And it’s time for another review of the year, so here’s some of what happened in 2025.
One of the highlights of my year was the first ever DinoConUK held in the University of Exeter. As you might guess from the name it’s all about dinosaurs. The university that hosted the 2025 event is in a charming setting on a hillside overlooking Exeter and the surrounding countryside. My room on campus was ideal for getting to the various venues which were all just a short walk away.
There was a lot going on during the weekend with talks, vendors, book signings, dinosaur art, quizzes and auctions, with nearly 1,000 people attending. It was all great fun so I fully intend to go again next year. Several people have published their own reviews about DinoConUk so you can read what Darren Naish, Mike Taylor, Mathew Wedel and Natee, Gemma and Marc got up to over the weekend if you are interested.
One of the highlights of my year was the first ever DinoConUK held in the University of Exeter. As you might guess from the name it’s all about dinosaurs. The university that hosted the 2025 event is in a charming setting on a hillside overlooking Exeter and the surrounding countryside. My room on campus was ideal for getting to the various venues which were all just a short walk away.
There was a lot going on during the weekend with talks, vendors, book signings, dinosaur art, quizzes and auctions, with nearly 1,000 people attending. It was all great fun so I fully intend to go again next year. Several people have published their own reviews about DinoConUk so you can read what Darren Naish, Mike Taylor, Mathew Wedel and Natee, Gemma and Marc got up to over the weekend if you are interested.
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The talks about dinosaurs were excellent. As I mentioned in last years review, I had visited a life-size model of one of the sauropod dinosaurs rearing up during a trip organised by the Open University to look at the fossil Lagerstätten of South-West Germany. It really shows the immense size of these creatures. A number of palaeontologists have argued that different species of sauropod dinosaurs could rear up like this, including Diplodocus, Barosaurus, Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus, despite their gigantic size. Other palaeontologists point out that biomechanical calculations show that they could never rear up like that - at least not in our 1g gravity.
When I see these gigantic animals it is obvious that they have evolved to live in a reduced palaeogravity. All land based animals would find life easier. It is easier to run, jump and fly. Bone can be thinner, muscles weaker and hearts smaller. It is easier to grow big and safer to fall. Land life is limited to about the size of an elephant in our 1g gravity but it could grow much larger in a reduced palaeogravity. About the size of a sauropod dinosaur.
Many palaeontologists don’t think the concept of reduced palaeogravity is possible and describe it as “nonsense”. But despite that rejection of what I consider obvious, it is always interesting to listen to palaeontologists describing the biomechanical problems with sauropod dinosaurs. As luck would have it, sauropod dinosaurs were one of the main themes of the talks during the weekend.
One interesting fact about sauropod dinosaurs is that they first evolved that body form by at least 150 million years ago, and then new species keep evolving into the same body form for tens of millions of years until they were wiped out with most of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. As I listened to one of the talks asking what was so special about the sauropod body form I found myself willing them to say the obvious. It’s convergent evolution - this occurs when completely unrelated groups of animals evolve similar features in response to similar environmental pressures. In a reduced palaeogravity life would naturally evolve towards the sauropod form. But of course they never did say that - perhaps next year, or the next.
Palaeogravity is widely believed to have been constant for hundreds of millions of years, but that’s not what I find. One fundamental technique to quantify palaeogravity is the Weight-mass Method. This method has been applied to Giraffatitan, one of the most complete sauropod skeletons known. The results indicate that palaeogravity 152 million years ago was about 0.54g ± 20%. This is the reason they could all become so gigantic.
We sadly lost three long time supporters of reduced palaeogravity and Earth expansion this year.
Carl Strutinski is no longer with us after he passed away in March 2025. I’m told that a small group was still able to visit him in Saarbrücken in February to discuss his last thoughts and hand over some books and geological maps. His final resting place is in the protestant cemetery of Augsburg. I only meet Carl once at a 2011 conference in Sicily were we both presented the evidence for reduced palaeogravity. Since then we have keep up correspondence and exchanged various papers as we produced them. Carl published papers discussing the Lilliput Effect, palaeogravity and mass extinctions. He wrote many other papers over the years in 1990-99, 2000-09, 2010-14, 2015-19 and 2020-24, mainly about Earth expansion. Carl also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
Vedat Shehu also passed away in March 2025. He wrote about Earth expansion in 2010-14 and 2020-24. His book, The Growing and Developing Earth, explained his reasons for believing in an expanding Earth in detail. Vedat also presented an internet lecture, Geotheory of The Growing Earth, outlining his theory of the Earth’s growth from a cosmic ultra-dense core kernel transformation. He also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
Cliff Ollier died peacefully at home in September at 93 years of age. I met Cliff twice, once at that same 2011 conference and again at Perth in 2019 when I met up with him and James Maxlow during a holiday in Australia. As we began putting the world to rights the talk eventually turned to discussing how to live a long life. Cliff thought one of the main factors for a long life was to keep doing something you love. He had been very lucky that he enjoyed his work as a geologist so he continued writing about it in retirement. Cliff was a prolific author and published several books and many articles over the years in 2000-09, 2010-14, 2015-19 and 2020-24. They covered Earth expansion as well as a range of other subjects. His book, The Origin of Mountains, is a must read (see my review here). He continued to publish until he was well into his late 80s. Cliff also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
I had been a bit lax myself in publishing palaeogravity calculations but I finally got around to publishing one based on the small dinosaur Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis. In practice I had written most of this about two years ago but had never gotten around to publishing it. As you might expect it gives a palaeogravity estimate very similar to the others I have published so far. It also seems to agree with the estimates of other people.
