Rock Rescue

A simple, purposeful website for a one-of-a-kind conservation project

Rock Rescue is the work of Simon Carpenter, a Frome-based geologist with a life-long fossil-hunting habit — and a rare distinction: two extinct marine reptile species, including the giant Jurassic pliosaur Pliosaurus carpenteri, are named in his honour after finds he made in Dorset. He's spent decades building one of the most scientifically important private fossil collections in the country, working closely with Bristol City Museum, the University of Bristol's Earth Sciences department and the Somerset Earth Science Centre.

That experience is exactly why Rock Rescue exists. Simon has seen too many other collectors' life's work get broken up, discarded or lost to science when nobody's left to look after it. Rock Rescue rescues and repurposes unwanted geological collections — rocks, minerals and fossils — from families, schools, colleges, universities and museums across the South West, and rehomes them with museums and educational collections where they can keep doing what they were collected for.

He needed a website that explained the mission clearly and made it genuinely easy for someone holding an unwanted collection to get in touch. We built it on WordPress using Divi 5 — simple, fast and low-maintenance, in keeping with a project that's entirely free to use and run on goodwill rather than a budget.

The site includes:

A clear explanation of Rock Rescue's mission and who it's for
What makes a collection valuable — curated, labelled specimens with documentation on where and when they were found, plus biographical detail on the original collector
A dedicated donation enquiry form so potential donors can apply to have a collection assessed, at no cost

As with all our websites, Simon was given full training and admin access so he can update and maintain the site himself as the project grows.

It's a WordPress website built with Divi 5.