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Hello, last Saturday (10/09/2021), I visited again some classic fossil sites at Waagraben, Hieflau, northern Styria, Austria with a friend. These sites are known since around 1850, are probably of Coniacian age and belong to the Gosau-group. First, some maps: Overview with location of Waaggraben in Styria, a geological map from Ampferer, 1935 (1 = rudists; 2 = Trochactaeon; 3 = Conglomerate quarry), topo-map, and DEM. These sites are very well known, so no problem to pinpoint them exactly on maps: On the way. We will meet this guy in the background near the car again: Conglomerate quarry: First, we visited the surroundings of a historic conglomerate quarry, first mentioned in 1509 and intermittently worked until 1974. It worked an interglazial, well cemented, mostly white conglomerate, used as high-quality building stone or mill stone, but sometimes also as decorative stone. This are the remnants of the old smithy, the quarry itself is heavily overgrown: View back with some houses of Hieflau, to the left some remnants of the smithy: Rudist site: Lots of rudists (mostly hippuritids, some radiolitids, few plagioptychides), mostly found at both sides (shoulders/berms) of the forest road. This time I focused also on specimens with large diameter (Vaccinites) and we found a few. (I have seen one from this site in a collection, but have not stumbled upon one during my last visits from 2014 to 2015. But when you know...). The rudist outcrop near the road is also still there and untouched. Found also a few Plagioptychus, but they were not my goal. Lots of rudists also in the steep forest below the road, coming all from periodical road cleaning/grading. Funnily, the furious forest ranger showed up (we knew already that such a crazy guy is around in that area). He shouted: "No digging, no digging!! I have your car number." "We are only looking at the road." "A fat lot I care about that (Nice translation of Styrian "Das ist mir wurscht!"), but no digging, no digging, I have your number." Turning around and escaping with high speed. Such a crazy guy . Overall view from southeast and northwest, respectively. A little bit to the upper right from the center of the second pic, you can see some old diggings. This is what the guy was crazy about: "No digging!!". But I can understand, look at the tall outcrop of rudist limestone above the road. Severe undercutting not recommended! At the red X is the "permanent" rudist outcrop at the forest road: Rudist outcrop at forest road, its composed of Hippurites species. There exits a master thesis from 2015 about this site and the surrounding, if anybody is interested: Waaggraben Rudist Limestone (in English, ca. 6 MB, pdf, hosted at Uni Graz): Rudist fragments (mostly Hippurites) below this outcrop, as found: Some crushed pseudocolonies of Hippurites, as found, pseudocolony in second pic is 16 cm high: Trochactaeon site 1: In the year 2014, I found several Trochactaeon in the shoulder/berm of the forest a little bit downhill of the rudist site. Yesterday, dozens of snails showed up, all at the surface of the shoulder. (The driveway itself has foreign gravel spread over it). At one spot, they seem to crop out in the shoulder (red x). I took a total of 6 specimens, how many snails can you spot in the second pic? The host rock of the snails is a sandy marl with lots of white spots, made of an unknown fossil (at least unknown to me). You can see some to the left of the red object in the second pic: Trochactaeon site 2: This is the classic (known since about 1850) Trochactaeon site at Waaggraben. Its situated near the creek and it has changed considerably since my last visit in 2016, because the area above the digs was clearcut some years ago. Due to better lighting, the steep hillslope is now quite heavily overgrown with grass and such things, you have to know where the digs have been located. Anyways, just a few meters downstream, a new dig hole has been opened up by someone, and was last visited only a few weeks ago. Lots of Trochactaeon left behind (everything is veeery muddy, not easy to spot), but we took nothing, we had enough. New dig hole (red x) and debris below, veeery dirty, very dangerous (overhang!), no fun to work in that hole: Old dig holes, barely visible: Pic from 2014 showing about the same area with well visible dig holes: View from above with one quite recently activated old dig hole (red x): Here are some polished specimens of Trochactaeon from Waaggraben of my finds from 2014, box is 40x30 cm: Polished specimen with typical "spotted" host rock (sandy marl) Hope, you enjoyed a little bit . Thanks for looking! Franz Bernhard

