Illustrations - Norwegian Very Large Telescope

Illustrations

A selection of illustrations by R.W. Williams are shown below. Much of the artwork is done in charcoal and ink alone or in combination with 3DStudio Max and Visual Nature Studio software.

Cyanobacteria form mounds along the shore during the Archean Eon, 3 billion years ago.

Early forms of multicelled life of the Ediacaran Period, 550 million years ago.

Rugose coral on a Silurian reef, 430 million years ago.

Silurian reef, 430 million years ago.

West of the present North Sea, the Caledonian Mountains 380 million year BP. Higher than the Himalayas, the mountains formed by the collision of the European plate with the North American. Northern Europe lay at the equator in the Devonian.

Detail of the previous illustration. Archeopteris and Eospermatopteris trees clad the edge of an alluvial plain that comprises the oldest sediments of the present-day North Sea Basin. These were the first tree-forming plants to evolve.

This reconstruction of a Middle Devonian forest shows Archeopteris with cone-shaped crowns, and Eospermatopteris with a palm-like mode of growth. These genera are progymnosperms, reproducing by spores, like ferns.

Gerastos, a Devonian trilobite from Morocco, 410 million years ago.

Gerastos, a Devonian trilobite from Morocco.The 3D model has articulated segments, legs, gills and antennae.

Gerastos, a Devonian trilobite from Morocco. The 3D model has articulated segments, legs, gills and antennae.

Gerastos, a Devonian trilobite from Morocco. The 3D model has articulated segments, legs, gills and antennae.

An asteroid impacts in Värmland, Sweden, 377 million years ago (Late Devonian). The impact crater formed the Siljan Ring.

Detail of previous illustration.

A Late Carboniferous (305 million years ago) swamp forest in Northern Europe. The flora consists of Sphenophyllum, Sigillaria, Lepidodendron and Calamites.

Detail of a Sigillaria with Lepidodendron in the background. The Sigillaria is drawn in charcoal and the Lepidodendron in pen and ink.

Flood basalt fissure volcanoes in Siberia during the Late Permian, 252 million years ago.

Middle Jurassic (Bajocian) delta between Norway and Scotland, 170 million years ago.

Cetiosaurus graze on ferns and cycads on the Brent delta between Norway and Scotland during the Bajocian, 170 million years ago. Cetiosaurus was 14 - 18 meter long, and apprx. 10 tonns

Cetiosaurus graze on ferns and cycads on the Brent delta between Norway and Scotland during the Bajocian, 170 million years ago.

Cetiosaurus graze on ferns and cycads on the Brent delta between Norway and Scotland during the Bajocian, 170 million years ago.

The pliosaur Liopleurodon feed upon the ammonite Perisphinctes in the Late Jurassic ocean in northern Europe.

Bacteria which breathe sulphates degrade phytoplankton remains. This forms bubbles of hydrogen sulphide and clumps of organic matter which is raw material for hydrocarbon formation.

Magnolia, an 100 million year old Early Cretaceous flowering plant.

Coccoliths, microscopic discs of calcium carbonate produced by coccolithophores, single-celled phytoplankton, during the Late Cretaceous.

Pteranodon fly over the shallow sea that covered most of Scandinavia during the Campanian age (75 million years ago) of the Late Cretaceous.

Pteranodon fly over the shallow sea that covered most of Scandinavia during the Campanian age (75 million years ago) of the Late Cretaceous.

Pteranodon fly over the shallow sea that covered most of Scandinavia during the Campanian age (75 million years ago) of the Late Cretaceous.

Miocene fauna of the Gray Fossil Site, Tennessee. Charcoal sketch of the jawbone (bottom left) and skull (bottom right) of a bear. An alligator skull is top left, with the thighbone of a rhinoceros at top right.

Miocene reconstruction of the sinkhole that formed the Gray Fossil Site in northeast Tennessee

Pleistocene landscape, forty thousand years ago.

Pleistocene landscape, forty thousand years ago.

Giant dragonfly of the Carboniferous

Procynosuchus, a therapsid from the Late Permian

SEM photomicrographs of microfossils from the Neogene of the Norwegian Sea