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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...

From time to time, I would like to post specimens from the Campanian St. Bartholomä-formation in Styria, Austria, in this thread. For the first specimen, I was motivated by this thread: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/91459-is-this-a-rudist-fossil/ So the first specimen is a fragment of a large Vaccinites alpinus, with only two pillars - and not much else. 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, 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, 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