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I convinced my friend in England to send me some matrix from the Oxford Clay site I have the pleasure of hunting a few years ago. I really wanted to see what I could find in the micro stuff! He packed up a "Fosters sized package of Pay Dirt" as he referred to it and I got it in the mail a couple of weeks ago. It didn't take me long to go through it because I just couldn't stop! So many beautiful tiny fossils!! Star Crinoids, Belemnites, Ammonites, all of those I expected to find. What I was surprised to find was lots of tiny crab claws, couple of shark teeth and some possible Starfish ossicles! First the Ammonites: I am over the moon with my new favorite fossil: a Kosomceras spinosum. Even has a little bit of nacre still on it! 6mm I found an even better preserved one too, but the one with the nacre is special. On my previous hunt in this spot, all I had found were the Quenstedtoceras ammonites. They are still really cool too.... 1 cm Then there is this beauty which I am not sure what it is, but it might be Distichoceras bicostatum 5mm I found so many little crab claws and legs! Really elaborate ones and very simple ones: 3mm And of course, the crinoids - 5mm Some lovey little gastropods, including a really nice pyritized one: 5mm I think it's a Dicroloma trifida Not sure what these two are - both 3mm One of my unexpected surprises...this little tooth! 3mm And I THINK these might be starfish ossicles? If so, that would be really cool. They look an awful lot like the starfish ossicles we find in the Texas Cretaceous. But they might also just be crinoid bits. 2mm And last but not least- a little worm tube. I liked the crenulated edge on the bottom 3mm

Hi everyone, I went fossil hunting on the Yorkshire Coast a few days ago and picked up plenty of Dactylioceras ammos but not much else. Among them are these two which both cracked after an exploratory 'tap' with the hammer. I have never glued broken ammonites together for prep before but have seen it spoken about a lot. I have a few questions about how to approach this. Firstly, do you think these specimens are viable? The other issue is that I only have a Dremel to prep with so even if I glue them back together there will be an awful lot of matrix to remove.. Where do you apply the glue? On the whole surface of the broken fragment including the matrix, or just the fossil? Is there anything to look out for when prepping a glued ammonite? Which side of the ammonite should I prep from once glued? For the smaller ammonite, most of the specimen is on the smaller half of the rock, so obviously I would rather prep from that side in, but would going from the other side be preferable? I'm not sure I've made much sense here so please tell me if I've just spouted some nonsense! Ammo 1 Ammo 2

Hi, found these at the samel spot, Hamachtesh Hagadol, Negev area, Israel. Jurassic. Both are about 25mm wide. I think they belong to the same species as the smooth one (left photo) was also found with some minor details resembling the right one. Any direction would be very appreciated. Many thanks in advance, Oz

Hi all! Answering @jpc's question about the site's accessibility in winter and if we actually dig under snow. Yes, we do! (something must be not right in the head). Today we tried the dig at -1C'. Had to make a pretty big hole too (the deepest I've seen there). No big teeth found, hopes for the micro-matrix.

Hi everyone These two pieces were collected by my boyfriends father and his family about 60 years ago on the Jurassic coast of Charmouth/Lyme Regis. A little while ago he brought them out to show me and said I could keep the ones I liked. I chose these two, but not to keep. My idea was to prep them, reveal the fossils inside and give them to him at Christmas. I used a Dremel with specialised tips and a sewing needle in a pin vice under a microscope. Overall I'm quite happy with how they turned out, not perfect, but I can see my own improvement. The larger single ammonite (Promicroceras sp. I think) had significant pyrite rot on the matrix on the reverse side. I removed it with the Dremel and will coat the ammonite and the reverse side with Paraloid. As you can see, the matrix split beside the ammonite whilst I was Dremelling. It would be great to hear opinions on whether you think the piece looks better with the matrix glued back on, or left alone? I would love to hear any advice and critical feedback. Before: The reverse side After an hour or so on the Dremel: The reverse side, after removing the pyrite rot: All finished after a bit more Dremel work and about 2 hours with a needle (no Paraloid yet though): With the excess matrix: Without the excess matrix: The second piece, before: After an hour or two with a needle: After about 40 mins with the Dremel: All finished after a few more hours with a needle and some Paraloid to glue back the broken pieces and stabilise:

