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  1. FranzBernhard

    AN4064

    From the album: Hippurites colliciatus Woodward, 1855 from St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria

    East of Kalchberg, point 25, collected 08/12/2018. Incomplete specimen, shell heavily bored by clionid sponges.
  2. I would like to share a typical "day off & out" during summer. During summer, I don´t do serious prospecting. Too hot, too green, too much distraction, like blueberries and mushrooms. So, last Sunday (07/03/2022), I mainly explored an area for "fruits" and visited two fossil sites discovered in October 2021. It was hiking-only, no driving between the various "stops". I found lots of blueberries (not fully ripe yet at 900 m asl), but it was much too dry for mushrooms. Nevertheless, I found a few places with a few Cantharellus cibarius: Some of them were even growing on extremely dry tractor paths. In the same general area, I have found two big Boletus edulis in May 31st by pure chance on a tractor path, which was very early in the year, hence my detailed prospecting for mushrooms in this area . Anyways, the goal were the sites 63 and 64, two about 10 years old forest road outcrops north of Reinprechtskogel (977 m asl) in the "Mixed Zone" of the lower Afling-formation in the Santonian-Campanian Gosau-group of Kainach of the Eastern Alps, squares are 2x2 km: Some landscape between the mushrooms and the fossils. That hill in the foreground a little bit right off the center in the first pic is Römaskogel hill (1006 m), the highest hill of the Kainach Gosau, with the rudist zones on its southwestern to northern slopes: Despite being quite densely* populated by dairy farmers, I find the area incredibly lovely and appealing**. Highest mountain in the very background to the right is about 2000 m high. Pics taken at about 900 m asl. *About 200 years ago, there was much less forest and much more (dairy) farm land in this area! **Ten years ago, I didn´t know the area yet and found it most boring geologically, judging from the literature... Site 63 exposes an about 1 m thick conglomerate bed with sparsely distributed Trochactaeon, rudists and some other molluscs, about 3 fossils per square meter are visible. The following pictured fossils were uncovered at 05/31/2022 and are somewhat clean now, scale is 1x1 m: Detail A, two weathered Trochactaeon: Detail B, a Vaccinites, a part of it still sticking in the outcrop: Here are some pics from October 2021, site 63 as found: I worked in slightly loosened parts of the exposure with a screwdriver and found some very "ugly" fossils. The following four pics all show the same specimen. The Trochactaeon is slightly flattened parallel to the bedding plane, the red object is about 11 cm high. Nearly in-situ, note the two already pictured snails at the upper right: Nearly in situ: Recovered and still in the field: Cleaned and at home: Other fossil found, upper valve of a Plagioptychus rudist: And a new one for the site, I don´t know what it is. I am fascinated by these ugly fossils in this coarse-grained conglomerate. Very probably a mix-up of various habitats, transported and deposited in a quite coarse-grained sediment. I would like to share also a polished section from this site again, specimens become a little bit better that way : I dug also a little bit at site 64, just a few tens of meters away from 63, and found again some rudists. Here, they are in a layer of sandstone, and no Trochactaeon have been observed yet. There are no outcrops between sites 63 and 64. The fossil beds could be in continuity, but it could also be a small fault in the small creek between the two sites. The fossil layer is at the red item: I took one specimen, its also not really a beauty . Freshly exposed and still in-situ: Cleaned at home: My recently bought pressure washer made cleaning of all these very dirty specimens easy. Not good, now I might take also big, very dirty specimens... Thanks for reading and looking! Franz Bernhard
  3. 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...
  4. 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
  5. Hello, sure I can not beat the lovely pics, scenery and fossils posted recently by @RuMert, but I also had a nice fossil encounter two days ago (10/02/2021). After prospecting for Pb-Zn-Ba with friends from Lower Austria in the area of Peggau, I decided to visit Römaskogel in Kainach again (just 20 km away), especially to take home a big rudist specimen still waiting there. Arriving there, I decided to check out the surroundings of two recently (some weeks ago) found Vaccinites (quite a distance away from the already known occurrences), on the way to that specimen. Just 50 m away from the car, still far above of the two earlier found specimens, I encountered the first rudist, freely lying on the forest floor. And the next near it, and the next and so on. In total, about 20 specimens were just lying around in the forest in an area of a few 100 m2. And I did not search hard, because most time I tried to find the exposure with these rudists. A step ledge was promising, showing some overgrown exposures of conglomerate. Well, at the northern edge of this ledge, I really found an "outcrop" with rudists, but it could also be a block. I don´t know yet. Anyways, further detailed prospecting is urgently needed ("The Never Ending Story" ). This is the first rudist site in the northern Kainach Gosau with scattered and freely visible rudists not related to forest road construction. The fossil site shown here belongs to the "Upper Rudist Zone" with conglomeratic host rock of the lower Afling-formation (upper Santonian - lower Campanian). All rudists found so far are Vaccinites sp. Map showing fossiliferous zones of the northern Kainach Gosau. The site presented here is the northeastern extension of the dark blue "Hangende Rudisten-Zone". First rudist encounter of that day, near the home of a badger. The pen has a total length of 13.7 cm, the red part is 3.9 cm long, and all rudists are photographed in-situ, unless mentioned otherwise: Just a meter or so away, the second rudist near a root (pen!): And the next one, a slender, nearly complete one, some shell is missing, though: And the next one nearby, not very obvious (below the red x), but its a short fragment of a Vaccinites: The next one near a big root. Not well visible on the larger pics, but this was a real surprise, see last pic... Ups, turned out to be a large, nearly complete Vaccinites, nearly 20 cm long. The opposite site is a little bit crushed, but that´s ok, nobody is perfect . And so on and so on... This is the supposed outcrop as found (below the red x), very tiny (as everything in Austria ), and a loose rudist specimen near the pen. You can imagine something like a ledge in that area, if you like : "Outcrop" a little bit cleaned: Loose specimen in detail, a fragment of a big Vaccinites: "Outcrop" in detail: "Outcrop" after excavation. Its a pseudocolony of several Vaccinites, already broken into 4 pieces. Haven´t explored the "scenery" behind that pieces yet. Maybe its part of a larger outcrop, probably not: And last, something geological. Here and there you can find quite big boulders mostly made of fossil-free limestone or dolostone in the northern Kainach Gosau. This is a dolostone boulder of at least one cubic meter in size. Its a giant clast within the conglomerates and probably of paleozoic age: Hope you enjoyed a litte bit, thanks for looking. I am still very surprised and somewhat excited by that find, the first area with naturally free lying rudists of the northern Kainach Gosau. You never know whats behind the next tree, even in such a supposed fossil-poor area like the Kainach Gosau. Prospecting is everything ! Franz Bernhard
  6. 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...
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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
  10. 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!
  11. FranzBernhard