Hello, several weeks ago, I presented a rudist recovery "operation" from the Afling-formation of the Gosau-group of Kainach (Upper Cretaceous): Well, the same day I have discovered the rudist zone featured above, I have also discovered a rudist zone about 100-200 m stratigraphically deeper. It is confined to an about 1 m thick, very dark limestone bed rich in various rudist and echinoid remains. The limestone belongs to the Geistthal-formation, considering the limestone is still located within the sequence with some red clastic rocks, suggesting strong terrestrial influence in some layers. The limestone can be traced for at least 500 m along strike; at the footwall, it develops gradually from a conglomerate, in the hangingwall it is sharply overlain by fine-grained sandstone to siltstone. Here is a schematic map of the area, including also the Trochactaeon-bearing zone. In this post, I am dealing here with the "Liegende Rudisten-Zone". 59 = Geistthal-formation; 54 = Afling-formation, squares are 2x2 km. The fossils stick firmly to the limestone. But there are some impure zones (sandy-silty) within the limestone, where, with the help of some weathering, some fossils largely free of matrix can be found. Two zones of this kind are known at the moment, a natural outcrop in the forest and an outcrop at a forest road, which will be presented here. Approaching the outcrop (well, that pic was taken after the dig...): The outcrop was completely overgrown at the beginning, and this was the third day of working at this outcrop. You can see the worked area and the area prepared for today. The red x are markers placed above wooden marker sticks and about 1 m apart from each other. The soft zone between the hard limestone beds is visible. Sorry for the rather poor pics, my scrappy camera had a hard time dealing with that kind of lighting (clear sky and full shadow). Detail of the area to be worked today, still with vegetation: Vegetation cleared, first rudist found, a fragmentary Vaccinites, below the left red x. The pen is 13.7 cm long. Work in progress, "two" Vaccinites discovered. Only after some time I recognized, that this is a bouquet: Work practically finished, another Vaccinites discovered (4963). Turned out to be one of the nicest so far: Beside these Vaccinites, a few Plagioptychus aguilloni were also found in that area. But what to do with the rudist bouquet? Leaving in the outcrop or recover? I decided to recover, because it was already a little bit loose and already broken in several parts. And a one of a kind find until now. Here is the recovery, P.a. denotes a Plagioptychus aguilloni, numbers indicate individual Vaccinites specimens: The recovery ended in 8 fragments. I numbered them to help reassembling them together. This bouquet appears to be in live position, but this can also be by pure chance. Maybe closer examination with give some hints. That´s the outcrops after the work of this day, with the position of the specimens featured above indicated and before their recovery: If you are interested in the other days at this outcrop, have a look at this: 05/22/2021 (link to my homepage, in German, pdf, ca. 2.9 MB) 05/30/2021 (link to my homepage, in German, pdf, ca. 5.8 MB) From this few meters of outcrop, I have recovered ca. 10-15 Vaccinites, 5-10 Plagioptychus aguilloni and several radiolitid rudist until now. A great surprise was one large Trochactaeon snail intermixed with all the rudists (see link to 05/30/2021 above). I don´t take all fossils with me, about half of them I am leaving at the outcrop, so only approximate numbers. In the pavement of the forest road below the outcrop, I have also dug out about 15 Vaccinites specimens. Then there is the outcrop within the forest, which yielded also at least a dozen Vaccinites, still with a lot of potential. And all the other outcrops of the rudists limestone that I have not checked out in detail yet for loose rudists. Also still a lot of potential there and still a lot to do.... Hope, you enjoyed ! Franz Bernhard

Hi everyone! Would anyone be able to identify this pattern? To me it looks almost fleshy, and I cannot find any similar images online. Place found: Austrian Alpine region; riverbed Any clues would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks everyone! The bottle cap is a standard bottle cap:)

Hi to all, time to introduce myself since I've been lurking around for a couple of weeks in the forum. I'm Elias, 26, from Austria, and I am a part time fossil hunter in between mountaineering, climbing and collecting alpine minerals. I am looking forward to see many more pictures of your findings and maybe sometimes discuss some of my own finds. Enclosed some of my recent findings (not prepared yet) from the Hallstatt Limestone of Austria. Greetings, Elias