Hi all! Here I describe how we sift for Late Jurassic fossils in Moscow Fili Park, in continuation of Fili Park evokes mixed feelings. In fact, now it is the main place for Jurassic fish and reptile teeth. Nowhere else in our Jurassic will you be able to say casually: "I'll go find some teeth", here it is possible. Even in Ulyanovsk, with all its skeletons and verts, teeth have to be searched for a very, very long time. For Muscovites, Fili Park is literally close at hand (for me, for example, it takes a little over half an hour to get there). In addition, Fili Park introduces hobbyists to all types of paleo-activities: excavation, sifting, preparation, stabilization, gluing, varnishing, water management, sorting out micro-matrix, etc. On the other hand, it's the most difficult site I have seen in our Jurassic and certainly not a place for a pleasant pastime. Cold, mud, mosquitoes, nettles, everything is flooded with water, everything crumbles and collapses, pouring water and mud on you, while you try to get out your boots gone knee-deep in mud. There are few holes, and digging another is complicated. The place is full of stones, branches and debris, and over the years everything has been so dug up and down that the likelihood of making your way through tons of dirt, debris and old dumps in vain is very high. Excavation and operation of a hole is not a matter of one day or even one person. Dozens of people dig and sift in one hole for a month, with the number of interesting finds combined counted on the fingers of one hand. This year's holes: Unlike Cretaceous sites, micro-matrix in Fili does not consist of teeth in any way. You will not find 60 teeth from a bucket of mud in any wash fraction. In addition, it contains an annoying amount of pseudo-fossils, including those similar to teeth: seeds, twigs, insects, modern shells, black phragmocons and serpula fragments, shiny pebbles, etc. In this regard, there are also objects like this: As far as I understand, these belong to modern insects, if not, please correct. With all this being said, the small size of the location is surprising: all the adventures of recent years have taken place on a small area of 50 by 20 m. I once witnessed guys complaining they could not find teeth by sifting mud. Naive folks! They did not realize the tooth layer was a meter UNDER the stream bed. And the latter is by the way the lowest point of the site. The nikitini zone begins with a thick layer of belemnite shell rock, reminiscent of a concrete lid. After getting through, the matrix becomes soft again, and the pink fulgens fossils get replaced by the black and white palette of nikitini layer. I would call large brachiopods of the genus Mosquella its marker. Instead of smooth kachpurite ammonites, ribbed epivirgatites begin to appear, and rare large (up to 40 cm) lomonossovellas become visible. Each trip for nikitini fossils takes about three hours to clear the old hole. That's why it is important not to postpone the excavation, but keep it within one day, arriving at dawn. Any hole crumbles constantly before the eyes, all the abomination from rubbish and glass to the walls of the fulgens zone slides right into the center of the hole and sinks to the very bottom. Do not try to reinforce the walls with branches and stones, or later you'll have to get all of this out of the target layer. Instead, try to divert as much water as possible from the excavation. See where the streams come from and cut new channels for them. Try not to splash on the walls and do not allow the scooped water to flow back into the hole. The walls collapse where the water flows. Do not make vertical walls, obtuse angles prevent the edges from collapsing. A typical pit in a pit, the smaller hole's edges are formed by the walls of the nikitini belemnite shell rock: For better understanding. Shovel, buckets, sieves, chair. The water has been drained out. The stream is to the right: First of all, in an old (any not freshly dug) hole, you'll have to scoop out several hundred liters of water (the procedure will have to be repeated several times a day). A regular bucket works best here. Unfortunately, the pumps cannot cope with the job. They are either submersible or designed for clean water, etc. Basically a weak surface fecal pump is needed, but there are none for sale. Last time, amateurs in ordinary rubber boots (lol) asked us how we had "drained the hole". With our own hands, getting there in waders up to the max At the second stage, you will need to scoop out all the dirt and debris, a medium-sized fishing scoop helps here (in my opinion, better than a shovel). It is useful when clearing a hole, quickly scooping out water and working with mud. "Awesome" Fili slurry, aka the matrix:

I found these fossils along with many corals in the desert not far from Riyadh Saudi arabia the region was jurrasic im not sure what this is could it be some sort of tooth or maybe a balemnite? the second image shows the whole rock if anyone has any idea please tell me thank you so much I appreciate it thank you for your time

New fossil discovery shows details of amonite soft tissue anatomy. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-never-before-seen-ammonite-muscles-revealed-3d.html

Can someone help me identify the species of the owner of this tooth？ Thank you so much Information about it location:Lance creek, Wyoming Aged: Jurassic Size:0.35×0.36inch

My Jurassic Park now heads across the pond to England and Germany. Dinosaur material from these countries is not common like North America and in fact very difficult to obtain. Theropod material is extremely rare and most remains are fragments. Most of my material from England comes from the coast of two areas The Isle of Wight and East Sussex. Material from these area comprises the Wealden Super Group (Hasting+Wealden+Weld Clay) and is early Cretaceous from the Valanginian to Barremian Stage (140-125mya). Yellow - Hasting Group , Green - Weald Clay Red - Wealden Grouip Theropods Baryonyx walkeri My collection includes two examples of this Spinosaurid from England. One tooth is partially rooted. Megalosaurus bucklandii One of the large theropods of region. This tooth was found encased in a block and the tip was restored based on the matching blocking Dromaeosaurid indet A very cool small theropod tooth. May not have yet been described.

Last week I had the chance to go for a short fossil hunting trip to the area called the Polish Jura – famous for limestone formations, which take several fantastic shapes and have their very own names. Here are some instances: The camel The Hercules club The Trolls It’s also the area with numerous stone castles from the 14th and 15th century – the are located along the so-called Trail of the Eagle's Nests Here are some examples: But my main interest were of course fossil sites. First we visited the so-called Karniowice travertine – academic description says: “they form several lenticular bodies (up to more than 10 m thick) in the lower part of the Permian conglomerates and volcanic tuffs, discordantly overlying the Carboniferous sandstones. Light-grey travertine is locally highly porous or cavernous. It is formed of sparry calcite containing dispersed chalcedone aggregates and impregnations of iron and copper sulfides.“ According to the description it was supposed to be the locus classicus of Dendropupa zarecznyi – one of the oldest gastropods. Nowadays it looks like this: We brought home a few pieces of the rock, but no Permian gastropods (or anything else, for that matter), in them. They just have really fantastic shapes The second location en route was Płaza quarry – the Triassic site I have already visited before. The place didn’t change much from last time: except that there were very little fossils available, mainly brachs and crinoids: I found these two fossils – do you think the white stuff are pieces of bones? The other Triassic quarry in the area was unfortunately turned into a shooting range and is no longer accessible The next day we went to Tarnogórski Canyon – which is a former dolomite mine. It’s quite big: and a bit overgrown not to mention a little lake in the middle We searched the rubble for quite a time, but again – only pieces of crinoids: After such a disappointment, we went to see the Black Trout Adit, which is one of a few Unesco sites in Poland. It’s the only still operating drainage adit in Poland and one of the longest underground boat flows in Europe. We went 30 m underground and then had a 600-metre “cruise” in metal boats: When we emerged back to surface, we decided to stop by the Błędów Desert – yes, we do have a desert in the middle of the country The Błędów Desert is actually Central Europe's largest accumulation of loose sand in an area away from any sea, deposited thousands of years ago by a melting glacier. The aerial view: The next day we started from visiting the former capital city of Poland – Kraków: the home of the Wawel Dragon: Then we stopped at the Jurassic Mirów quarry: We were hoping for an abundance of ammos, however there were not so many as in the nearby Niegowonice and several of them partial and very flattened: They usually are very small: Nevertheless, we managed to find a few things: Plus a mystery fossil? The last stop was Młynka quarry – also Jurassic: The most interesting place however was a little ravine next to the entrance – with Callovian rocks: which turned out to be full of goodies: And the cherry on top – the crab That's it - thanks for reading, I hope you liked it

Hi I decided to display a few of my Whitby ammonites. Most are self found, some bought. Some are prepped by me. Some prepped by other people. One of the ammonites on the top shelf isn’t from Whitby. Guess which. Where’s it from and what is it? I’ll post some close ups in due course. Thanks for looking.