    Oncoids - Oncolites

    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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. Hello, this time, I will start with the end result : I am quite satisfied with the result ! The pillars are nicely preserved and the rudist is filled with sparry, white to orange calcite and contains some voids coated with tiny calcite crystals. The greenish batches consist also of calcite and are also well polished, but are finer grained and contain additionally some small quartz grains. These fillings may be related to the second filling event during redeposition of the rudists in this formation. For more info about that, see here: Some Rudists from St. Bartholomä The right section contains also a blob of fossiliferous limestone. More about the locally heavily bored shell - see below . Before I got this nice result, there was a decision - to cut or not to cut : It is a conical specimen with some ribs preserved and a large, interesting, vertical groove. A large blob of limestone is sitting at the top end of the rudist, but one pillar was also already visible there. Mostly due to the ugly limestone blob, I decided to cut the specimen near the end of the visible shell. The top part (AN4240) does not contain much shell, the section about 6 mm lower (AN4239) does. The vertical groove is a simple inflection of the shell. No clue, what caused it, no remains of any other shell are visible. But it may have been some kind of an obstacle there. The specimen was found in a steep, wooded area east of Kalchberg, at the lower end of an old vertical ditch, possibly a prospect for water. Some pieces of fossiliferous limestone were lying around, somewhat exposed by heavy rains. I dug with bare hands in the soil, and nearly immediately recovered the specimen above from the "rat hole" to the right of the pocket knife (first row): (At the upper left corner of the upper left pic, a rudist is sticking between tree roots. This rudist was already featured here: Rudist hunting (3) in St. Bartholomä) Yesterday, I visited this spot again and pulled out several more pieces of limestone and sandstone from this "rat hole" (about 200 pieces), again only with bare hands (second row). No large Vaccinites was found this time, put a few smaller specimens (third row): upper left: small Vaccinites specimen; upper right: small pseudocolony of Hippurites colliciatus; lower left: Hippurites nabresinensis; lower right: fragment of Vaccinites vesiculosus. Ok, not much to see on this sucking pics, so I will stop now . Thanks for looking, maybe you have at least enjoyed the polished specimen . Happy hunting! Franz Bernhard
  16. First of all: The book about the Coniacian-Santonian corals of Rußbach-Gosau, Austria, by Löser et al. (2019) is printed. It can be ordered at: http://www.korallen-kreide.de/index.html Its a must-have for all people interested in fossil corals! And: The abridged English version is also ready for download there! And now to my first application of this important milestone work: During my searching and digging at point 36 west of Kalchberg, St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria, at 07/04/2019, I found also a piece of limestone with small, regular voids/holes/tubes. After cleaning at home, some axial ripping was visible in a few of the tubes. Good sign!! Could be another phaceloid coral colony! After cutting it was clear: It is!! And it is in some parts rather well preserved, the best specimen of this type so far. According to the work above, it seems to belong to the genus Procladocora. Four species of this genus are described for Rußbach-Gosau: P. gracilis, P. aff. exiguis, P. formosa, P. sp. In some corallites, septal insertion of 6 / 6 / 12 can be observed. The maximum outer diameter of the corallites is about 3 mm. This would place this specimen within the species P. gracilis. But the age is different and the occurrences are geographically about 200 km apart. So it is better to stick to Procladocora sp. Thanks for looking! Franz Bernhard
  17. My hunting at point 25 east of Kalchberg at 05/16/2019 did not yield any good rudist. However, two coral colonies were found. Now I have a total of about 20 from this formation. This one is very small, poorly preserved and has a very, very low contrast (already strongly enhanced). It has some similarities to that one, but only remotely: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/87677-coral-3-from-the-campanian-st-bartholomä-formation-styria-austria-gosau-group-eastern-alps/ Corallites seems to have a diameter of about 1.2 mm. I do not expect any definitive answer , just showing it off . Thanks for your interest! Franz Bernhard
  18. FranzBernhard

