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Showing results for tags 'eem formation'.
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Hi all, This weekend, after the long, boring and annoying winter months (it's always mildly cold, but very windy and rainy in the Netherlands in winter... horrible fossil hunting conditions) spring finally let out the tip of its nose, with a nice sun, blue sky and decent temperature. About time! We all know what this means... time to do some fossil-hunting! So on Sunday morning I woke up, prepared my fossil hunting equipment (mainly bags and boxes; no tools needed for this beach), made myself a lunch, and set out at 13:00 to the bus. The bus ride to Kijkduin takes me about an hour, so I arrived at the beach at 14:06. But, as usual, because it's by bus I'm not dropped off at the ideal spot, so I have to walk about an hour on the beach, due south-west, to actually get to the Zandmotor. But that wasn't much of a problem... this part of the beach already has a few fossils to yield, although not as many, so you can start the fossil hunting right away. Didn't find anything significant though in that first stretch. You're literally walking on lots of Eemian fossil shells, but these species are all very common. Spisula solida, Cerastoderma edule, C. glaucum, and Macoma balthica are just not worth picking up, unless it's a specimen that stands out to me (unusual size, pathologies, weird colors, etc). Here's a map to better illustrate the places I will mention. Note that it's approximate. Also, the sand cliffs and the shell banks often move around, we are after all on a beach with lots of wind and water movement, so these positions aren't defined. But this is what was the case this weekend. And the pink Zandmotor "limit" isn't accurate either, it's more my view as in "this is good fossil-hunting territory". By the way, that red S is where the bus drops me off. Oh, and that big puddle in the middle of the beach is actually a very popular kite-surf spot, especially for amateurs because there are no waves. This time I started off the hunt at the "sand cliffs" as I like to call them, (2m tall at the highest point, so not real cliffs), then went on to an area more to the south of the Zandmotor (at the bottom of the dark blue line on the map). It was my first time properly hunting that little area, and it turns out it's actually a good spot, I found lots of good bivalve fossils there! After an hour or two I sat down to eat my lunch (yes, a very late lunch, but time flies by when you're fossil hunting! I'm actually still surprised I remembered to eat my lunch at all, I usually get so caught up in the hunt that I often just completely forget to eat my lunch at all ), then went onto the richest part of the Zandmotor when it comes to shells, the..... (drumroll please)............. shell banks! I know, very unexpected! The real Eemian shell banks are usually lying on the north-center of the Zandmotor, between the cliffs and the shoreline. That is when I made my two favorite finds of the day: a gorgeous Propebela turricula, and a bit later, Gari fervensis! After a total of about 5 hours hunting, I decided it was time to get back home, so I called it a day. But man was it a good day! I found an incredible diversity of fossil shells, especially bivalves. Onto some pictures, starting with some location pics.
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An egg cockle found on the Zandmotor.
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- bivalve
- pleistocene
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This is a nice rough cockle from the Zandmotor. Quite a common species.
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- netherlands
- heart cockle
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This very nice and rare sunset shell was found in an extension of the Rotterdam airport, known as the Maasvlakte 2. One of the favorite bivalves of my collection Another name of this species is Psammobia fervensis, but this name is no longer accepted.
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- gari
- gari fervensis
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A surf clam from the Zandmotor. These are incredibly common and pretty much litter the beach. Edit: I used to think that these were Mactra plistoneerlandica, aka Mactra stultorum plistoneerlandica, but didn't realize my mistake till recently.
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- eem formation
- clam
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An Anomia ephippium, found in a sandbank in the city of The Hague. This is technically an ex-situ find, because the city itself isn't really a location for finding fossils. The real location would be the Zandmotor or the North Sea; the bivalve here was brought with sands imported from the North Sea. This species is recognizable from the three muscle scars, the pearly shine and the weird little white thing in the hinge area (3rd picture).