Palaeontology at the Lapworth Museum

Carboniferous Fossils

The Museum contains fine collections of Carboniferous floras and faunas, especially from the Coal Measures of the South Staffordshire Coalfield.

Alveley Trackways

In 1917, Doctor Frank Raw (1875–1961) collected an important series of Late Carboniferous fossil footprints from near Alveley in Shropshire. Over 200 individual slabs were extracted from the base of a red sandstone bed, and these can be reassembled to show the very extensive trackways made by diverse animals. Many tracks cross one another and some show impressions of a tail, though no fossil remains of the animals are preserved. These trace fossils and the rocks in which they are found inform us of the environment and ecosystem 310 million years ago. They indicate the area was a warm river floodplain on which plants, particularly clubmosses, grew. Small lakes developed on the flood plain and were colonised by carnivorous and herbivorous arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles. Sun cracks present in the slabs indicate periods of drying while rain prints show periodic rainfall. To preserve the original impressions made by the fauna, the area was rapidly buried by sand, probably during storm-induced flooding.

Coseley Nodules

Coseley is a fossil Lagerstätte in the West Midlands dated to approximately 300 million years ago, a period known as the Upper Carboniferous. The fossils are contained in ironstone nodules, which formed around ancient organic matter. These were extracted from the Black Country for local industries, and material was often laid in fields to dry, where local women known as 'pit bonk wenches' picked out useful minerals. The Museum has many examples of fossiliferous nodules, with most collected in the 19th Century when local mines operated. Sir Charles Holcroft (1831–1917), a successful iron and coal master in the Black Country, amassed a particularly fine collection which came to the Museum in 1917. The exceptionally well-preserved fossils include a highly diverse range of plants alongside insects, millipedes, arachnids, crustaceans, and fish, indicating the area was once a deltaic environment with numerous freshwater, brackish water and terrestrial habitats.

Lower Paleozoic Fossils

Cambrian, Ordovician, and Silurian rocks across the Welsh borders, Shropshire, and the West Midlands represent a diverse range of palaeoenvironments and faunal assemblages. Charles Lapworth (1842–1920) spent many years studying the geology of these regions, and produced detailed interpretations of the geological structures, rock types, and associated faunas. Lapworth was instrumental in discoveries of Lower Cambrian fossils at Comley Quarry, Shropshire and at Hartshill Quarry, Warwickshire. Through Lapworth's research and donations from his peers, the Museum has amassed a considerable collection of Lower Paleozoic fossils, with many from important geological localities. This collection has continued to grow through staff at the University of Birmingham and individuals such as John Wattison (1884–1974), an amateur collector who gifted approximately 20,000 specimens.

Graptolites

Graptolites are an extinct group of marine colonial organisms that appeared in the Cambrian, around 520 million years ago, and then thrived and diversified before their extinction during the Carboniferous, approximately 320 million years ago. Graptolites are often found flattened and carbonised, but occasionally rocks are found with three dimensional fossils which provide valuable information about this strange group.

Lapworth was a leading expert on graptolites, and with Gertrude Elles (1872–1960) and Ethel Shakespear, née Wood (1871–1945) produced their 'Monograph of British Graptolites'. Lapworth also recognised the stratigraphic zonation value of these fossils, thus was able to unravel the geological structure and history of the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Lapworth himself amassed a large collection of UK graptolites but also worked closely with notable geologists in Scandinavia, Canada, and the USA to interpret their material. As a result, many of these colleagues presented Lapworth with specimens, enhancing this collection of international graptolites comprising many Type and Figured specimens.

Wenlock Limestone

The Museum contains some of the finest collections of fossils from the Silurian of the West Midlands and Welsh Borders. The 425 million-year-old Much Wenlock Limestone Formation of the Dudley area is a Lagerstätte which contains one of the most diverse and exceptional fossil faunas in the United Kingdom. The limestone was deposited when the region was covered by a shallow tropical sea. Some of the beds contain disarticulated and fragmentary fossils, indicating these were swept around by wave action; while other horizons yield complete fossils beautifully preserved as a result of rapid burial after storm activity. The limestone was extensively quarried in the 18th and 19th centuries for use in the iron industry, and many of the best collections of fossils are from this time.

Ketley Collection

Formed by Charles Ketley, an engineer from Smethwick, the collection consists of approximately 1,700 fossils, particularly trilobites and crinoids. The trustees of Mason College of Science purchased this collection in 1880, which led to the establishment of what would become the Lapworth Museum of Geology. Specimens in the collection were studied and figured by many early palaeontologists, such as John William Salter (1820–1869) in his 'Monograph of British Trilobites'.

Holcroft Collection

Sir Charles Holcroft (1831–1917), a very successful iron and coal master in the Dudley area, amassed approximately 4,000 specimens. This collection comprises many exceptional examples of Wenlock fauna including brachiopods, corals, crinoids, and trilobites, alongside more rare and less well-understood fossils such as carpoids, cornulites, machaeridians, and rostroconchs. This collection is accompanied by Holcroft's handwritten Fossil Register.