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Fossil hunting weekend to Falaises des Vaches Noires (Jurassic of France) + museum visit
ziggycardon posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hi everyone! Last week we went on a weekend trip with our fossil club the BVP to go on a fossil hunt to the jurassic clay cliffs "Falaises de Vaches Noires" between Houlgate & Villers-Sur-Mer in Normandy, France. https://www.paleontica.org/locations/fossil/68 The famous cliffs of Vaches Noires date back to the Jurassic period, and span both the Callovian & Oxfordian stages (166 - 157 mya) and the Cretaceous period spanning the Cenomanian (100 - 94 mya). Back in the jurassic this area was a rich marine environment and fossils that can be found here are many species of bivalves (like Gryphaea, Lopha & Myophorella), ammonites, gastropods, belemnites, brachiopods, crinoïds, sponges and other invertebrates. The cliffs are also known for marine reptile material and even dinosaur material, though these finds are rather rare but you'll see some nice pieces in the museum pics later. We arrived Thursday afternoon (november 3th) and stayed to Sunday (november 6th). We were very happy to join this trip organized by our club since it is probably the last year that fossil searching is allowed in this amazing location. We were with around 27 people I believe and met each morning at the entrance of the beach at Houlgate. We searched the cliffs for 2 days and went to the local museum "paleospace" on sunday. The weather was amazing for the 2 days of searching, it was even sunny the first day! The first few hours we mainly searched among the rocks on the beach which were littered with large Gryphaea fossils and other bivalves like Lopha gregarea. After our lunch break we moved on to search more near the clay to find smaller fossils. On our second day we again searched the clay, went through some interesting places in the sand which were littered with oysters, gastropods and had some ammonite and crinoïd fossils and we ended the day at the cenomanian rocks in search for some fossil urchins. The Cenomanian rocks on the beach A piece a chalcedony A partial ammonite Me very happy with my first complete ammonite, which I found next to me while having lunch One of the mystery fossils which nobody could really determine (we brought it home along another we found) The tubes seem to be pyritised. I believe it to be some kind of Echinoderm and someone suggested it might be a Crinoïd with a parasite on it. But eventually our top finding (and the best of the entire trip) was spotted by my girlfriend Elise and is this gorgeous fish (probably Lepidotes sp.)- 30 replies
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I didn't get out hunting much last year, still working on figuring out how to research and find spots, but a friend of mine invited me out to do some collecting at one of his spots up in Washington State. I took some family with me and we went out over the Winter break in mid December. Pretty cold but beautiful! We're mainly looking for concretions weathered out of the formation, but occasionally you find Callianopsis claws loose in the formation, usually very brittle and in poor condition. Lots of mollusks to be found as well as crustacean material Our most common find were these Macoma We also found some Turritella and Acila The find of the day came pretty early on, Robert found this nice leaf, apparently pretty uncommon at the site Our spoils after the first hour of hunting A giant Callianopsis claw I found, sadly the rest of the concretion has weathered away leaving only an imprint with some shell And on the other end of the spectrum a tiny one found eroded out We didnt find any Pulalius, Aturia, or vertebrate material but we had a blast and found some pretty nice crustacean pieces Here's what's almost certainly a crab carapace, have to prep it to ID And a piece that looks to have both claws from Callianopsis and maybe some other pieces from it Both of these will have to wait until my micro scribe arrives for further prep, they're both very fragile with poor separation. While we were up there we stopped at Olympic National Park
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Afternoon everybody. I found this in Feb 2020, after Storm Dennis, on my same south Suffolk beach. I've looked at many vertebrae images online and in books, and none seem quite right. It looks closest to a seal...? But that doesn't seem right. Thanks for any guidance!
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I'm becoming a habitual "is this wood" poster... I found this one yesterday on the shores of Lake Washington near an outcrop of the Blakeley formation, and just polished one face using sandpaper. Specimen measures 1.5 inches in the longest dimension and the polished face measures 1 inch x 1 inch. SG is 2.48 by suspension method, +/- 0.01g accuracy. The lighter spot on the polished face is where I got lazy before removing the entire weathered surface.
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Are there any Seattle-area folks on here who have tried hunting for beach fossils around Alki Point? You can see the outcrop pretty well on satellite images and it's on the geological maps. This Blakeley formation is pretty crumbly, though, so I'm not sure whether any meaningful fossils would survive being washed out in the surf. Guess there's only one way to find out! Since we're coming up on the new moon, the low tides are nicely timed for a long lunch break, so I'll plan to check this out some time in the next few days and report back.
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Found this on the beach the other day along Puget Sound north of Seattle, and I just polished one face a bit (first photo) with some sandpaper to see the un-weathered stone. Is this siltstone, petrified wood, something else? Has anyone seen one with iron like this? Edit: I sanded it some more and took another photo. Pretty sure this is wood, based on the grain, but I'm no expert!
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I found this on a rocky beach in West Seattle. Looks to be pretty transparent with a bit of banding. I assume it's just geological, but based on the size and shape I guess it could maybe be a bivalve fossil? SG is 2.61
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I wanted to thank everyone on this forum for making the month of January an extraordinary month in my life. We take annual trips to Myrtle Beach and I have always loved to look for the little sharks teeth in the sand. After 10 years of this, I have a nice little bottle filled with sharks teeth, none bigger than the size of a quarter. But this trip I decided to have a closer look at the ground. Without experience, I had no idea what I was looking at. So I just picked up things that looked unusual and brought them back in my room and started posting pictures on here. I had no idea of the diversity of prehistoric life that I have been stepping over this past decade. I couldn’t get enough. I started going out at night with a flashlight and learned to time the tides to see what the sea brought in. I found over 1000 sharks teeth. But I am truly much more excited about the other little bits that you helped me identify, pieces of dolphin, whale, horse, giant beaver, searobins, pufferfish and stingrays. Because I was so intent searching the ground, I even came away with an Indian spear tip and a military bullet in concretion! After 31 days, I’ve brought tubs of fossils back home. Lord knows what I’m going to do with them, but I do love to pull them out, look them over and read about the creatures they belonged to. I wanted to share with you photos of some of what I brought home.... A tiny fraction of the bone I found. Wish I knew what they belong to..... Lots of examples of the Exogyra oyster shells which for some reason absolutely fascinates me, and dozens of steinkerns I just couldn't pass up .... And a bag full of coral, seabiscuits and tube worm colonies I cant show because I reached my photo size limit I can’t wait until next January so I can do it all again. I think one of the nicest surprises was finding this special community. Thanks for letting me be part of it! — Paula
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From the album: OBX
It's amazing what washes up on the Outer Banks - modern sea shells, sea glass, bits of wrecked ships and fossils, too! These shells embedded in sandstone washed ashore on Hatteras Island, NC, from the Pleistocene sandstone shelf on which the island rests.-
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Agropecten gibbous hash plate Pleistocene Found washed ashore at Avon Pier, Hatteras Island, North Carolina-
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Echinoid (Sand dollar) Pleistocene Found washed ashore at Avon Pier, Hatteras Island, North Carolina-
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Tube worms Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Tube worms on the interior of a Mercenaria shell Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Mytilus edulis Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch-
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Family Venridae Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Family Venridae Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Agropecten gibbus Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Family Venridae Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Mercenaria sp. Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Agropecten gibbus Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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Agropecten gibbus Pleistocene Cape Hatteras, North Carolina 2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are metric-ly challenged.-
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2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are meric-ly challenged.-
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From the album: OBX
2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are meric-ly challenged.-
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From the album: OBX
2.5 cm = 1 inch for those who are meric-ly challenged.-
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