Fossil insects 10 years after the Geological Conservation Review (Great Britain)

Abstract

At the third congress of the I.P.S. (International Palaeoentomological Society) in Beijing (2010), Professor Dong Ren, conference organiser, was presented with an author’s copy of the arthropod volume of the Geological Conservation Review of Great Britain, which included fossil insects, and had just been published (Jarzembowski et al., 2010). The purpose of the review, which commenced in the last century before the founding of I.P.S., was essentially to select and document the key sites of British geology, geomorphology and palaeontology with view to geoheritage conservation—including palaeoentomology. The results were collated and published in a series of volumes and, as it subsequently transpired, the arthropod volume was the last one (number 35). The insect part (written by the current author) and other arthropods (by Derek Siveter and Paul Selden) were augmented by general geology and palaeontology contributed by Douglas Palmer. A planned volume with relevant Lower Cretaceous (Wealden) geology was eventually produced instead as a short series of papers by the Geologists’ Association of London (Radley & Allen, 2012b). Geoconservation has featured periodically on the I.P.S. agenda and this paper reflects on the legacy of the GCR study, a decade later, and over a generation after its initiation.