Hello! Having discovered some new rudist occurrences in the lower part of the upper Santonian - lower Campanian clastic-marine Afling-formation at Römaskogel hill near Kainach, western Styria, Austria, about 6 weeks ago. Here I would like to present a very specific visit to one of these sites at 05/15/2021. It was aimed to recover some more parts of already known rudists from the outcrop at site #30. Here we go! Approaching Römaskogel, the hill in the middle. Its 1006 m high, the snowy mountain in the background is the Gleinalpe mountain, nearly 2000 m high: Already near Römaskogel hill, again the hill in the middle. These meadows are much steeper than they appear in the pic: Location of the rudist outcrop along a forest road: Rudist outcrop, scale is 1x1 m. The rudist-bearing zone is about 80 cm thick and tips gently towards south to southeast. Individual conglomeratic rudist-bearing beds are separated by layers of siltstone. The whole extensions of the rudist-bearing zone seems to be at least about 300 m, with about 5 outcrops and indications known until now. This is the best outcrop discovered so far. Right part of the rudist outcrop. At the lower end of the scale, the next pic. The digging spot of this day is to the left of the pen: Rudists ("Vaccinites Rö1") in conglomerate in the outcrop, diameter is about 5 cm: The digging site as left at 05/06/2021 and found again a week later at 05/15/2021. I had already recovered two parts of #4901 and one part of #4910. The soft siltstone in the footwall of the rudist bed clearly facilitated the recovery of the remaining parts from the relatively hard conglomerate. The pen is 13.7 cm long: Intermediate stage of recovery. The rudists are orientated parallel to the bedding plane. They are flattened, the two big ones lying with the flat side on the bedding plane. The smaller one is orientated "on edge" to the bedding plane: Here is a primitive, highly schematic and out-of-scale sketch of the situation. #4901 and #4910 are also oriented antiparallel: Dig site after removing all the rudists. #4901 yielded two more fragment (total of 4), with the very last tip still remaining in the outcrop. #4910 yielded also two more fragments (total of 3, completely recovered). #4914 recovered in two fragments: Right part of the rudist outcrop after recovery of these three rudists. Notice the difference to the start of the recovery : Here is the complete specimen #4910. It consists of 4 fragments, that were already naturally broken. Uppermost part was found 05/01/2021, next part was found 05/08/2021, lower most parts are from 05/15/2021. The rudist is strongly flattened (about 1:2), as most of the specimens from this bed, and about 21 cm long. I don´t know the species yet, working name is "Vaccinites Rö2". (Remember, nothing was known in that area until about 6 weeks ago.) The shell has a flame-like structure, which can be nicely seen in the naturally weathered transverse section. These structure corresponds to the fine longitudinal striation of the shell. Otherwise, the rudist is smooth without any ribs. In the cross section, the P-pillars are barely visible to the right, the L-pillar is not visible: Not much time was put into this recovery, most of the day was spent prospecting an area nearby. "Discovered" a freshly widened forest road (actually as wide as a good highway!) which perfectly exposes the mostly alluvial and reddish Geistthal-formation and the following clastic-marine Afling-formation for some 100 m thickness. Not much was found, but its a very, very impressive section. Here is my prospecting area (Römaskogel is in the lower left corner) and route (in blue) of that day. Red R indicate the last (highest) reddish beds: Still a lot to walk and observe during my next trip, especially to the east of the already explored area.... You never know what you will find. For example, #45 and #46 are small Trochactaeon indications. But these will be followed up next spring, when the green has gone again. Or not at all . I only made one pic during prospecting, that of a thin (1-2 cm) seam of subbituminous coal withing silt-claystone, located between conglomerate beds (#47). Such occurrences are well-known in that area: So, that was quite a typical day in the field for me: Some collecting at known sites, but more prospecting for new sites! Thanks for looking and your interest! Franz Bernhard

I don´t know if I can find the time to prepare fossil hunting trip reports for TFF regularly. However, I will at least try to prepare them regularly for my personal website in pdf format. I would like to share them with you. They are in German, though: Fossil Hunting Trips 2021 (link to my personal website) Thanks! Franz Bernhard

Icy? Well, compared to some areas in the US or Moscow, it had only a few degrees below zero (Celsius) last Sunday. The nights had about -10°C, the days about -2°C. This period lastet from last Friday to Monday. No snow at all and very, very dry air. The last two days we had about 0°C during the night and +10°C maximum during the day. Still very dry. So without any snow and clear, but "cold" weather, I checked out a few Miocene sites around St. Josef in western Styria, Austria. I have made a detailed report about the area more then a year ago here: Rocks and fossils were mostly firmly frozen to the ground, and in some places more than 10 cm long fibrous ice was growing from the ground, pushing up leaves, soil and in some places fossils. Sites looked mostly the same as during my last visit, except Höllerkogel-10. Here at Höllerkogel-10, the farmer had removed a little bit of material from the bank of the forestry road. The sites contains mainly Granulolabium snails, but also a variety of other molluscs (see topic above). A little bit surprising last Sunday were an echinoid mold and a leaf impression, both ready to be picked (see pics, fossils as found frozen to the ground ). Echinoids are known from this site, but I have not seen myself such a "big" leaf in this formation until know. First I thought that this leaf is a recent leaf, sticking to the rock. But it isn´t, its a fossil. The echinoids occur as molds in the upper part of the outcrop; the lower part contains quite well preserved shell fossils (gastropods and bivalves). Nearly everything was frozen to the ground, of course, and large blocks of fossiliferous sediment were frozen hard like concrete. Maybe I will visit the site again in the near future to pick through some of the fresh debris. The large blocks have probably disintegrated then. That´s all, thanks for looking! Franz Bernhard