    Campanian Stromatoporoid

    Together with these two coral colonies http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/96001-corals-10-11-from-the-campanian-st-bartholomä-formation-styria-austria-gosau-group-eastern-alps/ I "discovered" also this specimen during my last visit at point 25, east of Kalchberg, in St. Bartholomä. "Discovered"? - I have found this specimen about a year ago, but did not take it with me - "It´s just a mineral". As I have not found much during my last visit, so I took it with me this time... After cleaning, I saw a somewhat faint wavy lamination - "Ah, some kind of calcite deposit"... Inspection with a hand lens revealed a tiny mesh or sieve structure in some parts - "Oh, that´s interesting"... Now I asked my local fossil expert. After some pondering he said: "This looks like a stromatopora from the nearby Devonian Plabutsch-Formation!" A quick look at his voluminous library revealed, that there indeed exist Cretaceous stromatoporoids, with nice names like Actinostromaria (compare with Paleozoic Actinostroma). I don´t think, this is an Actinostromaria, but we are rather sure, that it is a Cretaceous stromatoporoid. What do you think? Thank you very much for your opinion! PS, I found also this interesting diagram, from Wood & Reitner (1988). See also: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/94175-fossil-ball-campanian-st-bartholomä-formation-gosau-group-eastern-alps/ Franz Bernhard
  19. The next two corals from St. Bartholomä... I collected this specimen nearly a year ago. Thought, it has some kind of borings. But I was a little bit confused, because most of the "borings" or tubes have a regular and tight, axial ornamentation. Polished cross sections revealed not much, but a few corallites (A, B, C). One of the tubes at the margin of the specimen shows some "shell" material with ornamentation on both sides (D). The left side is in contact with younger sediment, the right side with fossiliferous limestone. On the surface of the specimen, no shell material was observed within the tubes. Just a few days ago, I recognized a corallite cross section on the surface of the specimen with some fuzzy septa (X). In conclusion, I think, this could be the outer cast of a phaceloid-dendroid coral colony with nearly no "shell" material preserved - just a cast. In the Gosau-group, genera like Procladocora, Cladocora, Calamophylliopsis look somewhat similar. Thanks for your interest and opinion! Franz Bernhard
  20. This time a really odd ball from St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria (West of Kalchberg, point 36). Collected 04/09/2019. Campanian St. Bartholomä-formation, Gosau group, Eastern Alps. The specimen was very dirty, thought it is just a round and smooth limestone piece, but haven´t found such a smooth piece there before, so I took it with me. After cleaning (but without any prep) and inspecting with a hand lens, I discovered, that the subglobular specimen of about 7 cm in size is covered over and over with tiny polygons, about 0.1-0.2 mm in size. So it is a fossil! But what? It seems to have two natural openings, a larger on (pic A) and a smaller one (pic B), with polygons all over the rims and also inside the rim of the opening (pic F). At the lower right corner of pic F you can see, that the polygons are in reality prismatic structures. Polygons are also covering large parts of the inside of the two openings. The prismatic structures can also be seen in some dimples caused by pressure solution. Any hints and suggestions are welcome! Many thanks! Franz Bernhard
  21. Hello! Another colonial coral from St. Bartholomä. Contrast is poor and that´s the best I can to with my scrappy scrap. I think, I have not found such a coral before in this formation. And its the second largest colony I have found so far there. My guess is, that it could be Astraeofungia (g, h) or Dimorphastrea (a, b), all pics from Löser et al. (2015). But I am very probably wrong... Thank you very much for your help! Franz Bernhard
  22. FranzBernhard

    AN4161_AN4162

    From the album: Hippurites colliciatus Woodward, 1855 from St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria

    West of Kalchberg, point 36, collected 03/17/2019.
  23. Hello, here is the next coral colony from the Campanian St. Bartholomä-formation in Styria, Austria (Gosau-group), collected 02/10/2019, west of Kalchberg, point 36. This coral colony is intergrown with limestone. There is a naturally weathered cross section and naturally weathered vertical section (but not much to see there). I have cut and polished one end and preservation seems to be not too bad. However, as usual, am rather clueless. I think, it has external pali, so it could belong to Hydnophoropsis? Many thanks for your help! Franz Bernhard
  24. FranzBernhard

    AN4155_AN4156

    From the album: Hippurites nabresinensis Futterer, 1893 from St. Bartholomä, Styria, Austria

    East of Kalchberg, point 25, collected 02/27/2019. Crushed specimen with various sediment infill and quite nice contrast.
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