鈥淭hey say that the Jurassic Coast is in the south 鈥� we like to say it is in Yorkshire,鈥� says Andy Woods, senior curator of the Yorkshire Museum and a naturalised Yorkshireman. 鈥淲e鈥檝e got some of the best Jurassic geology in the country.鈥�
You鈥檇 expect a bit of regional one-upmanship here, and you get it in spades (which are called spades), but it isn鈥檛 an empty boast as a new exhibition called opens in York.
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The county鈥檚 contribution to the geology and palaeontology of the Jurassic era is at least as important as that of the more storied deposits around Dorset. The geology is essentially the same 鈥� Jurassic rocks are found in a diagonal band across the country from Lyme Regis to Redcar 鈥� and the fossils are just as good.
During the Jurassic period, 201 to 145 million years ago, what is now Britain was much farther south, around the latitude of today鈥檚 north Africa. The global climate was several degrees warmer and Yorkshire was tropical. Early on in the period it was at the bottom of a deep sea; 25 million years later it was thrust upwards by plate tectonics to become a lush, riverine landscape roamed by dinosaurs. At the end of the period it was a shallow coral reef. All three ecosystems left abundant sedimentary rocks stuffed with fossils, the best of which are on display at an excellent new exhibition 鈥� important enough for David Attenborough to make a day trip from London to open it.
This latter-day Jurassic safari opens gently with the remains of the reef ecosystem that covered the area from 163 to 145 million years ago. Ammonites, belemnites, bivalves and corals dominate, plus a few tantalising hints of teeth and bones of bigger, fiercer things.
You don鈥檛 have long to wait for the really spectacular stuff. The next section takes us into the deep ocean, a dimly-lit space full of fearsome prehistoric beasts. These are what the Victorians knew as sea dragons 鈥� marine reptiles that were to the Jurassic ocean what dinosaurs were to the land.
Fantastic beasts
The star of the show is the skeleton of a monstrous marine reptile called聽Temnodontosaurus, an 8-metre long predatory ichthyosaur. The skeleton was discovered near Whitby in 1857 and has been in the museum ever since. I recall ogling it as a dino-mad kid growing up in York, but its new setting makes it even more awe-inspiring. The find comes from a seminal period in the history of the earth sciences. Geology was in vogue and despite the prevailing creationist culture, scientists were starting to realise that the Earth was tremendously old and was once inhabited by long-extinct beasts.
Among those Victorian pioneers of geology were the members of the , who founded the museum in 1830: the first curator was John Phillips, nephew of William Smith, the man who is said to have created the UK鈥檚 first geological map. The men had a ready supply of fossil material not just from their own expeditions but from the alum mines dotted along the coast聽鈥� alum was an incredibly important raw material for the dyeing industries springing up among Yorkshire鈥檚 cotton mills. Extracting it, the miners processed tonnes of Jurassic shale and often came across the remains of ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and pliosaurs. 鈥淭hey soon realised that the fossils were more valuable than the alum,鈥� says Will Watts, associate curator of the exhibition.
Next to the monster is another exquisite fossil that shows the gentler side of the sea dragons: the skeletons of six tiny ichthyosaur embryos still inside their pregnant mother (ichthyosaurs gave birth to live young). On display for the first time, she was found on a beach near Whitby in 2015 and is one of only a handful of such fossils.
The final third of the show is dedicated to dry land. Unfortunately, dinosaur bones are rare in Yorkshire so we content ourselves mostly with fossils of other animals and bones borrowed from down south.
But to make up for the paucity of material in this section, the museum makes good use of technology: a 3D animation of the theropod Megalosaur literally walking in its own fossilised footsteps, and a virtual reality encounter with a sauropod.
Attenborough was the first to try the VR headset (see picture, above) and was blown away by it. 鈥淚f that isn鈥檛 sensational, I don鈥檛 know what you want out of life,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 am fascinated by the extraordinary creatures that were in this world long before we were,鈥� he went on. 鈥淭he huge sea reptiles are as impressive as any I have seen anywhere 鈥� they are brilliantly displayed.鈥�
He鈥檚 right. Yorkshire鈥檚 Jurassic World is a great permanent addition to the UK鈥檚 museum scene, as good as anything you can see in the more famous fossil mecca of Lyme in Dorset. It also provides a nice reminder that palaeontology remains a science that is open to everyone.
The exhibition closes with another amazing find from a Yorkshire beach. In 1995, amateur fossil hunter Alan Gurr found a huge vertebra near Whitby. It turned out to be from the tail of a brontosaurus-like sauropod, albeit of unknown species. It鈥檚 easy to make jokes about dinosaurs roaming God鈥檚 Own Country, but they certainly did once.
聽is at聽the Yorkshire Museum, York.聽Adults 拢7.50, children 16 and under free (includes general admission to the museum)
