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Location: Abbey Woods, London, UK Epoch: late Palaeocene to early Eocene (54.5Ma) Geology: Lesnes Shell bed of Blackheath Member Date visited: 4 March 2024 As the visit to Tankerton proved a bust, I was eager to actually find some fossils and decided to try out Abbey Woods when the Monday dawned sunny and mild. Again, this was a new destination and I thought it best to scout it out before dragging the rest of my family along. I took public transport with a nice muddy backpack and hiking boots, so must’ve confused a fair number of people on the London tube. Thankfully, the new Elizabeth line terminates at Abbey Woods, so it was pretty easy to access. It’s a fair walk from the tube station to the park (.7mi) and there is very little on the high street (if you could even call it that), apart from a few corner shops to get a drink and a Greggs. You could seemingly take a bus to the park, but I didn’t see any during the time I was walking, so probably best to plan on a walk. The main entrance to the park is somewhat signposted, although you can’t really see it until you get close; it’s near the pedestrian overpass. The park itself is beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect, and was very pleasantly surprised. The ruins of the abbey are striking, and the trails are clearly signposted and lead up into a wilderness area that feels like you’re completely outside the city. There’s a café/information centre near the ruins with clean toilets and running water. The water will be KEY to this site. To reach the fenced-in fossil bed, you can either go up a gentle slope to the left of the main entrance or take a steep set of stairs from the café. I would recommend going with the steep stairs when hauling water, as it’s considerably closer to the café and, although steeper, a shorter distance to travel. I didn’t know how far away the water was, just that it existed on site, so didn’t bring the appropriate transportation gear; all I had was a collapsible bucket, so abandoned the idea of wet sieving on site. Instead, I put on my waterproof trousers and began to dig down into the dirt with my trowel. It is spring in the UK, so the dirt was wet. The recommendations online https://ukfossils.co.uk/2016/06/16/abbey-wood/ are to wait for a dry period, but who knows when that will be, so I went for it anyway. The dirt was easy to scoop and move about into my sieve. I found Group A dry sieving, and was quite pleased, as what I had seen online indicated that it would be very hard going indeed to find anything during this part of the process. That being said, I didn’t start finding anything until maybe 18 inches down, but then it was fairly regular for the remaining hour and a quarter that I was there. While sieving, I separated out the larger rocks and sticks and put the fine sieved dirt into a bag to carry home. You can remove 2k from the site; I wouldn’t have wanted to carry more than that in my backpack for over an hour on public transport anyway! Another group joined me about an hour into digging – a mum, her 7/8yo son and his friend. They had buckets, a plastic sieve, and plastic shovels and were getting quite frustrated. I gave them some pointers and ended up inviting them to share my hole that I had dug out so they could reach a deeper layer. The son became frustrated quickly and just played around, but his friend loved it once I started pulling out teeth (and gave one to him). He found a couple of bits that may have been teeth that I recommended he take home to wash, and right at the end the mum found a definite tooth – she was delighted! I was glad to help them enjoy the digging more and get some results; I expect the friend will be back with his family at some point. There is a definite technique to follow at Abbey Woods. I’m going again with my family and another two families (kids range in age from 4-6) in a couple of weeks and will bring the following: - metal digging implements (and plastic ones for the kids to play with) - waterproof trousers for kids definitely (and recommended for adults) and generally outdoor clothes - large buckets for wet sieving - milk jugs to carry the water up the hill - sieves (mine is 2.5mm, but I would recommend smaller as some of the teeth are teeny-tiny) - bags for taking home micromatrix post-sieve - spare bags for muddy clothes and tools - snacks and drinks and money/card? for the café There is a wonderful resource for identifying your finds: <http://www.trg.org/downloads/fossils of abbey wood.pdf> It is written simply for the general public/amateurs, has a clear key for the diagrams, and has high quality images. I used it to identify the majority of my finds - just a few questionable pieces remaining. See photos below. I hope this information has proved helpful to anyone reading! Maybe see you there next time. 1. Marsh Clam 2. Marsh creeper 3. Moon snail 4. Auger shell 5. Extinct clam 1 6. Clam sucker 7. Extinct clam 2 8. Freshwater snail 9. Ray/fish mouth parts? 10. Sand shark (Gluekmanotodus heinzelini) 11. Sand shark 12. Sand shark (Jaekelotodus robustus) 13. Sand shark (Palaeohypotodus rutoti) 14. larger Sand shark teeth 15. Fish teeth? 16. Trace fossils 17. Questionable pieces; the top tooth is another Jaekelotodus robustus I left out, I think. The bottom left looks to be a partially erupted tooth? And the bottom right is either from a mouth plate or a piece of bone - really small fragment and hard to tell. Please let me know any confirmations/corrections. Cheers!

