Quick Facts
Biography
Dr Steve Etches MBE is an English plumber, fossil collector, and preparator in Kimmeridge, on the Isle of Purbeck. He was born in 1949 and from an early age he began to find, collect and restore the fossils he found on the Jurassic Coast. His collection is now housed in a purpose-built museum called the The Etches Collection, which was purpose built both to house the collection, and to replace the deteriorating local village hall. The Etches Collection is unique in both its focus on the fossils of the Kimmeridge Clay, and in having the collector still actively pursuing new discoveries and carrying out preparatory work on-site. He has won prizes for his palaeontology and was made a Member of the British Empire by the Queen in 2014. On 24 July 2016, Steve Etches was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from the University of Southampton.
Significant finds
Steve Etches has been collecting for over 30 years, and in this time he has amassed an important collection of rare and unique fossils. His first find was a flint fossil sea urchin, which he found at age 5, and his collection now contains about 2,300 specimens, many of which are scientifically significant.
Ammonite eggs
Whilst cephalopod eggs had previously been described twice within scientific literature, the discovery of 8 clusters of eggs in association with perisphinctid ammonite by Steve Etches, Jane Clarke and John Callomon in 2008 provides the best preserved example of this rare glimpse into the life cycle of ammonites. The eggs show some phosphatic films suggesting that the eggs were already decaying at their time of burial.
Cuspicephalus
The skull of the pterosaur Cuspicephalus was collected from the Kimmeridge Clay by Steve Etches in December 2009, and named by Steve Etches & David M. Martill in 2013. Pterosaurs are considered rare within the Kimmeridge Clay, as the clays were deposited a considerable distance from land and so pterosaur finds within the clays are thought to represent crash landing, possibly as a result of poor weather. Such a landing into water would be likely be fatal to pterosaurs, as their thin, hollow bones would be prone to breaking on impact with the sea, as seen in other pterosaur specimens collected by Steve.
Other finds
Other finds by Steve include an exceptionally preserved dragonfly wing, the oldest recorded barnacle displaying colour and a new genus of barnacle that has since been found living off the Seas of Japan. A new holotype batoidea (Ray), Kimmerobatis etchesi has recently been named, a first from the Kimmeridge Clay. These specimens can all be seen in The Etches Collection museum.
Awards
- 1993 – The Palaeontological Association's Award to Amateur Palaeontologists
- 1994 – the R. H. Worth Prize of the Geological Society
- 2005 – the Mary Anning Award of the Palaeontological Association
- 2006 – Halstead medal of the Geologists' Association
- 2014 – Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)
- 2017 – Degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa – University of Southampton