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Showing results for tags 'mesostylus'.
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My Hunting trip to Eben Emael (Maastrichtian of Belgium)
ziggycardon posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hi everyone, From now on I will post my hunting trip reports to Eben Emael as I often forget to make separate posts for them. I visit the Romontbos Quarry in Eben Emael multiple times a year with our fossil club, the BVP (Belgische vereniging voor Paleontologie). It's one of the last active locations that's still accessible in the Maastrichtian Type Location that allows hunting, and the quarry is only a 20 minute drive away for me, so that's ideal. DISCLAIMER: For all new fossil hunters: This location is off-limits for individual people! You cannot go hunt there on your own. The quarry is very strict and does not allow trespassing. This is an amazing location with great fossil finds, so I cannot stress it enough to not enter this place illegal as it could put a stop to fossil hunting for everyone here. If you want to go on a fossil hunt here, join the BVP! They are the only ones with permission to access the quarry, and they organize multiple excursions to the quarry each year under strict safety protocols. If we behave, and no one blows it by trespassing, we should be able to have access to this quarry until the year 2043. Now that's out of the way, let me introduce this amazing location which is my favorite place to hunt! The Romontbos quarry in Eben Emael is part of "Mount Saint Peter" which lies on the Dutch/Belgian border and is home to the so called Limburg/Liege chalk also know locally as "Limburgse mergel" which was often used as building blocks in the past which is why you can see serpulids, oysters and urchins in the stones of old buildings in the region. The quarry is located only a couple of km from the city of Maastricht and "Mount Saint Peter" is the location where one of the first biggest fossil discoveries has been made, a skull of Mosasaurus hoffmanni A.K.A "The Beast of Maastricht" back in around 1766. The layers of Eben-Emael are part of the Maastrichtian type locality dating back to around 70 - 66 million years ago, during that time this area of Belgium and the Netherlands was part of a shallow tropical sea. The layers in the quarry have a very rich fauna and floral list: You can find many bivalves (Acutostrean Agerostrea, Pinna, Neithea, ...), Gastropods, Brachiopods, Serpulids, Belemnites, Crustacean claws (Mesostylus faujasi), sea urchins (Hemipneustes striatoradiatus, ...) and shark teeth (Squalicorax, Pseudocorax, Palaeohypotodus, ...). For the microfossil lovers there is also oportunities to collect Bryozoans and Forarminifera There is also fish material like fish teeth and the odd scale or vertebra to be found, or if you are very lucky you can find fossils of one of the many species of Mosasaur and Sea Turtles that swam in this shallow sea. But also plant material can be found like Sea Grass (Thalassocharis) of which this quarry is one of the only places in the world where you can find sea grass. But also Conifer material has been found regulary at past excursions. Also known from this location and other localities in the Maastrichtian type locality but exceedingly rare are ammonites, crab carapaces, sawfish material, Elasmosaur material, dinosaur material (Betasuchus and Hadrosaurs), marine crocodile material and bird fossils. It is in this same quarry that "the wonder chicken" Asteriornis maastrichtensis and Janavis finalidens were found. Should you see me on one of the excursions, feel free to say hi and come for a talk! Also feel free to share your own fossils from your trips to Eben-Emael, the more the merrier!- 31 replies
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- 6
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- belgium
- cretaceous
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Hello all, one of ny early 2022 trips has yielded these little beauties. With some help on the IDs a ghost shrimp claw (Mesostylus sp.) And partial Anomoeodus plate.
- 2 replies
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- 11
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- anomoeodus
- cretaceous
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(and 5 more)
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