Saturday, 02/06/2021 St. Bartholomä-Formation (Campanian), Styria, Austria - mainly rudists of the hippuritid and radiolitid family. This was my first fossil trip since more then 3 months due to too much Covid first and too much snow lately. But now snow has melted, at least in St. Bartholomä. Note: Austria is still in so-called "hard lockdown", but you can drive around like crazy in our country, as long as you stay in your car overnight . I did not, I am doing only day trips, and St. Bartholomä is only a 30 km drive. - First I visited two low-productive sites, checked out small creeks again and a quarry, that is only barely accessible also in winter because of too much prickly blackberrys. At least I saw some good outcrops there, but not the right layer ("Knödelbrekzie") nor any rudists. - Switched over to the quarry at Point 25, my most productive site in this formation. Something has been coming down to the quarry floor during the winter, but no rudist etc. Examined my dig site higher up at the northern end of the quarry ("Point 25-North"), also some loose fresh material, but nothing. Started picking rocks from the undisturbed debris below the "Knödelbrekzie" outcrop and found indeed some ok rudists and a small coral colony. Still some potential here. I already know that there are fossils coming down also at the southern end of the fossiliferous "Knödelbrezie" in this quarry, but it is hard to reach from the quarry floor. However, it looked possible to reach it from above. And that was really the case. Some kind of bench has naturally formed at the edge of the quarry, exactly at the level of the fossiliferous "Knödelbrekzie". It had already disintegrated somewhat (which is good, even necessary!), forming a debris of cobbles intermixed with soil and earth. During unsystematic scuffing in the debris, I found indeed two quite good radiolitid rudists and a large limestone piece with two enclosed rudists, which I left behind. This is the site, called "Point 25-South", after scuffing, looking from the south end towards north. Funny thing, it came already with a handrail for safety . Its going down for about 5 meters to the right, steep, but not vertically. The fossiliferous layer ("Knödelbrekzie") and the debris is accessible for about 3-4 m horizontally at the moment. Maybe I will exploit this site systematically during this year, forming a horizontal, about 0.5 m wide and safe bench along the way to the north. Maybe not. I don´t know yet. I have quite a lot of rudists from St. Bartholomä and would like to do also other things . - Already quite late, I took a quick look at the overgrown heap of fieldstones at point 32. The electric fence running along the heap was turned off so I took the chance to remove some rocks under a root ball at the other side of the fence. From my perspective removing the rocks, I did not see "it", only as I moved a little bit, I saw it there, sitting deep under the root ball like an egg in its nest: Lower left is my first sighting, to the right after removing some earth and more rocks, just before picking. Its a good sized radiolitid rudist, about 7x7x7 cm, with coarse ribs. It was a very nice day out, good exercise (mainly stretching ), found a few fossils at a known spot, found a new, possibly productive spot and also a nice "Easter Egg". Links to some former trips to this formation: St. Bartholomä - 1 St Bartholomä - 2 (Point 32) Franz Bernhard

Hello community, I got a fossil that, I believe is a Amphibian but im not sure. It is from Tyrol in Austria. I sadly dont know anything more, so maybe someone can help me.

Babies buried under a mammoth-bone lid are the oldest known identical twins, Nature, November 11, 2020 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03184-6 Krems-Wachtberg–A Gravettian Settlement Site https://www.orea.oeaw.ac.at/en/research/quartaerarchaeologie/krems-wachtberg/ The Krems-Wachtberg Pavlovian site https://www.donsmaps.com/mammothsite.html Papers are: Teschler-Nicola, M., Fernandes, D., Händel, M., Einwögerer, T., Simon, U., Neugebauer-Maresch, C., Tangl, S., Heimel, P., Dobsak, T., Retzmann, A. and Prohaska, T., 2020. Ancient DNA reveals monozygotic newborn twins from the Upper Palaeolithic. Communications Biology, 3(1), pp.1-11. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01372-8 (open access) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273059083_The_Gravettian_Infant_Burials_from_Krems-Wachtberg_Austria Händel, M., Einwögerer, T. and Simon, U., 2008. Krems- Wachtberg–a gravettian settlement site in the Middle Danube region. Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen aus dem Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseum, 19, pp.91-108. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228503741_Krems-Wachtberg-A_Gravettian_Settlement_Site_in_the_Middle_Danube_Region Yours, Paul H.

