Abstract Alfred Nicholson Leeds, F.G.S., amassed one of the largest collections of fossil vertebrates from a single geological horizon anywhere in the world. The Leeds Collection is world famous for its large marine reptiles, but also includes the remains of a fine range of dinosaurs and a fragmentary pterosaur. The Leeds Collection ornithodirans were almost exclusively recovered from the Peterborough Member of the Oxford Clay Formation, with a single specimen of a sauropod derived from the underlying Kellaways Formation. The Leeds Collection includes the remains of at least 12 individual dinosaurs representing at least eight taxa (with other remains currently generically indeterminate) and a single fragmentary rhamphorhynchid pterosaur. Perhaps most intriguingly of all, in 1898 Alfred Leeds discovered a probable reptile egg, later attributed to a dinosaur. Each dinosaur and the pterosaur from the Leeds Collection is discussed, and, where known, details of the provenance, a brief history of research and pertinent archive material are included to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey of the Leeds Collection ornithodirans to date.

Abstract The Neogene System of Britain and its surrounding continental shelf have received relatively little attention. This is due, in part, to their limited geographical distribution, relatively complex stratigraphy and unim-portance in terms of offshore hydrocarbons (Fig. 1 ). However, during the last decade, interest has grown as palaeontologists and climatologists work towards documenting and reconstructing the warmer climate of the Middle Pliocene ( Dowsett et al. 1992 ; Wood et al. 1993 ; Haywood et al. 2000, 2002 ), thus providing new insight into the mechanisms and effects of global warming ( Dowsett et al. 1999 ; Haywood & Valdes 2004 ). Onshore Miocene deposits are poorly represented, with the exception of the Lenham Beds, Kent, and the Trimley Sands, SE Suffolk. Wilkinson (1974, 1980) examined samples from the former site, but recovered no ostracods. Although Pliocene deposits are more common than Miocene in the British Isles, they are also of limited extent. Pliocene ostracods have only been described from two regions on the British mainland – the diminutive St Erth Beds, Cornwall, and the more extensive crags of eastern England. ‘Crag’ was an East Anglian dialect term for any sand rich in shells ( Moorlock et al. 2000 ). Taylor (1824) first applied this term in a strictly geological sense, although Funnell (1961) extended its use to all formations containing such deposits.

Abstract The Hampshire Basin was first characterized by Prestwich (1847a, b) as a tectonic/depositional feature (as the ‘Isle of Wight Basin ’). It is an east-west-orientated, broadly synclinal but asymmetrical structure, within which are smaller similarly orientated folds, preserving up to 800 m of Paleogene strata. It extends from southern England into the eastern English Channel (Figs 42, 135 & 136). It is limited in the south by the steep, en echelon monoclinal Purbeck 2 Isle of Wight folds. Upper Paleocene-lowest Oligocene strata are represented. Upper Eocene and Early Oligocene strata are preserved only in the northern half of the Isle of Wight and adjacent areas of SW Hampshire. The coastal cliff and foreshore exposures in the Hampshire Basin, particularly in the Isle of Wight, are the most extensive Paleogene sections in NW Europe, and have been studied since the late eighteenth century. Many other exposures and boreholes, including deep holes drilled for petroleum exploration, have contributed to the database. Recent remapping of large areas by the British Geological Survey (BGS), including several deep cored boreholes, has enabled a comprehensive revised stratigraphic framework for much of the succession (Edwards & Freshney 1987a, b; Insole & Daley 1985; Daley 1999; Daley & Balson 1999; King 2006).

Abstract The Isle of Wight on the south coast of England has near continuous exposures of Early Cretaceous to Early Oligocene and Quaternary deposits and has long been regarded as a classic area of British geology. It has a long history of study dating back to the start of the nineteenth century. The identified threats to geoconservation are coastal erosion, coastal protection schemes aimed at preventing erosion and fossil collecting. Of these, however, erosion and collecting can also be seen as opportunities. Geology has influenced tourism since the eighteenth century which subsequently promoted both interpretation and conservation. Collecting of geological specimens for museum collections is documented as early as 1825. Site-based conservation began in 1951 with the notification of geological Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and Regionally Important Geological/geomorphological Sites (RIGS) have been notified since the mid 1990s. There has been a voluntary set of guidelines for fossil collecting and more recently the preparation of a Local Geodiversity Action Plan (LGAP) brought together diverse groups and individuals to begin developing a strategic approach to interpreting and conserving the island's geological heritage. The main outcome of the LGAP process has been to develop a partnership with a view to applying for membership of the European Geoparks Network.

Abstract Despite dinosaurs becoming significant ‘icons’ in our culture, few women have made major contributions to the study of fossil vertebrates, especially reptilian taxonomy, by specializing in the dinosaurs and related ‘saurians’. Most who were involved over the first 150 years were not professional palaeontologists but instead wives, daughters and pure (and usually unpaid) amateurs. Here we salute some 40 of them, showing how some kept alive childhood dreams and others fell into the subject involuntarily. As usual nineteenth-century female practitioners are virtually unknown in this area except for one icon, Dorset girl Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, who significantly contributed to the palaeontology. Only in the early twentieth century did women such as Tilly Edinger conduct research with an evolutionary agenda. Before the modern post-1960s era, beginning with Mignon Talbot, few were scientists or conducting research; others such as Mary Ann Woodhouse, Arabella Buckley, the Woodward sisters, Nelda Wright were artists, photographers and/or writers, scientifically illustrating and/or popularizing dinosaurs. Like many other women, they often battled to get from first base to job, appear fleetingly in the literature then disappear; or exist as anonymous presences behind eminent men. In contrast, the modern era offers better prospects for those wanting to pursue dinosaurs and their relatives, even if it means volunteering for a dino dig, watching a live ‘Time team’-type dinosaur dig on TV or entering the Big Virtual Saurian World now on the Internet. This paper considers the problems and highlights the achievements of the oft-forgotten women. Supplementary material: Additional references and list of books and publications by or about deceased women related to ‘saurians’, including these mentioned in the text, are available at http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18419 .

Abstract With its rich lithological variation, upland, lowland and coastal settings, and past climatic changes, the UK presents a wide variety of landslide features that can pose significant hazards to people, construction and infrastructure, or simply add to landscape character and conservation value of an area. This chapter describes and defines the nature and extent of this landsliding; the causes, effects and geological controls on failure; and their mitigation and stabilization. A risk-based approach to landslide management is outlined with qualitative and semi-quantitative methodologies described. Numerous case studies are presented exemplifying landslide and slope stability hazards in the UK.

Abstract This paper examines the tragic life of William Perceval (wrongly Percival) Hunter (1812–1878), who was active right across natural history in the period 1828–1841. He was a nephew of the ‘father of American Geology’, William Maclure, but, despite this, has been completely forgotten. He produced a number of books and papers, some of which discussed what were to become dinosaurs in 1842, and the Wealden, and adjoining rocks, which had produced so many of them. Hunter was, notably, one of the first to draw attention to the Isle of Wight as a favoured fossil locality for these, among the many other natural history topics he covered. His problems were initially his itinerancy, then his failure to complete projects, coupled with their publication privately, obscurely and abroad. But the major problem comes from his forgotten end; first, in a Scottish medical ‘confinement’ from 1841 and, finally, within a major asylum there, until 1878. This left him unable to complete his projects and with an indelible mark on any reputation he might have acquired.