15pm).

Fluorescent minerals at Leeds Museum

2010-03-09T23:32:00.002Z

Today we took our ultraviolet light and some fluorescent minerals to Leeds Museum.

This is our display of minerals and the light in a box with viewing holes cut in - this keeps visible light out.

Famous minerals

2010-02-09T16:27:00.003Z

We took a selection of well-known minerals to Leeds Museum today - rough and cut specimens of some precious and semi-precious gems.

We had things like amethyst -

emerald -

tiger's eye -

Fluorescent minerals at Leeds Museum

2010-01-26T18:19:00.004Z

Today I went to Leeds Museum to put some of our fluorescent minerals in one of the cabinets in the new mineral exhibition. The cabinet has a daylight bulb and a shortwave and longwave UV bulb so specimens can be viewed in different types of light to show different colours.

There are specimens of fluorite, calcite, quartz, ruby, adamite, barite and benitoite in it (the ones in the picture below plus a few others).

While there I also had a go at doing cave painting style art for one of the other cabinets to show how minerals are used as pigments. I did a horse in charcoal, it is a work of art!

Fluorescent minerals

2010-01-23T17:10:00.001Z

These are some of the minerals we have so far, viewed in daylight and longwave ultraviolet light (also known as blacklight) -

Fluorite -

Pink mangano calcite -

Adamite -

Herkimer diamond quartz crystals -

Ruby -

More photos can be seen here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kathy_/sets/72157623153970943/

These and the UV lamp were all bought with the grant we received from the Leeds Community Foundation in December. We applied for £320 through their Grassroots Grants in the Yorkshire Evening Post.

We're also buying a shortwave UV light which will allow more minerals to be viewed.

Leeds Museum are opening a 6 month exhibition about minerals on January 29th and we have been invited to fill a cabinet with fluorescent specimens. We will also be visiting approx every 2 weeks with a selection of minerals that can be handled and a portable fluorescent light for viewing them with.

Local fossils

2009-12-29T22:56:00.000Z

Today we took local fossils to Leeds Museum. It was nearly all plants, with just one animal - a horseshoe crab. All the fossils were from the Carboniferous period approximately 300 million years ago.

We also had a living plant - a clubmoss to compare to the Carboniferous types. Today they are small plants not much bigger than mosses (often sold in garden centres this time of year with a santa or a reindeer decoration on a stick shoved in the pot!), however, 300 million years ago they were tree-like plants over 30 metres tall.

This is a cone from one. There were no flowering plants around then.

I took some of the fossils I found in Barnsley a few months ago for the first time too.

Grant received for fluorescent minerals

2009-12-04T22:13:00.002Z

We have received a £320 grant from the Leeds Community Foundation through the YEP Community Cash Giveaway. We will use it to buy an ultraviolet lamp and a selection of minerals which will display fluorescence under it.

Minerals

2009-12-01T23:56:00.002Z

Today we took minerals which are used for different purposes to Leeds Museum. Some are things which have a practical use and some are decorative.

Graphite, used in pencils:

Malachite, used as a pigment:

Black diamond, used for tools:

Galena, lead ore:

Obsidian, a volcanic glass, which was used for tools in places where there is no flint:

Quartz, used in watches:

Gypsum, used in plaster:

Emerald, used as a precious gemstone in jewellery:

Turquoise, used as a semi-precious gemstone and for carvings and other decorative objects:

This specimen contains sapphire (the pale blue part), used as a precious gem, and mica (the shiny part) which is used in various things, including electronics, pigments and make-up. In the past slices were used as windows.

Evolution

2009-11-24T22:18:00.002Z

Today we took fossils to Leeds Museum that show how living things have evolved.

We took different teeth to show how animals evolved to eat different things. This is from a pterosaur, which would have eaten fish:

This is a dinosaur tooth from a sauropod, which would have eaten vegetation. It looks pointy, but a clue is that the surface (top left) has worn flat from constantly eating tough leaves:

We also took fossils to show the different ways of reproduction that have evolved in plants. This is a redwood cone:

And we also had ammonite, belemnite and nautilus fossils to show the different types of cephalopod:

Next week: useful minerals.

