Thursday 23rd May 2019

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Wednesday 22nd May 2019

“Shadows of Shadows passing… It is now 1831… and as always, I am absorbed with a delicate thought. It is how poetry has indefinite sensations to which end, music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry. Music without the idea is simply music. Without music or an intriguing idea, color becomes pallour, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless.”

E A Poe

 

Tuesday 21st May 2019

The painting below was an image I found in a charity store in Kenilworth.

 

Monday 20th May 2019

Ammonites lived during the periods of Earth history known as the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Together, these represent a time interval of about 140 million years.

The Jurassic Period began about 201 million years ago, and the Cretaceous ended about 66 million years ago. The ammonites became extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Period, at roughly the same time as the dinosaurs disappeared.

However, we know a lot about them because they are commonly found as fossils, formed when the remains or traces of the animal became buried sediment that later solidified into rock. Ammonites were marine animals belonging to the phylum Mollusca and the class Cephalopoda. They had a coiled external shell similar to that of the modern nautilus. In other living cephalopods, e.g. octopus, squid and cuttlefish, the shells are small and internal, or absent.

The ammonite’s shell was divided into chambers separated by walls known as septa (singular septum). These strengthened the shell and stopped it from being crushed by the external water pressure. Ammonites could probably not withstand depths of more than 100 metres.

The septa had frilled edges: intricate lines, of varying complexity and known as sutures, mark where the septa joined the shell wall.

The ammonite lived in only the last chamber, the body-chamber; earlier ones were filled with gas or fluid which the ammonite was able to regulate in order to control its buoyancy and movement, much like a submarine.

The most important functions of the ammonite shell were protection and flotation. Each complete 360° coil is called a whorl. Except for the inner-most whorl, the shell is made up of three layers. The thin innermost and outermost layers are composed of prisms of aragonite (a form of calcium carbonate). The thicker middle layer is nacreous (mother-of-pearl), formed of tiny tabular crystals of aragonite.

In scientific literature, it has been the convention to illustrate ammonites with their body-chambers at the top. This is the opposite of their position in life.

Ribs, spines and tubercles (knobs), which frequently adorn the shell, may have strengthened it, but they may also have provided physical protection and camouflage against various predators, including marine reptiles (such as ichthyosaurs), crustaceans, fish and other ammonites. They also helped to regulate buoyancy and stability, as well as being sexual display features.

Ammonites probably fed on small plankton, or vegetation growing on the sea floor. They may also have eaten slow-moving animals that lived on the sea bottom, such as foraminifera, ostracods, small crustaceans, young brachiopods, corals and bryozoa, as well as drifting, slow-swimming or dead sea creatures.

As with living animals, ammonites are classified into species and genera whose names must be Latin words or words that have been latinised. The proper scientific name of a particular ammonite consists of the name of the species, preceded by the name of the genus to which it belongs, plus the name of the first person to describe it, and the date.

Some genera of ammonites had shells that were coiled in more bizarre ways. These are known as heteromorphs, from the Greek heteros meaning different and morphe meaning form or shape. The coiled shell is generally the only part of the ammonite to be preserved as a fossil. As well as being aesthetically pleasing and popular with fossil collectors, they are of particular value to geologists.

Sunday 19th May 2019

Solitaire

Neil Sedaka

There was a man, a lonely man
Who lost his love through his indifference
A heart that cared, that went unchecked
Until it died in his silence

And solitaire’s the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself, it’s easy to pretend
He’ll never love again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire

Another day, a lonely day
So much to say that goes unspoken
And through the night, his sleepless nights
His eyes are closed, his heart is broken

And solitaire’s the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down
And by himself it’s easy to pretend
She’s coming back again

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire

A little hope, goes up in smoke
Just how it goes, goes without saying
Solitaire

And by himself it’s easy to pretend
He’ll never love again
Ohhh

And keeping to himself he plays the game
Without her love it always ends the same
While life goes on around him everywhere
He’s playing solitaire

Saturday 18th May 2019

Mr Green spoiled my walk and my search by shouting at me from distance that I was walking on PRIVATE land. When I spoke with him he threatened to call the farmer as he was looking after the field. He told me to ” Just go home son” !

Gryphaea, common name devil’s toenails, is a genus of extinct oysters, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Gryphaeidae.
These fossils range from the Triassic period to the late Paleogene period, but are mostly restricted to the Triassic and Jurassic. Both periods belong to the era Mesozoic. They are particularly common in many parts of Britain.

The Mesozoic Era. The Mesozoic Era is the age of the dinosaurs and lasted almost 180 million years from approximately 250 to 65 million years ago. This era includes 3 well known periods called the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods. A mass-extinction marked the beginning and end of the Mesozoic Era.

These oysters lived on the sea bed in shallow waters, possibly in large colonies. The complete fossils consist of two articulated valves: a larger gnarly-shaped shell (the “toenail”) and a smaller, flattened shell, the “lid”. The soft parts of the animal occupied the cavity between the two shells, just like modern oysters. The shells also feature prominent growth bands. The larger, curved shell sat within the mud on the sea floor. These shells are sometimes found in fossil plates along with Turritella, clams, and sometimes sharks’ teeth and fossilized fish scales. Its distribution is common in areas of both Europe and North America.
A classic location to find these fossils is Redcar, on the northeast coast of England. There used to be a common folk belief that carrying one of these fossils could prevent rheumatism.

Friday 17th May 2019