42 replies to this topic

[N.AL.hunter]

OK, what is the most extreme thing you have done to collect fossils? My fossil madness has caused me to: 1. Hold my breath diving into the Chipola River, FL, wearing a solid plastic sweat suit taped at the ankles and waist and cuffs for a period of three hours. I was able to stay under for up to two minutes at a time in those days (ex life guard/swimming team person...) and 2. Use my climbing gear to hang off cliff faces looking for the original layers that fossils were coming out of, 50 - 80 ft. up, and 3. Sleep in the back of my Chevy S-10 pickup truck for six weeks while collecting in the remote areas of several Western states (occasionally in a motel to clean up).

[PrehistoricFlorida]

I dive in underwater caves and prehistoric rock shelters in 40'+ of water with under 2' of visibility.

[TheFossilHunter]

Great topic.

One of the crazy things I did was standing on the cliff face about 45% slope at the height of about 25 feet resting my foot on the ladder end which was extended to capacity, but it turned out that the ladder lock wasn't engaged. I was holding a 30 pound gas powered 14 inch blade concrete saw and cutting something out of the cliff for about 30 minutes. I am still suprised I came out of that one piece.

Another thing was climbing an about 75 degree slope to the height of about 100 feet because for an unknown reason i thought there was a strip mine across the rigde. When i found myself at the height of 100 ft I realized I was suddenly scared shitless and I have no idea how to go back down. I slid little by little on my butt to the bottom of the cliff. going up took me about 10 minutes. going down - 30-40 minutes.

Sometimes when I am so excited to explore a new area that i just run on rocks in a quarry - jumping from one to another at a pretty decent speed. I've gotten quite good at it, but sometimes looking back i realize that one wrong step would have cost me my life or cause a serious injury.

Last summer I walked about quater mile on a river over a very thin ice having no idea how strong it is. Nothing happened though.

Another example is driving off road into a rocky area on a ford explorer for 3 miles. I was literally driving on rocks as big as about a foot in diameter. they were beating and scratching on the bottom of the car but i was unstoppable.

But what I did still doesn't look half as dangerous to me as what the I read that the other guys here do when they dive.. it just seems much more scary to me to be under water...

Oh gosh, all these crazy things we do for fossils...

[Gatorman]

Hahahha awesome!

[worthy 55]

I just hate to hear about people diving alone and how sad it is when they drown in some hole because they can't find their way out. These people are in the same class with the guy that swims in chum!!!! Anyone that dives alone is just Stupid in my book! :Bonk: :Bonk: I lost a freind awhile back doing that in the Keys.

[PaleoRon]

When you are diving in water with two feet of visability, even with expensive lights, and your dive buddy is four feet away from you, you are just as alone as you would be with no one there. The only thing your dive partner is good for in that kind of water, if you get into trouble, is to bring back a crew to recover your body. Most of the places I have ever dove for fossils are not your idyllic 100 feet of visability with lots of pretty fish swimming around types of places. Most of the rivers I have been in are tannin stained and have a strong current. If the places where fossils are found were like swimming pools there would soon be no more fossils in them. I would rather spend a day diving in a dark river than spend a day crossing streets in Washington, D.C. If you have common sense, and know your limits, diving is safer than driving on a major highway.

I have often rappeled off of cliffs in search of fossils. It's a skill I learned while in a rock climbing club and from rappeling out of helicopters in the military. I usually only do it after spotting something interesting from ground level.

One of the worst places I ever dove was a small river with trees all over the bottom. I don't know if the trees were in there because of people or beavers, but there were so many limbs that it was hard to find bottom. It didn't take me long to decide to look elsewhere. I ran into a Cottonmouth several years ago 28 feet down. I was about two feet from it when I was able to make it out in the dark water. I started throwing fossil bone at it, which in a stiff current works as well as throwing feathers at something above water. I decided to leave it alone and come back another time. Later that day I went back and the snake was nowhere to be seen above or below water. I found the spot where it had been sitting and when I went past that spot I found some decent fossils including three big megs between 5 15/16" and 6 1/4". The Dragon guarding the treasure hoard, sort of.

[bowkill]

No gators, cottonmouths, or cliffs where I hunt in Ks, but we do have some land owners that are kind of scary.

[worthy 55]

bowkill, on Mar 4 2008, 08:05 PM, said:

No gators, cottonmouths, or cliffs where I hunt in Ks, but we do have some land owners that are kind of scary.