History of life

2009-11-17T23:33:00.000Z

Today we took fossils to show the history of life to Leeds Museum. The oldest fossil we took was a trilobite and one of the youngest was this fish - a Knightia, which looks very similar to modern fish.

We had dinosaurs too such as this spinosaurus tooth.

Next: evolution.

History of life at Leeds Museum on Tuesday

2009-11-12T00:32:00.003Z

Will probably feature both fossil dinosaurs and jellyfish.

Phylum

2009-11-03T22:31:00.002Z

Today we took fossils from different phyla to show the diversity of life on the planet. The simplest definition of phylum is a group of animals that share a similar body plan. The animal kingdom is split into approximately 36 phyla.

To represent the chordates (which includes vertebrates) we had a Knightia fish, not a dinosaur!

A lobster for the arthropods:

A brittlestar for the echinoderms.

A graptolite for the hemichordates:

A sponge:

A jellyfish for the cnidarians:

An ammonite for the molluscs:

And a brachiopod and worm tubes. Most of the different phyla are types of worms but we had just 1; they're not very common fossils.

We also took fossils to show different divisions of plants, such as flowering plants, ferns, seedferns, conifers and moss. And we had a stromatolite to represent bacteria.

Diversity of life

2009-10-27T22:13:00.001Z

Next Tuesday we'll be at Leeds Museum with fossils from different phylum. There probably won't be any dinosaurs but there may be fossil jellyfish.

Meteorites

2009-10-20T23:27:00.000+01:00

Today we went to Leeds Museum with some meteorites - iron ones, stony ones and stony-iron ones. We also had tektites, which are formed when a meteorite hits Earth and melts rock, forming glass.

We took some non-meteorites too to try and trick people! I don't think anyone was fooled though. Click on or hover over the photos below to find out which are the real meteorites.

Meteorites

2009-10-13T18:31:00.001+01:00

Next Tuesday between 2 and 4:30 we'll be at Leeds Museum with some meteorite specimens.

v national awards

2009-10-12T18:34:00.000+01:00

All the regional and national winners are now listed on the vinspired site: http://www.vinspired.com/awards/national-awards. There were over 700 entries in total.

v national awards

2009-10-09T20:24:00.000+01:00

Members of Rock It have won an award from v, the volunteering charity for 16 to 25 year olds. We have won the Unite award for the best team in the Yorkshire and Humberside region. We are also in the top 3 nationally.

There are 10 different categories in total for individual volunteers, groups or youth workers in England.

We have been invited to a ceremony at indigO2 in the O2 in November to find out if we’re the overall winner.

Minerals

2009-10-06T20:19:00.003+01:00

We took a selection of minerals to Leeds Museum today, including some famous ones and some weird ones.

Hessonite garnet (the orange mineral), smoky quartz and chalcopyrite.

Amethyst. This specimen has crystals growing on larger crystals and is sometimes called cactus amethyst.

Blue beryl - aquamarine.

Quartz with tourmaline crystals.

Minerals at Leeds Museum

2009-09-29T22:58:00.000+01:00

Next Tuesday between 2 and 4:30pm we'll be at Leeds Museum showing a selection of minerals.

Unusual fossils

2009-09-22T11:18:00.005+01:00

Today we took some weird fossils to Leeds Museum. Some were ones that were preserved in an unusual way, such as this opalised wood:

Others were fossils which are rare to find, such as brittlestars which are often too fragile to become fossilised. We had this brittlestar donated to us last month. Some children thought it was a fossil alien!

Some of our fossils are just odd, like the fossilised jellyfish!

Fish

2009-08-25T22:27:00.002+01:00

We took fish fossils to Leeds Museum today. We had whole fish skeletons, such as the Diplomystus below, as well as individual teeth and coprolites from sharks (middle and bottom pics). The shark coprolite (fossil poo) has been sliced to show what's inside, these are all fish bones and scales.

Local fossils

2009-08-11T11:36:00.003+01:00

We took local Carboniferous fossils to Leeds Museum today. Lots of fossil plants, including seed ferns, clubmosses and horsetails, and one animal - a cute little horseshoe crab. I did want to bring the Carboniferous jellyfish but unfortunately they're from Illinois, which isn't really local to Leeds.