Could not resist collecting some more Trochactaeon snails at Breitenbach-11 in Kainach, Styria, Austria last Saturday (10/10/2020). Especially the upper T-bed contains rather well preserved (for the formation, of course ) snails. But always the right amount of weathering is needed (not too much, leads to disintegration of snails; not to less, they will adhere firmly to the rock). Still some potential there. Worked only with a screwdriver, needed only a few very gentle hammer taps. No prepping, just a short brush with a soft tooth brush. For more info about the area, have a look at my previous post: Trochactaeon - Gosau of Kainach, Styria, Austria - Summary Franz Bernhard

Fossil snails of the genus Trochactaeon from Kainach near Voitsberg, Styria, Austria (Gosau-Group of Kainach, upper Cretaceous) - Summary of this years prospection Introduction Snails of the extinct genus Trochactaeon (formerly part of the genus Actaeonella) are among the most familiar fossils of the upper Cretaceous Gosau-Group of the Austrian Alps. The rather large size of some species (>10 cm), their intriguing spiral pattern in transverse sections and plenty supply, based on many mass occurrence, make them particularly popular. Some well known occurrences in Austria, distributed over several 100 km, are Brandenberg in Tyrol, “Schneckenwand”/Rußbach in Salzburg, Waaggraben near Hieflau in Styria and “Schneckengartl”/Dreistetten in Lower Austria; all of these are located within the Northern Calcareous Alps, mainly composed of Mesozoic rocks, especially Triassic platform carbonates. The most extensive occurrence of Gosau-Group sediments in Austria, the Kainach Gosau, however, is resting on sediments of the Palaeozoic of Graz. The Gosau-Group of Kainach consists mainly of coarse- to fine-grained clastic sediments (conglomerates to siltstones, Geistthal-formation, Afling-formation), some bituminous marls (St. Pankrazen-formation) and some hydraulic marls (St. Bartholomä-formation). The age of the whole group is considered to be mostly Campanian, but stretches into the Santonian and possibly into the Maastrichtian (Ebner & Rantitsch, 2000). In contrast to many other Gosau-Group occurrences, the Kainach Gosau is considered to be rather poor in fossils. Noticeable fossil occurrences are rudists of the St. Bartholomä-formation, some plant fossils and accumulations of small gastropods within the St. Pankrazen-formation and a few scattered ammonite concentrations within the Afling-formation. All of these fossils are already known since the 1850ies. This is also the case for the Trochactaeon snails. Transverse section of Trochactaeon giganteus from the Kainach Gosau. Generalized geological map of Styria with Trochactaeon occurrences in the northern part of the Kainach Gosau. Location of the Waaggraben site is also indicated. Brief history of Trochactaeon in the Kainach Gosau Trochactaeon snails were first mentioned in a footnote by Morlot (1850), thereby proofing the Cretaceous age of these sediments. Only two years later, their existence was already doubted (Peters, 1852). However, in 1871, Stur was able to prove the occurrence of Trochactaeon in the Kainach Gosau with museum specimens already submitted by Morlot (Locality “Am Sengsenwerk `in der Eben´, Kainach, Nord”). Indicative was the host rock of the snails, which is different to the host rocks of Trochactaeon snails within the Gosau sediments of the Northern Calcareous Alps. It took about 100 years, before several occurrences of this snail within actual outcrops were discovered by systematic investigations of a local teacher and collector in the 1960ies. But the in-situ occurrences where never described, only briefly mentioned in mapping reports and summaries of the regional geology (Gräf, 1975). The only exception is a large outcrop at the main road in Gallmannsegg north of Kainach, where some of these snails are very firmly embedded in a very hard, conglomeratic sandstone and can therefore be observed “permanently”. This site is featured in a recent excursion guide (Hubmann & Gross, 2015) and very interestingly, this is also the discovery locality of Morlot (1850), though highly modified during later road construction. Discovery site of Morlot (1850), highly modified during road construction (red X). Römaskogel Mt. (1006 m) to the upper right. Field work and results Already since several years on my wish list, it took two events in March 2020 which allowed me to prospect efficiently for this snails: First was a hint from Hans Eck (Voitsberg), who pointed out some occurrences to me, some very detailed hints, some quite general. Their distribution enabled me to restrict the prospecting area to a rather small stretch of land in the northwestern part of the Kainach Gosau, namely from Gschmurgraben/Anesbach to the east to Eckwirt to the west. The second incident was the C-thing, which allowed me to make for several day trips in this area, walking along forest roads and other paths some whole days long... Excerpts of the geological maps 1:50.000 Köflach (left) and Voits-berg (right) with the investigated area. All Trochactaeon occurrences are located within the red rectangle. Anesbach to the upper right, Eckwirt to the lower left, size of squares is 2x2 km. This prospection resulted in more than 10 “new” occurrences of Trochactaeon snails. They range from a few snails stuck within the driveways of forest roads to up to a 0.5 m thick bed tightly packed with snails. They are situated in the uppermost Geistthal-formation or the lowermost Afling formation; the literature gives ambiguous attribution of the snail-bearing zone. The especially good exposures along a forest road in the area of Breitenbach allowed the recognition of at least 6 Trochactaeon-bearing beds within a sediment thickness of about 20 m. About 100-200 higher in the sedimentary column, another Trochactaeon bed occurs. The host rock of the snails is a rather hard, dark grey to dark brown, mostly slightly conglomeratic sandstone, firmly enclosing the snails. Adjoining rocks of the snail beds are grey to greenish grey siltstones and sandstones, sometimes containing plant debris. Coarse-grained conglomerates are also abundant. Bedding planes dip generally with 20°-60° toward southeast to south. Rather surprising was the discovery of nearly black, up to 1 m thick limestone lenses with abundant fragments of radiolitid rudists near the snail beds in several spots. Continued...

