Whitby Museum Celebrates Yorkshire Day With Fossils!

Sarah Porteus from Whitby Museum with some of the museum’s extensive fossil collection Photo: Tony Bartholomew

Whitby Museum will mark Yorkshire Day this year with an event celebrating the amazing range of fossils found on the North Yorkshire coast.

Whitby Fossil Day, on Saturday 1 August, will encourage fossil fans of all ages to get hands on with its fossil handling collection and bring their own fossils for identification by the museum’s experts.

Roger Osborne, the museum’s geology curator, says: “The Yorkshire coast has arguably the greatest variety of fossils you can find anywhere in the country, from dinosaur footprints to plants, from reptiles to carboniferous corals. What better way to celebrate Yorkshire Day?”

Sarah Porteus from Whitby Museum with some of the museum’s extensive fossil collection Photo: Tony Bartholomew

The event, in and around the museum from 11am to 3pm, will include workshops with illustrator James McKay. James is an award-winning artist specialising in extraordinary paintings of ancient life, including dinosaurs.

Author Matthew Myerscough will talk about and sign copies of his book In Search of Sea Dragons: A Fossil Hunter’s Odyssey. Matthew is well-known in the fossil hunting community for finding spectacular marine reptile fossils on the beaches where he hunts.

Local experts will be bringing an amazing display of dinosaur footprints from the Yorkshire coast.

Sarah Porteus from Whitby Museum with some of the museum’s extensive fossil collection Photo: Tony Bartholomew

There’ll be tours of the geology collection, and the rare chance to take a look behind the scenes at the museum’s stores.

The Geologists Association will be there too, with information for budding fossil collectors.

The event will close with a talk by palaeontologist Dr Liam Herringshaw on the Mystery of the Whitby Garlic Stones. The ‘garlic stones’ – they look like garlic bulbs – were discovered near Whitby in 2021 and are trace fossils of a type never before found in Yorkshire. Liam will try to make sense of what they are, where they came from, and how they were made, and how they might give us new insights into the effects of rapid climate change on seafloor life.

Usual admission fees to the museum will apply.

For more information on Whitby Museum’s Fossil Day, please visit: https://whitbymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/