Research Work
Sollas's research was over a wide area; during his lifetime he published over 180 papers and three books, and as well as his geological and zoological studies became an expert in anthropology. His first area of interest was the Cambridge Greensand, which he began working on when studying at the University of Cambridge. He published nine papers on the formation, mainly on the sponges, and for his work was awarded the Wollaston Medal in 1878. From 1878 until 1889 he dedicated his research work entirely to sponges and fossils, publishing a series of papers and reports on new species. In 1887 he wrote an article on phylum for the Encyclopædia Britannica. His work on sponges led him to investigate their physical structure, and from there the makeup of chalk.
At Bristol he worked in palaeontology, describing a new species of plesiosaurus, but also published papers on the geological makeup of Bristol and the Silesian fossils near the Welsh border. After moving to Dublin he worked on foraminifera and brachiopods, before switching to petrological work. His first major paper was on the granite of Leinster, where he conducted a detailed chemical analysis of the rock and invented the diffusion column to assist in this. In 1896 he travelled to the Pacific Ocean to investigate the formation of the Funafuti coral atoll, drawing inconclusive results. In 1905 he published the collection of essays The Age of the Earth, and in 1911 an anthropological work Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives.
In 1889 Sollas became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was awarded the Royal Medal in 1914. From 1908 to 1910 he served as president of the Geological Society of London, who awarded him the Bigsby Medal in 1893 and the Wollaston Medal in 1907.
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