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The Natural History Museum is an international leader in the study of the natural world. Our science describes the diversity of nature, promotes an understanding of its past, and supports the anticipation and management of the impact of human activity on the environment.
The Museum's repository provides free access to publications produced by more than 300 scientists working here. Researchers at the Museum study a diverse range of issues, including threats to Earth's biodiversity, the maintenance of delicate ecosystems, environmental pollution and disease. The accessible repository showcases this broad research output.
The repository was launched in 2016 with an initially modest number of journal publications in its database. It now includes book chapters and blogs from Museum scientists.
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Lithium Inventory of the Cerro Galán Volcanic System (Argentina): The Role of Magmatism as a Source for Li-Bearing Brine DepositsAbstract: Lithium-rich brines in South America’s Li triangle host Earth’s largest Li reserves, crucial for the global energy transition. Although Cenozoic magmatism near salars in the Li triangle often is considered as a major potential Li source, there is limited characterization of Li behavior in these magmatic systems. To address this, we present the first detailed Li study of the voluminous ignimbrites within the Cerro Galán volcanic system, a potential Li source for the Salar del Hombre Muerto, which is actively producing Li for batteries. Although most Cerro Galán volcanic system units exhibit normal Li concentrations in groundmass glass (30–50 ppm) relative to rhyolitic centers globally, the ~630-km3 Cerro Galán ignimbrite contains glass with significantly higher Li contents (>90 ppm), reflecting increased melt differentiation. Throughout the volcanic system, plagioclase and quartz display varied Li contents influenced by syneruptive degassing, and additionally for plagioclase, posteruptive modifications. Biotites in the Cerro Galán volcanic system are magmatic and range from 1 to 689 ppm Li, with biotites returning low analytical totals (low total biotites) enriched in Li, Pb, and Cs, consistent with the entrapment of an Li-rich magmatic volatile phase during biotite crystallization. Such a magmatic volatile phase is isotopically light (δ7Li as low as –23‰) and may reach 10,000 ppm Li according to binary mixing modeling. We propose that large magmatic centers, like the Cerro Galán volcanic system, may sustain exsolution of such a magmatic volatile phase and its transport through caldera-hosted hydrothermal systems. When such volcanic centers overlap with closed-basin watershed, magmatic Li-rich fluids could be selectively transported into basins, representing a source for Li-bearing salars, such as in the Salar del Hombre Muerto situated near the Cerro Galán volcanic system.
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New insights into the evolutionary history of Fungi from a 407 Ma Blastocladiomycota fossil showing a complex hyphal thallusZoosporic fungi are key saprotrophs and parasites of plants, animals and other fungi, playing important roles in ecosystems. They comprise at least three phyla, of which two, Chytridiomycota and Blastocladiomycota, developed a range of thallus morphologies including branching hyphae. Here we describe Retesporangicus lyonii gen. et sp. nov., an exceptionally well preserved fossil, which is the earliest known to produce multiple sporangia on an expanded hyphal network. To better characterize the fungus we develop a new method to render surfaces from image stacks generated by confocal laser scanning microscopy. Here, the method helps to reveal thallus structure. Comparisons with cultures of living species and character state reconstructions analysed against recent molecular phylogenies of 24 modern zoosporic fungi indicate an affinity with Blastocladiomycota. We argue that in zoosporic fungi, kinds of filaments such as hyphae, rhizoids and rhizomycelium are developmentally similar structures adapted for varied functions including nutrient absorption and anchorage. The fossil is the earliest known type to develop hyphae which likely served as a saprotrophic adaptation to patchy resource availability. Evidence from the Rhynie chert provides our earliest insights into the biology of fungi and their roles in the environment. It demonstrates that zoosporic fungi were already diverse in 407 million-year-old terrestrial ecosystems. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The Rhynie cherts: our earliest terrestrial ecosystem revisited’.
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Artists on the edge of the world: An integrated approach to the study of Magdalenian engraved stone plaquettes from Jersey (Channel Islands)The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by the appearance of iconographic expressions most often depicting animals, including anthropomorphic forms, and geometric signs. The Late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian saw a flourishing of such depictions, encompassing cave art, engraving of stone, bone and antler blanks and decoration of tools and weapons. Though Magdalenian settlement exists as far northwest as Britain, there is a limited range of art known from this region, possibly associated with only fleeting occupation of Britain during this period. Stone plaquettes, flat fragments of stone engraved on at least one surface, have been found in large quantities at numerous sites spanning the temporal and geographical spread of the Magdalenian, but they have been absent so far from the archaeological record of the British Isles. Between 2015 and 2018, ten fragments of stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs were uncovered at the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. In this paper, we report detailed analyses of these finds, which provide new evidence for technologies of abstract mark-making, and their significance within the lives of people on the edge of the Magdalenian world. These engraved stone fragments represent important, rare evidence of artistic expression in what is the far northern and western range of the Magdalenian and add new insight to the wider significance of dynamic practices of artistic expression during the Upper Palaeolithic.
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The earliest elephant-bone tool from Europe: An unexpected raw material for precision knapping of Acheulean handaxesOrganic knapping tools made from bone, antler, and wood were essential to early human toolkits but are rarely preserved in the archeological record. The earliest known soft hammers, dating to ~480,000 years ago, come from Boxgrove (UK), where modified antlers and large mammal bones were used alongside flint hard hammers. These tools facilitated complex knapping techniques, such as platform preparation and tranchet flake removal, contributing to the production of finely worked ovate handaxes typical of the Boxgrove Acheulean industry. This study presents a cortical bone fragment from an elephant, deliberately shaped into a percussor for resharpening flint tools. It represents the earliest known use of elephant bone in Europe and the first documented case of its use as a knapping hammer. Reconstructing its life history offers further insights into Middle Pleistocene hominin technological adaptations, resourcefulness, and survival strategies that enabled humans to endure harsh northern environments.