Hi there! This was found by my son several years ago when he went for a wee in the bushes. Was in Battersea park (London) about 10 metres from the River Thames. Any thoughts as to what type of animal or era? Many thanks!

Some of the highlights from my last trip to Abbey Wood, an Early Eocene site on the border between London and Kent. Mostly sand tiger teeth, but a few angel shark teeth as well, along with some bivalves and gastropods. Some of the rarer stuff includes a sand tiger vertebra and a vertebra from an unidentified bony fish (the two items in the top left).

Hi everyone! Past summer I visited London for a comic con, but I always try to visit the NHM as well when I am in London. Luckily this time I had an entire day stretched since I also wanted to make some photo's of the collection and I thought, why no share it here. A bit overdue but let's start with my most recent visit to my favorite place on earth: The amazing thing about the NHM is that the entrance is free, but since I like to support the museum and don't like to wait for hours in line I always book a ticket for the current special exhibition which was the Patagotitan skeleton currently on display. I entered from the side entrance were I was greeted by Sophie the Stegosaurus stenops which is the most complete skeleton ever found. Before we headed to the Titanosaur exhibition I came across this cool new Jurassic World Shop with everything JP & JW merchandise. I got myself a 30 year anniversary gilded ticket from Jurassic Park as a souvenir After our quick detour we entered the new temporary exhibition: Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur The actual Patagotitan mayorum femur found in the La Fletcha Ranch, Patagonia, Argentina - Cretaceous, Albian, 101.62 mya Patagotitan scapula, humerus, ulna & radius found in the La Flecha Ranch, Patagonia, Argentina Haestasaurus becklesii skin impression found in Hastings, East Sussex, UK - Cretaceous, Valanginian, 140 - 133 mya Titanosaur coprolite found in Maharashtra, India - Cretaceous, Maastrichtian, 72 - 66 mya Patagotitan mayorum tooth replica

Hello everyone My name is Ivy and I am 8. My dad is with me and he is helping me to ask for your help in identifying some curious fossils we found. We think this fossil might have been a tree trunk with something growing around it. What do you think? thank you in advance dadandkids

Found this in abbey wood with a bunch of fossil shark teeth and shells. Wondering if it was a tooth connected to a bit of bone? thank you for reading

Hi everyone, I was walking by the riverbank of the Thames in London during a low tide and on the sand I found this tooth-shaped stone, to be honest it doesn't feel like a stone but more wood as it's very lightweight. It's about 7.5/8 cm long and the texture inside it on the top end makes me think about a bone. I'll leave it to you thanks in advance.

Hi! I found this very large and irregularly shaped flint nodule on the Thames foreshore, London. To me, it kind of looks like the branching arms of a sea sponge, but I have heard that flint nodules also sometimes filled the shape of animal burrows and other things. It has a number of holes/handles in it. What do you think it is?

Fossil sharks tooth from River Thames after 24:23 in Criminal Evidence Discovery by the Ladies Who Lark Mudlarking the Thames with Nicola White, Aug 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAo256YYfm8 Larking on the Beach at Lyme Regis - (Revised Version) Dinosaurs, Fossils & Fascinating History Mudlarking with Nicola White Thames foreshore permits for mudlarking Related Fossil Forum post Some sort of tooth picked up in the Thames Clay man, Fossil ID, February 10, 2020, Yours, Paul H.