Hello! I have collected quite many specimens with Trochactaeon snails from April to May 2020. They all come from the Upper Santonian to Lower Campanian upper Geistthal-formation or Lower Afling-formation of the Gosau of Kainach in western Styria. Some of the specimens contain abundant black, wavy, "folded", shell fragments. They seem to grow on the Trochactaeon snails in some places. They resemble small oysters in some ways. Unfortunately, I have not found anything conclusive about their identity. I found a pic in a paper of Kollmann (2014), with some somewhat similar, unidentified bivalves growing on an Upper Cretaceous snail (last pic). Other accompanying fossils are very rare fragments of phaceloid coral colonies (they to not grow on the snails, though). Any suggestions are highly welcomed! Thank you very much! Franz Bernhard First specimen is a double sided polished slab with abundant black shell fragments. Some of them seem to have grown on the Trochactaeon snails (epibiontic?). Here are some individual polished snails with bivalve fragments. Some of them seem to have grown on the snails (white polygons). The circular things in the middle left pic seem to be the same; there is a snail shell just a few mm below the polished surface at this spot (the specimen is very thin there). Rarely, also on weathered surfaces these bivalves(??) can be seen, growing on the snail shell. But I am not really sure, if this is the same thing as in the polished sections or if this is something else: This is the reference pic from Kollmann (2014), epibiontic bivalves on Nerinella grossouvrei. Thanks a lot!

Hello, I would like to ask for opinions about this 5 mm "tall" gastropod. Its from the Langhian - Miocene (15 Ma old) "Florianer Schichten" of the Styrian Basin in western Styria, Austria (St. Josef, site Fuggaberg-3). Other molluscs at this site are Granulolabium, Terebralia, Anadara, Acanthocardia, tellinid bivalves, oysters, naticids, buccinids etc. Many thanks for your help! Franz Bernhard

hi everyone, I found this fossil embedded on honeydew sized rock on a riverbed the the western alpine region of Austria, (Hinterhornbach). I am sorry for not having included a ruler as i was on a hike and did not want to take the rather large stone away from the area at the moment. I am curious to know if this is in fact a fossil of some sort, as I am by no means an expert when it comes to fossils. At the imprints widest point i would say is 10cm. The detailed texture which is printed resembles leather or elephant skin, as there are small wrinkles that run across the shape while the complete shape looks like that of a giant clam.Please let me know if you have more questions of if I left out some info! I am completely new to this forum, here with an abundance of curiosity. Thanks! *edit: it helps to look at the photo upsidedown, sorry for the orientation, I took the image with my phone and have limited equipment while staying in a remote location!

Can someone help me? i found this shark tooth in Austria (Europe) is it a Megalodon? or what is it? thx Didi

04/13/2020: End of my lock-down. Visited a locality with oncoids-oncolites in the Santonian - Lower Campanian Geistthal-formation (59) of the Gosau-basin of Kainach. Locality is near Kreuzwirt south of Geistthal and was told to my by a friend, so I will keep it secret. This is a specimen from block 1. Most of block 1 is still there, I removed only about 2 kg (2 specimens) of the about 40 kg heavy block. Only two more blocks of this material were found, despite really good outcrops just nearby (with alternations of conglomerates, sandstones and siltsones). There should be a better locality west of Geistthal, but have not found anything there during previous visits. Last but not least some typical landscape of the Gosau-basin of Kainach. Cherry trees etc. are blooming at the moment, but everything was soooo try. But we finally had some rain during last night! Franz Bernhard