Last sunday October 24th I decided to visit the old Andil clay quarry at Liesberg in Switzerland, just over two hours driving from where I live, to see what fossils I might find there. Now a nature reserve where collecting is tolerated as long as the natural parts are not disturbed, the deposits at this quarry, mined for cement production between 1934 and 1980, date to the Upper Callovian and Lower to Middle Oxfordian (source). It is thus stratigraphically - though not petrologically - comparable to the geology of Vaches Noires in Normandy, with which I'm much more familiar, albeit with the interesting variation that the bedding planes at this site have been uplifted and verticalised. The latter makes for an unusual experience working the mudstone layers in the middle of the quarry, and means that the oldest layers are to be found along the quarry's south wall (to the left if facing the quarry's back wall), whereas the youngest layers - most notably the Liesberg-layer, which geological limestone composition and embedded fauna of shells, sea urchins and crinoids is strikingly comparable to the Middle Oxfordian Coral Raq at Vaches Noires - are to be found on the north wall (to your right). A situational satellite map from Google Maps A commercial example of a beautiful Kosmoceras annulatum ammonite found in the quarry's Callovian layers Seen from the parking spot at the quarry entrance near the top of the mountain The buildings of the old quarry when you walk down from the parking spot to the quarry along a road with restricted access Entrance to the quarry with an informational sign explaining the geological significance of the locality, as well as tells you not to get your hopes up, as most fossils you're likely to find will be steinkern-fossils Spill heaps along the north wall, with the back wall in the distance, and a sign explaining the importance of the locality as a nature reserve The path to the back wall of the quarry can be extremely muddy, and searching for fossils along the quarry's steep slopes is an activity undertaken at your own risk Due to circumstances I arrived quite late in the day and only had a number of hours to search. However, I quickly concluded that the south wall (Callovian layers) and even the mudstone in the middle of the quarry (Lower Oxfordian) were not particularly fossiliferous, with a couple of hours of work only resulting in a corroded pyritised ammonite and a tiny fossil that may either be a crustacean or part of a sea urchin spine (if you know, please let me know). I did not find any fossils on the south wall, although the information sign at the entrance to the quarry had already forewarned that most of the fossils encountered would be steinkern fossils. I later picked up from a discussion between a solitary fossil hunter and another group of collectors, however, that this solitary hunter had found an ammonite towards the top of the Callovian slope two weeks earlier and had returned to collect it, only to find it gone. He hadn't found any new specimens, however. Interestingly, while the quarry was quite calm with only one or two other collectors for most of my time there, by the time I got ready to leave (around 17:30), the place all of a sudden became abuzz with groups of other fossil hunters. Vertical bedding planes at the quarry and the two finds I made in the Renggeri clays: a heavily corroded pyritised ammonite and an unidentified fossil that may be either a bit of crinoid, or may be crustacean? Following my lack of results (did I give up too early?) in the older layers of the quarry, one of my fellow fossil hunters suggested I check the quarry's northern slopes/spoil heaps, as there were plenty of smaller fossils to be found there. And, indeed, as soon as I stepped on these slopes I was able to pick up spine after sea urchin spine, stems and branches or crinoids, serpulids and even the occasional shell. The slopes were steep and it was hard to find a foothold, but at least I didn't have to return home empty handed. Looking back through the quarry from the spill heaps along the north wall Can you spot the fossils amongst the limestone blocks from (presumably) the Liesberg-layer? Looking at the south wall from the spill heaps Beautiful lighting when returning back to the car towards the end of the day Here are some of my finds of that day. Paracidaris florigemma echinoid/sea urchin spines; much more common and of better quality than I've found at Vaches Noires Millecrinus horridus crinoid/sea lily stem (left) and arm (right) segments Millecrinus horridus holdfast/root system (a special find for me) that I entered into Find of the Month contest Serpulid worm tubes (left) and evidence for parasitism on crinoids (right) Echinoids/sea urchins: a partial in matrix on the left and crushed and silicified specimens on the right Shells, from left to right: fragment of trigoniidae indet. (?Myophorella sp.), Galliennithyris galliennei brachiopod and a piece of an unidentified clam Section of horn coral

Hey all! Today I bring you some teeny tiny gastropods! All Inferior Oolite Group, Cotswolds UK. Every formation. There are a few different species that I have described here: Species A: "helter-skelter". A very very loose spiral, resembling a helter skelter... Species B: very neat loose spiraled. Species C: very tight spiral, very common Species D: fascinatingly bumpy textured spiral. Reminds me of a wallpaper! Measurements in cm. Isaac

Hello, Went fossil hunting in a famous Swiss Jurassic Location, the quarry of Liesberg. While cracking some rocks found what seems to be a crab claw. Can anyone help me identifying it? I was not aware such fossils could be found there, is it common or rather rare? Thank you! Cheers, Romain

New Zealand's 180-million-year-old forest BBC News Travel, South Island, New Zealand By Marian McGuinness, November 12, 2021 Curio Bay/Porpoise Bay Some papers are: Pole, M., 2001. Repeated flood events and fossil forests at Curio Bay (Middle Jurassic), New Zealand. Sedimentary Geology, 144(3-4), pp.223-242. More papers by Dr. Mike Pole Pole, M., 2009. Vegetation and climate of the New Zealand Jurassic. GFF, 131(1-2), pp.105-111. PDF of Pole (2009) Thorn, V.C., 1999. Enigmatic High Palaeolatitude Forests of Gondwanaland-a Case Study from the New Zealand Jurassic. PhD Dissertation, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Yours, Paul H.

Hey! I'd like some help with some recurring Cotswold brachiopods. Great Oolite group; Middle Jurassic (Bajocian - Callovian). I've grouped them into 4 or 5 species / clades, based on their morphology. Species A - strongly ribbed, crystalline calcite. The specimen in my profile picture! (obviously not a good picture, included to show the great size range) A huge one! Predated upon: Species B: calcite, very spherical, non-ribbed but prominent growth lines Species C: almost completely spherical, unknown mineral, no ribs Species D: small, typically crushed, very flat, no ribs Species E: only a single valve found, very prominent growth lines. is either a bivalve, but it could be part of species B (more prep needed); the shape holds the exact same shape as the upper valve of the other species B items. That's all! @Tidgy's Dad, wanna have a crack? I know you've hunted here before!

I keep finding these peculiar ovaloid shaped fossils in the Cotswolds, Inferior Oolite Group, UK. It doesn't particularly matter which formation they are from, as I've found them in every single one so far! Here's one of them. They always have a side with a convex bump on it (pictured above), and a side with a concave dip, suggesting tessellation. And here's some microscope images:

Is this a nautilus fossil?I don't have any informations about it,I guess it's from Madagascar? Thanks everyone

This fossil was found at Liesberg, Switzerland. It looks like Psiloceras mixed with Hildoceras.

This ammonite was found by my cousin's husband at Frick, Switzerland in June 2017. The diameter of the ammonite is 19.5 mm. This ammonite is calcified.

Something I've not seen before. Found the first one and thought it might just be a cross section of the clamp end of a bivalve but then found the second so rethought that. Found on the coast of Port Waikato NZ in exposed Jurassic mud stone. Found in same strata as belemnites. Both between 2 and 4 mm in length. Edit 1: the photos seem to make them look like they are impressions, but both are sitting above the matrix.