Observations Science Palaeontology Nature

350-million-year-old fossils in the stone steps of a stairwell

I happened to notice 350-million-year-old fossils on the steps in a stairwell.

The white rings, semicircles and ovals that might be mistaken for ammonites are in fact fragments of crinoid stems, cross-sections of solitary corals and brachiopod shells.

The stone from which the steps were cut was formed on the floor of a warm, shallow sea, where for millions of years the remains of marine animals accumulated, bound together by calcareous mud.

Report a translation error

Worn cover of Ed Buryn's book “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa” with a photograph of a man in a hat and dark glasses.

Ed Buryn's Book “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa”, Revised Edition

I did not expect to meet Nikita Mikhalkov here

Gill and Craven report proposes cutting Church of England dioceses from 42 to 30

Church advised to cull its bishops to avoid ruin So ran the ironic headline in a recent issue of The Times, which summarised the report "Wasted Money in a Shrinking Church", written by the theologian Canon Robin Gill, a former adviser to the Archbishops of Canterbury Robert Runcie

Exhibition on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and their interiors opens at Fontainebleau

Now that is what one calls historical correspondence: the original hangings in Marie Antoinette's apartments at Fontainebleau and the upholstery of the armchair in Duplessis's portrait of Louis XVI of 1776-77. The fabric itself, according to the curators, was woven in 1731. An exhibition has

Alabaster “Saint with an Open Book” from the Louvre shown at the Monastery of Brou

The alabaster statuette "Saint with an Open Book", first quarter of the 16th century, from the collection of the Louvre, at the exhibition "The Moulins Triptych" in the Monastery of Brou in Bourg-en-Bresse. The sculpture originally comes from the collection of the Marchesa Arconati-

Read more

Ed Buryn's Book “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa”, Revised Edition

Gill and Craven report proposes cutting Church of England dioceses from 42 to 30

Exhibition on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and their interiors opens at Fontainebleau

Alabaster “Saint with an Open Book” from the Louvre shown at the Monastery of Brou