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Hi, In September i went for a week in the departments of Lot, Corrèze and Dordogne to visit places and sites i never saw. But firstly i must speak about the visit i made upon the excavation site of Angeac-Charente i visited in July. In this quarry, hundreds of skeletons of dinosaurs, plus other reptiles, animals and plants have been excavated, amont which two femurs of more than two meters high. The facsimile of one was visible. Here is a big Chunck of fossilized tree. Some bones As you can imagine, a Lot of children were there.

2 weeks ago, returning from a sale exhibition of minerals and fossils in the Dordogne, we (my wife and I) visited a site in search of fossils rarely sought after by amateurs... The rock that motivated us is a millstone that has been exploited, formed from a lacustrine sediment from the Rupelian (Oligocene), and cuttings from exploitation are still accessible in a wood. The first photo shows a (broken) millstone found in the area; For the search for fossils, you have to be motivated, equipped with a good magnifying glass because the average size of fossils is between 0.5 and 1 mm in diameter! ..And perseverance because few pieces of rock have fossils, and this rock is extremely difficult to break, producing sharp shards in an unpredictable direction. Have you guessed which fossils these are? these are Gyrogonites, oogonia of Characeae, which can be found preserved in 3D with their spiral ornamentation, or in section, and occasionally accompanied by very small gastropods... here are the pics, enjoy

having been unable to go out a full day to search for fossils for several months due to health problems, thanks to a recent improvement I went yesterday about 100 km from my home to see a site where rudists were found. The first fossil encountered was a huge colony of cone-shaped bryozoans which had fallen and overturned in a depression. (can be 150kg?). I forgot to take my centimeter scale, so in the photos there is my foot, my hand or my fingers .... Then, I found a rock rich in small Exogyra and rare Rhynchonella. Finally, the rudists were there, in a wall (only for the photo, impossible to extract without damage, hope they will remain visible for the next visitors) and some specimen more fragile or altered in scree. I will post photos of the collected samples later because they are very muddy and require a good bath ...(Sorry, Franz, you have to wait some days ) For me it was a great day in the sun, just before the rain returned today!

Hi All I've always had a great fascination for fossils and rarely go for a walk without bringing weird stones or fossils back in my pocket. Yesterday I found a wonderfully symmetrical rock or fossil with a small sticking-out nodule. It's almost exactly one inch across and weighs 38 grams. I would love to know what this is. We have even wondered if it was actually a musket ball, but having checked it with a magnet it appears it's not metal. That seemed to leave fossils or geology, so I thought I would ask here. For some reason for me it's a most fascinating item. Many thanks