It hardly seems possible that an entire year has passed since the last glorious geoadvent season – but once again, we’re strapping in for 24 days of fast paced festive geological blogging action!

This year’s geoadvent is being brought to you by a wide range of Geological Society staff members, as well as a few guest stars. Expect the usual range of tales from the archives, history, tenuous links between geology and Christmas, youtube forays and terrible punning, as well as many close ups of our treasured William Smith map (starring this year in the role of advent calendar doors, as seen in full below…)

The 2016 Geoadvent Challenge!

This year, we’re starting with an advent challenge – inspired by the Birmingham & Black County Wildlife Trust’s Laura Hamilton, who recently shared some images of her fabulous crocheted trilobites with us.

What better way to spend the winter evenings than crocheting your own trilobite – or any geological equivalent?

Luckily, our former Library Assistant Sarah is on hand with some suggestions, including some freely available patterns. Visit Oddknit for free instructions on how to knit ammonites/trilobites/belemnites/crinoids and more!

Sarah has more suggestions for geological knitting projects in a previous advent blog – and has also shared in advent posts her free patterns for crocheting your own mini geologists – a Mary Anning, a Darwin, and our very own Geoscientist magazine editor Ted Nield!

Crocheted geologists: the collection

Share progress on your own geological crafting projects with us below, or using #geoadvent – there will be a Fabulous Prize available to our favourite, including a 2017 Geological Society calendar and one of our famed, prized, impossible to get hold of rock hammer USB sticks.

Stay tuned for the rest of the #geoadvent!