Museum palaeontologist Paul Barrett remembers his former colleague Angela Milner, who passed away earlier this month.
Dr Angela Milner (née Girven, b. 1947) was one of the most influential figures in the field of vertebrate palaeontology, with interests spanning 350 million years of Earth history. She spent most of her career at the Natural History Museum, London, joining its ranks as a curator in 1976 and rising through the organization to become Assistant Keeper of Palaeontology, a position that she held until retirement in 2009.
We’re back with the first episode of series 2, featuring Paul Barrett discussing Dinosaur discoveries from around the world. Most species people are aware of are ones found in North America but dinosaurs have been found on every continent on Earth.
In the show we look at specimens such as Mantellisaurus, Megalosaurus, Giraffatitan and Stegosaurus and finds from Europe, Africa and Antarctica.
If you enjoy this episode please subscribe and leave us a review in iTunes. Better still join us live for the rest of series 2 this summer to ask your own questions of our scientist. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to find out the details of our next broadcast.
As we enjoyed the bank holiday weekend just gone, we were reminded of the previous one where our trainees on the Identification Trainers for the Future project travelled to the ‘Jurassic Coast’ to help out at the annual Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. One of our trainees Anthony Roach has been going to the festival since 2009 and gives us an insight here into how things have changed over the years…
The reaction of friends who aren’t natural history geeks is often brilliant! Looking at me rather quizzically they’ve said, ‘So. You’re going to a Fossil Festival?!’ ‘Yes,’ I reply. Some respond with, ‘cooool…so what do you do exactly? Talk about rocks and fossils?’ ‘Do you go fossil hunting?’ ‘Do you show people dinosaurs?’ Yes, yes, and well, sometimes we have bits of them! ‘And you’re doing this for 3 days?’ Yes and it is brilliant. With wry smiles they usually say ‘right…cool…interesting…’
A gloriously sunny May Day bank holiday weekend for the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival
The truth is, despite my friend’s reaction, it is a lot more than just a few rocks, fossils and bits of dinosaurs! The Fossil Festival celebrates the unique scientific discoveries that can be read in the rocks at Lyme Regis and how they’ve shaped our understanding of geological time. The festival also takes inspiration from the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site to inspire future generations of scientists, geologists, naturalists and artists.