Research Gate continue to do a fine job in making many of my papers widely available. My article, Ancient Life’s Gravity and its Implications for the Expanding Earth, had reached 8,596 reads towards the end of the year. The article calculating palaeogravity based on four Tyrannosaurus rex specimens reached 3,686 reads, while the article about Giraffatitan (=Brachiosaurus) brancai reached 2,083 reads. There are links to all my articles on my List of Publications page.
A number of articles and books have been written about palaeogravity and Earth expansion this year. Please let me know if I’ve missed any.
One of the surprises of the year was a lecture given to the North East Geological Society by Dr Keith James. The two main surprises for me was that he lives close to me in the UK and it had taken me over two years to notice his lecture on YouTube. He revisits the theory of plate tectonics and discusses how research points to a more complex relationship between continental and oceanic crust than is suggested by the theory as it is commonly understood. I’ll give you one guess what that more complex relationship might suggest.
When I see these gigantic animals it is obvious that they have evolved to live in a reduced palaeogravity. All land based animals would find life easier. It is easier to run, jump and fly. Bone can be thinner, muscles weaker and hearts smaller. It is easier to grow big and safer to fall. Land life is limited to about the size of an elephant in our 1g gravity but it could grow much larger in a reduced palaeogravity. About the size of a sauropod dinosaur.
Many palaeontologists don’t think the concept of reduced palaeogravity is possible and describe it as “nonsense”. But despite that rejection of what I consider obvious, it is always interesting to listen to palaeontologists describing the biomechanical problems with sauropod dinosaurs. As luck would have it, sauropod dinosaurs were one of the main themes of the talks during the weekend.
One interesting fact about sauropod dinosaurs is that they first evolved that body form by at least 150 million years ago, and then new species keep evolving into the same body form for tens of millions of years until they were wiped out with most of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. As I listened to one of the talks asking what was so special about the sauropod body form I found myself willing them to say the obvious. It’s convergent evolution - this occurs when completely unrelated groups of animals evolve similar features in response to similar environmental pressures. In a reduced palaeogravity life would naturally evolve towards the sauropod form. But of course they never did say that - perhaps next year, or the next.
Palaeogravity is widely believed to have been constant for hundreds of millions of years, but that’s not what I find. One fundamental technique to quantify palaeogravity is the Weight-mass Method. This method has been applied to Giraffatitan, one of the most complete sauropod skeletons known. The results indicate that palaeogravity 152 million years ago was about 0.54g ± 20%. This is the reason they could all become so gigantic.
We sadly lost three long time supporters of reduced palaeogravity and Earth expansion this year.
Carl Strutinski is no longer with us after he passed away in March 2025. I’m told that a small group was still able to visit him in Saarbrücken in February to discuss his last thoughts and hand over some books and geological maps. His final resting place is in the protestant cemetery of Augsburg. I only meet Carl once at a 2011 conference in Sicily were we both presented the evidence for reduced palaeogravity. Since then we have keep up correspondence and exchanged various papers as we produced them. Carl published papers discussing the Lilliput Effect, palaeogravity and mass extinctions. He wrote many other papers over the years in 1990-99, 2000-09, 2010-14, 2015-19 and 2020-24, mainly about Earth expansion. Carl also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
Vedat Shehu also passed away in March 2025. He wrote about Earth expansion in 2010-14 and 2020-24. His book, The Growing and Developing Earth, explained his reasons for believing in an expanding Earth in detail. Vedat also presented an internet lecture, Geotheory of The Growing Earth, outlining his theory of the Earth’s growth from a cosmic ultra-dense core kernel transformation. He also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
Cliff Ollier died peacefully at home in September at 93 years of age. I met Cliff twice, once at that same 2011 conference and again at Perth in 2019 when I met up with him and James Maxlow during a holiday in Australia. As we began putting the world to rights the talk eventually turned to discussing how to live a long life. Cliff thought one of the main factors for a long life was to keep doing something you love. He had been very lucky that he enjoyed his work as a geologist so he continued writing about it in retirement. Cliff was a prolific author and published several books and many articles over the years in 2000-09, 2010-14, 2015-19 and 2020-24. They covered Earth expansion as well as a range of other subjects. His book, The Origin of Mountains, is a must read (see my review here). He continued to publish until he was well into his late 80s. Cliff also provided a chapter for the book, The Hidden History of Earth Expansion.
I had been a bit lax myself in publishing palaeogravity calculations but I finally got around to publishing one based on the small dinosaur Mantellisaurus atherfieldensis. In practice I had written most of this about two years ago but had never gotten around to publishing it. As you might expect it gives a palaeogravity estimate very similar to the others I have published so far. It also seems to agree with the estimates of other people.
Research Gate continue to do a fine job in making many of my papers widely available. My article, Ancient Life’s Gravity and its Implications for the Expanding Earth, had reached 8,596 reads towards the end of the year. The article calculating palaeogravity based on four Tyrannosaurus rex specimens reached 3,686 reads, while the article about Giraffatitan (=Brachiosaurus) brancai reached 2,083 reads. There are links to all my articles on my List of Publications page.
A number of articles and books have been written about palaeogravity and Earth expansion this year. Please let me know if I’ve missed any.
One of the surprises of the year was a lecture given to the North East Geological Society by Dr Keith James. The two main surprises for me was that he lives close to me in the UK and it had taken me over two years to notice his lecture on YouTube. He revisits the theory of plate tectonics and discusses how research points to a more complex relationship between continental and oceanic crust than is suggested by the theory as it is commonly understood. I’ll give you one guess what that more complex relationship might suggest.
The start of the first DinoConUK for a whole weekend of dinosaur themed events.
I hope everyone has had a Merry Xmas and I wish you all a Happy New Year.
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Page last updated 21 Dec 2025
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