History nerd here, also huge paleontology nerd. I love fossils, dinosaurs, early life from millions of years ago, the origins of life on Earth, all that cool science and history stuff. I know there’s at least a few others here on TS who like paleontology, so this thread is for everyone who wishes they had a time machine (but for now paleontology will have to do ).
France - a source of delicious food, funny comedians, and millipedes the size of alligators (seriously!). This almost-human-sized bug is the ancestor of our modern millipedes and centipedes:
EU policies state that a country can only have one leg-based national dish, and France already has the frogs…
It’s not all insects in France. Recently, a major fossil bed was found in the south area of Montagne Noire, in a layer dating from the Ordovician period, when the land that is now France was near the South Pole. This discovery is exciting not only because Ordovician fossil beds are relatively uncommon, but because this bed in Montagne Noir has fossil remains of soft-bodied organisms (algae, sponges), which are rare.
The Ordovician occurred roughly 488-443 million years ago and witnessed some of the earliest vertebrates and a flourishing environment for molluscs; almost all Ordovician life was in the ocean (though it is also the era when life left the ocean and began to appear on land). (Additional details here: https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/ordovician/ordovician.php)
Researchers at the Montagne Noire site have created an artistic representation of the life on the French landscape (actually France was a shallow seascape at the time) during the Ordovician period:
That image is from a study published in February this year: “The Cabrières Biota (France) provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems”. Interesting fact: the polar ecosystem and life forms of that area (the Ordovician fossil bed in France) has a lot of similarities of life and environment to modern polar ecosystems. The past continues today!
You are probably within driving distance (or at most a few hours’ flight) from your nearest paleontological research site!
Yes, I would take my holiday at one of these sites, to look at fossils in rocks. That would be a dream holiday for me: some sun-baked, rocky outcrop, rich in fossils.
Wow. Germany is second here. Did not know that. But I hiked a geologically inspired trail recently and learned lots of interesting stuff about geology, fossils and earth’s history.
Diabase (which goes by the name “dolerite” outside of Canada and the US) is a beautiful stone. It looks beautiful in architectural applications (countertops, decorative stone features).
Pillow lava has always made me think of teenage life. Of all the geologies, the origin of pillow lava looks most sincere, and enthusiastic, and goofy (and a little like pimples )
Another cool thing about paleontology: it helps life survive today, and long into the future.
The scale of planetary problems we face today has been faced before by life on this earth. Much worse problems, actually. Life has found a way to survive and thrive, not just in spite of those problems, but sometimes because of them:
I thought that was cool too! As a matter of fact, if you are anywhere near Frankfurt and want to visit a site that has a long fossil record, you can visit the Messel Pit, which is by the village of Messel, about 35 km southeast of Frankfurt. The Messel Pit has been the source of many interesting fossil discoveries over the years. (It is unlikely you yourself will find one there - while there are no doubt more fossils in the ground there, there is a lot of ground to cover. You might get lucky though! In any case if you’re a paleontology fan it is a cool place to visit, both geologically - it is oil shale - and in terms of paleontology.)
I saw your post on the checkin thread about shelf fungi. Mushrooms are extraordinarily rare in the fossil record - like, rare: only 10 have ever been discovered (up until 2017) - but emerging scientific findings are beginning to suggest that fungi played a significant role in life establishing itself on land:
Next time you pass a fungus in the forest, thank it for helping the earliest plants to establish themselves on land, and create an environment where our animal ancestors were able to thrive.
both footprints are the same age, meaning they coexisted (and their preservation as footprints in this layer means these two creatures passed this way within days of each other)
they are different species: Homo erectus (which walked similarly to us, in a bipedal heel-toe pattern), and Paranthropus boisei, which was also bipedal (these footprints show) but had a more flat-footed walk, and a more movable big toe (similar to chimpanzees: a foot that can grasp things)
This shows how present-day bipedalism is something that emerged slowly, over time, and there were long spans of time when heel-toe ancestors (walking like us) and flat-footed / movable-big-toe-footed (grasping-foot) ancestors lived together: our heel-toe bipedalism did not become dominant overnight.
(The other cool thing about this is if Paranthropus boisei had survived, and Homo erectus (and other heel-toe bipedal Homo species) had passed away to become fossils, then we wouldn’t be walking up flat staircases at home. Our homes would have “branch”-style grasping surfaces - more like ladders, for our feet with movable big toes - for us to climb up and down.)
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That country is obviously cursed. Are these things even allowed to exist under EU-regulations?! 
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