Hello! Finally, I have some time to post this fossil hunting trip from a warm and sunny day in October, 2019. Introduction The Miocene Styrian basin in Austria is mostly filled with various clastic sediments, e.g. fossil-rich “Florianer Schichten” around St. Josef. The “Mittelsteirische Schwelle”, a north-south trending high-zone of palaeozoic, slightly metamorphic rocks, however, is, in a very literal sense, the base of various biogenic carbonate rocks (“Leithakalk”). The individual carbonate bodies are of slightly different age – spanning the whole Badenian (about three Million years) - and composition. The younger ones to the north around Wildon are characterized by coralline algae and often oncoidic limestones, corals are extremely rare there. To the south, corals became locally an important part of the limestones, besides the coralline algae. No really big coral reef structures have developed, though; coral carpets and small coral batch reefs are characteristic. Various maps from the internet and literature of the visited area. 1 = Kittenberg; 2 = Hötzlweg Depositional scheme of the Weißenegg-formation around the “Mittelsteirische Schwelle”. Within the green rectangle the area of interest. Relief map of the area north of Heimschuh. Note the many very small to medium-sized quarries. Some cliffs are also visible. These corals are witness of tropical to subtropical temperatures in this area about 15 Million years ago. Coral development is considered to depend on local factors like sediment input or (non-)exposure to severe wave action during storms. Coral diversity is relatively high, with at least a dozen of genera described or mentioned. About four years ago, I have prospected the area north of Heimschuh several times for corals. My goal was to find some good coral sites. Fossils in the wild are not super-abundant in this formation, but I succeeded to find a few good spots. Corals are by far the most abundant fossil group, bivalves etc. are much rarer. (Note: there is a very large, active quarry for portland cement fabrication in Retznei nearby, that is famous for all kind of marine stuff, incl. Meg teeth and other large vertebrates.) I will present two sites that I have visited again at 10/17/2019, but already also four years ago. One is at Kittenberg in the woods (1), the other one is a small outcrop along a minor road called “Hötzlweg” (2). Continued...

Waiting for Christkind and(!)/or(??) Santa Claus gives me some time putting together this question: The coral in question comes from the Styrian basin (Weißenegg-formation) and is Langhian/Miocene in age (ca. 15 Ma old). It comes from a very small road outcrop, mainly limestones, north of Heimschuh in the Sausal mountains, southern Styria, Austria. Beside massive, sturdy coral colonies like Montastrea, possibly Favites, etc., another colonial coral occurs in this outcrop, that disintegrates easily into individual sticks or pencils, aka corallites: Outcrop situation, field of view ca. 80 cm. It looks really something strange and unusual. These are individual corallites or they are in the stage of branching; the middle one is about 8 cm high. Sometimes you can retrieve parts of colonies. Remarkable is the large diameter of the corallites, up to 2 cm. With the help of some superglue, it was possible to make some polished slabs of these corals (the matrix is a rather soft marl). Note the highly varying diameter of the corallites and the budding. Especially interesting is the specimen to the lower left. Here, some big (about 2 cm diameter!) polygonal corallites are tightly growing together. But I think, its the same as the other ones. A possible genus that comes to my mind is Acanthastrea. This idea is based on the shear size of the corallites. This genus is know from an outcrop a few km away and also from a similar formation of similar age about 100 km away (Mühlendorf, Burgenland, Austria), the species mentioned/described there is A. horrida. But my idea, that these could be also Acanthastrea could be totally wrong, of course... Thanks for your help and Merry Christmas! Franz Bernhard

Hello, some local Campanian news again... . First: The rudists from St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria, made into a local journal (pdf, in German): DieRudistenvonStBartholomae_Mineralog_2019.pdf Second: After this nice find at point 25-North from 09/24/2019: Point 25-North - 09/24/2019 I could not resist collecting this site systematically. 18 hours of work in October and November 2019 resulted in more than 100 fossils, which is a very good yield. For details see: Point 25-North - Four weeks (External site, in German, only a few pics). This particular site is far from being exploited... Third: My last trip to this formation two days ago (12/18/2019) was very short and "designed" to bring back lesser specimens, duds, and some cutting rejects to three different sites. However, the trip resulted also in 4 fossils, two of them again from point 25-North: This is the 7th chaetetid-stromatoporoid sponge I have found in this formation, 6 of them came from this spot. I like these fossils more and more! And a rather nice (for this formation ) rudist matrix specimen: The two other fossils found this day were a small Hippurites colliciatus and a colonial coral from point 32; both specimens need to be cut and polished. Thanks for your interest and happy winter/christmas/new year fossil hunting! Franz Bernhard

Hello, I have summarized my hunting trips to St. Bartholomä from July 2019 to September 2019. Its in German and located at an external site: Rudists St. Bartholomä - July-Sept 2019 (external site) (pdf, ca. 4.2 MB) Fell free to delete this post if you find it inappropriate. Thanks! Franz Bernhard