I bet !!! We have some like that here too!LOL :ahah3:

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[N.AL.hunter]

PaleoRon, Former 101st Airborne/Air assault person here. Those copters were nothing compared with diving in murky waters.

[PaleoRon]

N.AL.hunter, on Mar 4 2008, 07:20 PM, said:

PaleoRon, Former 101st Airborne/Air assault person here. Those copters were nothing compared with diving in murky waters.

No kidding. Some of the dives I do I only have 6 to 8 inches of visability in a ripping current. But the big teeth make it worth the effort.

[PaleoRon]

solius symbiosus, on Mar 4 2008, 09:10 PM, said:

My dad was 187th. He fought in Korea. What regiment were you.

Most of my time was spent in the 9th ID and 3rd ID (Presidential Honor Guard).

[PrehistoricFlorida]

Be glad you have any viz ron, in some of the rivers we dive in for megs, there's zero viz.

[Boesse]

Alright, some extreme collecting stories...

This summer I collected and jacketed a small baleen whale skull. The jacket ended up weighing about 250-300lbs, which granted, isn't that large, but I'm not a huge guy, and neither was the guy who helped me out that day. Anyway, the tide was moving in, and we had to get it up and off the beach via some slippery rock steps. Lets just say the jacket spent about 20 minutes in Davy Jones' Locker before we mustered to courage to go rescue it, and heave the jacket up over some very narrow algae covered rock steps, all while being pummeled by waves. Then we had to get it across a narrow rock ledge 15' above the waves, and the ledge was about 1.5' wide or so (the jacket was 3' wide). Then we had to heave it up over several shoulder height surfer's wooden stairs, which was just about the physically most challenging thing I've ever done. All in all it took 4 hours to move the jacket about 300 feet.

Ah lets see... three summers ago while doing fieldwork a friend of mine found some float on a rock ledge 25' above the beach (see photo). So we climbed up, and one of the pieces of float was a very nice walrus radius. The ledge we used to get there was only 6" wide, and started to crumble (just like in the movies, where the piece of rock below your foot falls to the ground, with a satisfying thud).

In the same field area two summers ago I collected a porpoise cranium from the ceiling of a sea cave. Basically I had to trench upside down. The trick was that high tide was in the middle of the day, and it was located in a protected cove only accessible during lower tides. So I basically trapped myself in there for about 5 hours during high tide, which was fun. Another time leaving this site, I couldn't go around this rocky point adjacent to the cove, so I had to climb down through a natural arch. Unfortunately there were no handholds (and I was running out of time as the tide was coming in), and the interior of the arch was covered in algae, so the weight of my backpack would have made me slip (a 20' drop, easily). So I rigged a rope and lowered my gear down before me, and went down that way (I had to do that several times).

Ah, just a couple of stories.

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[tomclark]

I was walking a large shellpit, just below the rim, when the entire side "flowed" downhill, taking me with it. Landslide of pectens, sand and mud. I was stuck up to my knees and would have prolly stayed there a while except Nic helped pull me out. I layed flat out so I wouldn't be buried as it gave away.
I've cut myself twice REAL bad while out artifact diggin. Once with a razor sharp shovel that almost took off my heel and another time due to digging in bare feet (white trash, LOL), when I got up from the hole my weight was on the arch of my foot that sliced open on a chip of coral. Deep.
Got a few baaaaaad sunburns on my back due to snorkeling all day. I never wear sunscreen, don't wear sunglasses, either. I can't see squat with sunglasses on!
Knees take a beating if not covered while working rubble piles.

[Pool Man]

Only 2 close calls so far, I Was poking around with my hands in a sand wall that was made by a tree falling down and resutling bank colapse along a river.I hit something hard and started scraping a little hole in the sand when about 4ft of the sand slid down on me. I had to wiggle backwards out from under the pile of sand. I've never had that much sand in all my orifices.... Other time was getting bumped by a large shark off of Venice beach. The shark was probably 6ft or so, but in my mind I saw a Megalodon. That was the end of that trip.

[Gatorman]

Hahaha he was testing you to see if he could eat you as long as you fight back or act aggressive back they usually won't attack, unless it a bull shark the being aggressive is bad and just sitting there is bad best to leave quickly

[N.AL.hunter]

"I've never had that much sand in all my orifices"

Wow, naked fossil hunting. Now that is extreme!!