Yorkshire Fossil Festival 2023 – full details coming soon!
Saturday 10 – Sunday 11 June
Whitby Museum, Pannett Park and other locations
Taking over wonderful Whitby for one weekend, this year’s festival will feature walks, talks, and tons of family-friendly events and entertainment. Visitors are invited to bring their own fossils to test the
experts, work with palaeo-artists to bring ancient creatures back to life, and get their favourite rocks cut and polished to take home!
Head to the Fossil Festival website for future programme announcements: www.yorkshirefossilfestival.co.uk
In partnership with Scarborough Museums and Galleries
Did dinosaurs live in Yorkshire?
In the middle of the room will be Alan – proof that some of the largest dinosaurs that roamed the earth once lived in what we now call Yorkshire. Alan was named after the finder of a huge vertebra from the
oldest true sauropod dinosaur ever found in the UK.
So what makes The Yorkshire Coast so unique?
In very simple terms the way the sea has eroded the cliffs has revealed the many fossilised remains of the Jurassic rocks found here. Some of the most popular and, in some cases, commercialised fossil areas are Whitby, Port Mulgrave and Robin Hood's Bay. However, in spite of this, there are still lots to be found and reptile remains are frequently being found here.
Where is the best place to find fossils near Scarborough?
Cloughton is around four miles north of Scarborough. There is a small amount of car parking space, or you can walk to the cove from the village. Cloughton Wyke is said to be a very good spot for finding
fossilised plant remains. Bivalves can also be found.
The best places in the world to go fossil hunting
- Dorset, UK. The Jurassic Coast is 95 miles of coastline that stretches from East Devon to Dorset,
and fossils are kind of a big deal here - Maryland, USA
- Ohio, USA
- Nangetty, Australia
- Zigong, China
- Borre, Denmark
Sauropods. Sauropods – long-necked, plant eating dinosaurs – roamed what is now the North Yorkshire coast 176 million years ago during what is known as the Middle Jurassic period. Britain's oldest example,
known as Alan after the walker who found its fossilised vertebra, was revealed in 2015. The 33ft (10m) long ichthyosaur fossil, which is about 180 million years old, was found at Rutland Water
Nature Reserve. Similar in shape to dolphins, the reptiles – known as sea dragons – varied in size from 3 – 82ft (1 – 25m).