Hello, at Tuesday, 10/01/2019, I made my first visit to the area around St. Josef, Western Styria, Austria ("Florianer Schichten", Langhian-Miocene) since about 11 months. I checked out 6 sites in 5 hours, three of them were made public by me 2-3 years ago: Fuggaberg-3-a Fuggaberg-3-b (This one was also published in a local journal 2 years ago.) Hoellerkogel-4 Bramberg-1 All sites had easy surface pickings of small fossils from debris. Outcropping sediment with fossils is exposed in 5 of them, in one you have to dig a little bit (Fuggaberg-3), but its still easy going. I guess I have collected and seen about 40 mollusc species within these 5 hours. So, the situation around St. Josef is still very good (if you like miocene molluscs and small fossils, though ). I am starting with: Fuggaberg-3 Two fossil-rich outcrops are located in a very small creek, about 15 m apart (W and E, 1st row, left). At E, only the fossil-poor overlying sediments are exposed at the moment (1st row, right, the red object is about 12x6 cm large), but digging in the debris below (2nd row, right) yielded some fossil-rich matrix specimens. You can see the yield of this 10-minute dig in the pic of the 3rd row, right. Of special interest are the two small fossils lying on oyster shells (coral and muricid). The debris 1-3 meters below the outcrop contains many loose fossils, eg. Granulolabium bicinctum (2nd row, left) or Terebralia bidendata (3rd row, left). Nearly the same situation at W, only overlying sediment is exposed (4th row, left). In the debris below, below the red object, many small fossils are lying around (4rd row, right). You can see Granulolabium bicinctum, Terebralia bidendata, Turritella partschi, Sphaeronassa shoenni, Acanthocardia paucicostata and a bi-valve Anadara diluvii; only the last one is not lying at its original position but was put there for photo purposes . Continued...

Hello, today I had another opportunity to fossil hunt in St. Bartholomä. I tidied mostly up my main dig and collecting site in the quarry at Point 25 east of Kalchberg. As expected, I did not find much, only some small so-so specimens (19 specimens in 3 hours, but the majority would be rejects). However, in the same small quarry, a few meters to the north of the main dig site, "Knödelbrekzie" is also exposed (upper part of lower right pic), with some steep scree below. I have found two good rudists in this scree two years ago. Today, I dug again with bare hands in the scree. First without any success. Sure, every piece was fossiliferous limestone, but even not a rudist fragment among them. But then, only a few minutes before I had to leave, it was there! Just pulled out of the dark hole to the left of the specimen: A slender, slightly bend Vaccinites vesiculosus. The apex is broken off (pillars are visible there) and it is also broken at the top end, but it is quite aesthetic and elegant, that´s at least my thinking . I like it very much! Ok, back to work : This is the main dig site at point 25 as of today, 09/24/2019. There are no longer many clasts of fossiliferous limestone in the scree, mostly sandstone and marl. The orange bucket in the upper left pic contains clasts of fossiliferous limestone, the black bucket waste material (marl and sandstone). Today I have removed 23 buckets (10 Liter) of waste and 3 buckets of fossiliferous limestone from the dig site. Scale bar is 1 m. In the lower left pic, piles of fossiliferous limestone are visible, the waste material is dumped to the left (not visible). In the lower left corner, cutting rejects are deposited. At the right edge of the lower right pic, fragments and partials of rudist are deposited. This was probably my last hunting trip to St. Bartholomä for some time. I would like to do more prospecting and light surface collecting during my next trips. I am not really the born digger, I like prospecting more, but sometimes, I just have to dig . Thanks for looking! Franz Bernhard

Hello, Another hunting trip for rudists to the Campanian of St. Bartholomä in western Styria, Austria (09/15/2019). I have hunted these heaps of stones, collected from the former nearby fields (now meadows) over centuries, several times before, but there seems to be always something to find. I found six "good" specimens in 2 hours - and that´s exactly my usual yield in this formation . First topo map, geological map, relief map and aerial photograph of "Point 32". No problem to make everything public, nobody is interested in this stuff (well, except me...). Views from my parking place and from the way to the heaps: Some impressions of the heaps. First row is the western, lowermost end of the east-west trending with a small dig. A small, but quite nice radiolitid from this hole is to the left of the pocket knife. A second radiolitid was also found there. Second row shows some parts of the upper, north-south trending heaps. Third row shows to the left a fragment of a Hippurites nabresinensis (nearly in-situ, a small part was exposed). To the right, a freshly exposed, but still nearly in-situ Vaccinites is visible to the right of the red object; a small part of this rudist was also already exposed. Its the area shown in the pic above. Well, no pocket knife, already lost...