That's a horseshoe crab head.

Calamites - horsetail stem.

Next time: fossil fish.

Local fossils

2009-08-05T22:59:00.001+01:00

On Tuesday between 2 and 4:30 we'll be at Leeds Museum with some local fossils to view and handle, mainly Carboniferous fossil plants.

Fossils at Leeds Museum

2009-07-28T19:02:00.001+01:00

We took a selection of fossils to Leeds Museum today; it was the first time we've been during a school holiday and it was very busy! We took a range of fossils to show the different life that has lived on Earth. The oldest fossil we had was a trilobite (shown below) from the Cambrian and the youngest was a mammoth tusk.

We took some dinosaur bone too of course! This is part of an Iguanodon hip.

Dominican amber

2009-07-14T20:57:00.004+01:00

Today we took some pieces of Dominican amber to Leeds Museum. We had out microscope, minicam attachment and laptop for viewing them in great detail. The amber is about 20 million years old and has inclusions such as wasps, spiders, ants and flowers.

That's a flower, the one below is a planthopper (with a missing head!)

In 2 weeks we'll be there again with fossils. We're attempting to show the history of the Earth.

Minerals

2009-06-30T18:54:00.003+01:00

We took a selection of minerals to Leeds Museum today. We took things that have an iridescent effect, such as moonstone and labradorite, as well as many metallic minerals and precious gems too.

Opal, ruby and hemimorphite:

We'll be back in 2 weeks with Dominican amber containing insect and plant inclusions. We'll also have a microscope to view it with.

Minerals at Leeds Museum

2009-06-29T11:11:00.001+01:00

We'll be at Leeds Museum tomorrow between 2 and 4:30 with specimens to demonstrate colour in minerals.

Primrose Hill fun day

2009-06-28T22:22:00.002+01:00

Rock It went to a fun day at Primrose Hill primary school today. We showed people fossils, including dinosaur teeth and bones. Children could also search for fossils in boxes of pebbles and then try and identify them.

Dinosaurs!

2009-06-16T06:05:00.003+01:00

We took dinosaur fossils to Leeds Museum today. We had bones from an Iguanodon and Ankylosaur, various teeth (such as the Spinosaurus tooth, below) and a coprolite (fossil poo!) The coprolite is preserved as agate so is quite pretty.

We also had fossils of other creatures that lived at the same time as dinosaurs: other reptiles such as ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pterosaurs, as well as invertebrates such as ammonites (below) and belemnites.

Ferns

2009-06-14T20:45:00.004+01:00

Today we propagated ferns - the project we are doing with our £50 Action Earth grant, funded by Morrisons. We're growing new plants by division, spores and plantlets.

The ferns we grow will be planted out in a Carboniferous garden at Leeds Museum Discovery Centre. This will teach people about what the area would have looked like 300 million years ago. There were no flowering plants back then, just ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, conifers and extinct groups such as seed ferns.

We have managed to grow over 200 ferns for this project. Growing by plantlets was a good way to get lots of new ferns; as you can see from the photo above one frond can have absolutely loads on it! There were over 30 on this Polystichum frond. We laid the fronds on trays of compost so they will root.

Dinosaurs at Leeds Museum

2009-06-11T14:40:00.001+01:00

We'll be at Leeds Museum on Tuesday 16th June with some dinosaur fossils, as well as other Mesozoic creatures.

Amber

2009-06-02T21:10:00.004+01:00

We took our amber to the museum today. I think everyone was impressed by it. We showed people things like bees, flies, spiders, gnats, ants and millipedes in 20 million year old Dominican amber. The most popular piece was the one that has about 10 wasps in it (below).

Amber at Leeds Museum

2009-06-01T16:37:00.002+01:00

On Tuesday 2nd June between 2 and 4:30 we'll be at Leeds Museum in the Life On Earth Gallery. We'll have our microscope, minicam and laptop to show people insect and plant inclusions in Dominican amber.

Fossils of extinct animals

2009-05-27T16:29:00.002+01:00

Rock It went to the pavement art competition run by Herbs And Dragonflies to show people fossils. As the theme of the art competition was endangered animals, we decided to show fossils of things that have already become extinct.

We took things like ammonites, belemnites and trilobites, as well as bones, teeth and coprolites from ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, dinosaurs and pterosaurs. The dinosaur teeth were particularly popular.

Ferns

2009-04-24T04:27:00.002+01:00

Rock It have received a grant from CSV Action Earth, funded by Morrisons. We'll use it to propogate ferns, then we'll have lots of living plants to compare to fossil plants.

We'll propogate them by division and spores at Haley's Field Allotments in June. Once we've grown them on, we'll plant them out in an educational garden. We'll grow ferns such as Polypodiums, including some native species.

Polypodiums look similar to Carboniferous seed ferns from the genus Alethopteris. Fossils of this plant are commonly found in Yorkshire. Seed ferns are a now extinct group of plants which had leaves like ferns, but they grew from seeds.

With this grant we'll be able to show the different ways true ferns reproduce: spores, offsets, bulbils, but not seeds!

Article in the Pudsey Times

2009-03-20T22:14:00.002Z

There was an article about Rock It in the Pudsey Times this week. There was even a small pic of us on the front page!

Article about Rock It in the Yorkshire Evening Post

2009-03-17T22:19:00.002Z

Article about Rock It on Pudsey Today site

2009-03-09T11:38:00.000Z

http://www.pudseytoday.co.uk/news/Pudsey-pupils-get-clued-up.5051668.jp

First geology talk

2009-03-06T18:49:00.000Z

Rock It did our first talk today. Sarah and I visited Pudsey Library to give a talk to a class of 30 children from year 5 of Waterloo Primary School. It lasted over an hour and was all about fossils.

The dinosaur bones and teeth were the most popular with the children. We asked them to guess what a mystery fossil was and no one knew. When we revealed it was a dinosaur poo everyone said "ewwww!" and wiped their hands on their clothes. They weren't too put off though; they still all wanted to handle the shark and ichthyosaur coprolites next!

Everyone was very impressed by the iridescent, pearlescent, agatised, crystallised and pyritised fossils. People expect fossils to be dull and grey so everyone was amazed to see some that things can be preserved as something shiny and brightly coloured too.

They were all greatly amused that I'd left a price sticker on one fossil too!

The insects in amber were very popular, although some people didn't want to see wasps close up! Some people asked about Jurassic Park and were slightly disappointed when we said it's not possible to recreate a dinosaur from amber, especially our Dominican amber which is only 20 million years old! Sarah was pleased that everyone appreciated her favourite piece of amber: one that contains no insects and loads of bubbles! It looks like a Crunchie.

At the end the children split into groups and each had to search through a box of gravel to find some fossils. Once they'd found them we asked them what they were and nearly everyone had remembered the names. The fossilised wood tricked some groups, but everyone knew ammonites and belemnites.

Rock It

2009-02-02T06:43:00.000Z

Welcome to our blog! We are Rock It, a community group who aim to teach people, especially children, about geology. We'll visit places such as libraries and museums to do talks, quizzes, activities and crafts.

We received a £2,452 grant from V, the youth volunteering charity, for this project last autumn. With this we have bought a wide range of fossils, gems, minerals and meteorites. All these can be viewed and handled. We have things such as dinosaur poo, mammoth tusks, fossil jellyfish, iridescent minerals and precious gems.

We can also show people specimens, for example amber containing insects, in great detail with our microscope. We have a minicam attachment and a laptop so a whole group can view a piece at once on the screen. We can also take photos and make videos (although flies in amber don't really move much!)

By showing unusual rocks, using exciting technology and helping everyone make their own dinosaur from pipecleaners and wobbly eyes, we hope to bring the subject to life. Many people dismiss geology and science in general as 'boring'; we plan to show how amazing the history of our planet and life on it really is.

There are currently 7 of us involved in the project: me, Sarah, Andy, Alyssa, Carly, Ryan and Kirsty. Our first talks will be at Pudsey Library to classes from local schools.

2009 is also the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth and 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin Of Species so we also hope to attend some events commemorating this.

To get in touch leave us a comment or email us through this address: HerbsAndDragonflies @ yahoo.co.uk