I found this curious item in a wild space at the back of our house in London. Around 20cm long, initially thought it looked like a bone. But then picking it up was very heavy for its size, have weighed it as 1.75kg. Looks sort of like a bone from certain angles, but maybe more likely to be petrified wood? What do people think? Very curious to know what it looks like if sliced open. Would that be advised? How would one go about having that done?

Posting from Facebook. Found on the Thames estuary in London

Can anyone identify any of these bones found by my 7 year old at Wapping pls? We went to look for the gallows at the Prospect of Whitby pub and literally stumbled upon these. She’s very excited to find out what they belonged to and has taken some to school today! We are thinking cow or horse due to sheer size and weight. Thank you ..

As most of you are probably aware by now, I've spent some time recently in Ontario due to family matters. Things have taken care of themselves and I'm back home in Germany again. After the family activities had settled down, I was able to visit a couple of sites and also my good friend Kane. I would have liked to have spent time with Monica and Viola and Malcolm, but unfortunately that didn't work out this time around. Anyway, with the help of Kane's directions, I was able to visit the roadcut in the Amherstburg Formation's Formosa Reef just north of the town of that name and also managed to dig up some of the more typical fauna. The site as seen from across the road. Typical breakage. Although the stone is relatively hard, it splits quite well. Emmonsia emmonsi Spiniplatyceras sp. Dawsonoceras cf. americanum Acleistoceras cf. hyatti Proetus (Crassiproetus) crassimarginatus. Pygidium and Cranidium. The next day I went to visit Kane and Deb. Deb really cooked up a storm and Kane took me off to show me his "backyard" site in the "relocated" Dundee Formation and also gifted me a few nice things. Maclurites sp. Hippocardium cuneus Ecterocrinus simplex He also gifted me a Conularia but it unfortunately wouldn't allow me to prep it. On the next day I followed Monica's directions to a spot on the Etobicoke creek in the Ordovician Georgian Bay Formation. There were lots of bivalves, nautiloids and gastropods to be seen, but I settled for the lil' ol' trilobite pygidium and spent a lot of time observing birdies bathing. Ambonychia radiata and Flexicalymene granulosa Oh yes! I almost forgot to mention that I found an egg, albeit a recent one, but nevertheless, it was well-preserved. So that was that for my fossilized adventures this time. 2 days later I was on my way back home.

Hi all, hoping you might be able to help me identify this tooth-looking thing I found whilst mud-larking the Thames. Some info: -It is about two inches long -The black and white part is shiny like a tooth and the brown part is more matte I have no experience in this field, so I’d be grateful to hear any thoughts you have, and if it even is a fossil at all

Was digging in vegetable patch in clay soil about 20cm below surface in back garden, south-east London, UK and found this little beauty! First fossil I've found without looking for one. I especially like the lower section of the right-hand image, where you can see the pattern is an imprint rather than a protrusion (not sure of the correct terminology!) Any ideas what it could be? I've provided a scale on the image. Reminds me of a worm! I can answer any questions.

Hi all, I'm new to this forum and wondering if you could all help me out. I found this fossil on the Thames foreshore in London at low tide. I would love to know what it came from! My only thought is that one side looks like rings of a tree and 2 other sides look a bit like bark. Would be very grateful for any help! Thanks

Hello, A few days ago, me and my dad had to travel to London to get my American passport renewed at the US embassy. Afterwards, my dad headed towards the cafe to get something to eat as I took a stroll along the thames foreshore. I quickly realized that there were a lot of bones and teeth scattered along the shoreline, at the time I thought they were pleistocene, but now that I've looked online it seems to me that they're "medieval", apparently the tudors and georgians habitually tossed dead animal carcasses into the river. Even so, some of the teeth I picked up were very heavy and I couldn't help thinking that they could be pleistocene. Is there a possibility of them being pleistocene or is it all wishful thinking on my part? I reckon photo 2 is a bison tooth although am not sure. Photo 3 looks like two sheep teeth. The jaw seems to be from a domesticated pig (so probably something the georgians tossed into the river) and I believe the canine in the last photo comes from a dog. Can anyone ID the rest of the teeth and whether they are pleistocene or not? Thanks Here are the photos, hopefully they help: