I’ve recently been making an effort to get back to using Twitter regularly as it is a fantastic place to interact with scientists and science communicators, keep up with advances in science along with how science news is being received within the scientific community, and it’s a great platform for self-promotion (I fail at the latter no matter what the platform). One of my favourite sci-comm accounts on Twitter is PalaeoPoems, a page which shares palaeontology-themed poetry and offers writing prompts, like this:
I used this prompt to quickly write my own poem about my local palaeontology. here’s what I had to offer:
I don’t want to explain what every line means, though it’s not exactly complicated, but it does give me a chance to talk a little about my experiences of my local palaeontology.
I grew up not knowing that there were fossils in my area, I believed that they were only found at the coast or were deep underground in the old Carboniferous coal measures. Whilst studying for my palaeobiology degree at the University of Portsmouth, I stumbled upon an old book in the library about the geology of South Yorkshire (my home county), called Geological Excursions in the Sheffield Region and the Peak District National Park. To my surprise, it mentioned fossils in my home village of Conisbrough.
As soon as I got back home for the holidays, I set out to an old brick pit where Permian fossils had supposedly been found. It was an area I used to play and build dens as a child. These fossils were right under my nose and I never noticed them, though I can hardly be judged for that – they were small and not much to look at.
To me, they are little local treasures. But they are hard to come by in the old brick pit and they are poorly preserved. I’ve since noticed a few rocks relatively close to my house which contain lots of broken shells, remnants of life from the ancient Zechstein sea. Hardly anyone notices that they are there and that makes them even more precious to me.
The Palaeobabbler 