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Hello everyone! Recently, I found a gastropod imprint with a weird zig-zag pattern in the Cretaceous Merchantville formation (hard pan) of New Jersey. After showing it to a few folks, it was suggested that it may maintain its original color pattern. We aren't aware of this occurring on the Atlantic Coastal plane so I wanted to get more opinions on it and if it could be that. Thanks for your time! Frank

Hello everyone! A few weeks ago, my friend Ralph (curator of the MAPS Museum) took me to an old fossil spot for really the sole purpose of showing me the stratigraphy of the area. I returned to the stream a few times and realized there was a lot of 'hard-pan' in the stream that contained fossils. After alerting Ralph, we returned back to the the stream and found something COMPLETELY unexpected..a small, workable area of Merchantville formation. Ecstatic with my luck, we hit the area with all the free time I had. All the best specimens were donated to the MAPS Museum (more to come on that), but here are the ones that went into my collection. The most common ammonite there is Menabites walnutensis, but I also found some nice Scaphites hippocrepis (one in particular is really nice), Glyptoxoceras, and Baculites vaalsensis. The large bivalve is Pholadomya occidentalis, and the more common one is Neithea. If you have any questions or corrections let me know! Frank H.