A shutterbug of stone

  This photogenic, fossil-rich, limestone hails from Somerset in England's West Country. It's not often that a polished slab of stone photographs decently with just a smartphone, but I was really pleased with this photo.   The main issues I find with this sort of shot are (i) holding the phone rock steady (genuinely no pun intended), and (ii) the fact that cameras tend to focus straight through polished surfaces onto something – often the photographer! – being reflected.   This slab is inside a glass case, which tends to add an additional complication in terms of reflections, but I was lucky here and this photo didn’t need to have a filter used or to have any adjustments made. Incidentally, this variety of stone (which dates back to the Lower Jurassic) is not actually a 'true' marble in the sense that geologists use the term - limestone metamorphosed by heat and pressure - but stonemasons use the term to describe any limestone that takes a good polish. This one certai...

One Saturday morning, I was on my way from Exeter to spend some quality time with the red cliffs just along the coast at Dawlish when the train went past the Warren, and I took this atmospheric photo through the train window. Dawlish Warren is really important for its coastal geomorphology, so it has a good Earth science interest in its own right. Looks idyllic, doesn't it?   It’s what the photo doesn’t show that comes to mind when I look at it.   Out of the window on the other side of the carriage, the sky was black.   Not just grey, but black-with-menaces.   The sort of black that a daytime sky has no business being.   As we rounded toward the small town and seafront station of Dawlish (which is now famous for the railway line being washed away there in a later, rather more massive storm and equally famous for the Herculean work of the 'Orange Army' who repaired it), the heavens opened.   As those of us who were getting off the train there did just th...