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A Refined Return to Surry County, Virginia (10/6/23-10-8-23)
Echinoid Express posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hello again everyone! After a quick trip out to Holden Beach with some minimal finds, I was left with some indecisiveness on the location my next fossil hunt, I was presented with the opportunity to go back to Surry County, Virginia to hunt the same locality as I did back in August. I was a bit unsure if I wanted to make the trip again, as I had a fairly rough time during the last trip with some stomach issues, and I had felt I had a decent enough haul from that time. However, after Tropical Storm Ophelia went through the area dumping a lot of rain and the forecast was predicted to be much cooler than August, I decided to make the return. I can say with certainty I am very, very glad I made this trip! I was also given the opportunity to stay on site this time as well, which was really cool, and I made a few new friends with the fellow hunters that were also staying there. This is once again very picture heavy so hang in there once again. A small note, I had previously though all of the fossils were from the Yorktown Formation, but I was corrected on this; the site is primarily Late Miocene Eastover formation, with a fair bit of Early Pliocene Yorktown Formation, with the cobbles from the Cambrian Swift Run Formation mixed in in places. Starting again with some pictures of the site, not much had changed in two months, aside from some of the cliffs collapsing partially, which unveiled some new, fragile bivalves. The sand they had put on the beach that covered some of the material had been washed out a little bit, so there were more fossils and Cambrian cobbles at the water line than previously. It was particularly rainy on Saturday morning, but as the day went on it warmed up to a comfortable temperature, and became sunny. It was very breezy this time around, so the waves were particularly rough the whole weekend, which helped expose more fossils on the beach. There was once again plenty of cool wildlife in the area as well! This unfortunate fellow was struck by a propeller and washed onto the shoreline late Saturday night. The damage was mostly on the side lying in the sand. This was the first time I've ever seen a sturgeon outside of an aquarium setting. I reported it to a researcher at VCU, who collected it the next morning. He told me it was a male, estimated to be 30 years old. It was around 1.676 meters (5.5 feet) long. I was able to hunt one particular spot in the area where the exposure was fairly close to ground level as well, here is one small look at that exposure. And as a brief glimpse into my finds, here was one such find in situ! (Courtesy of one of my fellow hunter friends I met during the trip) I don't have a particular order to show off this time around, but I'll start with my absolute favorite of my finds this trip: Ecphora! I was a little bummed out last trip that I was unable to locate one, but I lucked out big time this trip. The quality of them is all over the place, but I found a few that were especially good, including the one I had pictured in situ. The one in matrix was found accidentally when I was doing UV light hunting (Which I'll talk about in a bit). This was my favorite one! It's around 11.43 cm (4.5 inches) long, and 8.89 cm (3.5 inches) wide. A very small bit of the outer edge of the opening did break off while I was handling it after this picture was took, but fortunately I had some strong adhesive handy and was able to get most of it secured back in place. On to the UV light hunting, I spent a few hours after dark hunting for calcite and calcite-converted mollusks. I found quite a number of calcite clams, as well as some pretty good crystals as well. Two clams in particular had some fairly decent calcite crystals growing inside fractures between the two valves, which was really cool! These are two small clusters growing on some material. These were particularly luminous with the UV light, much like the crystal-covered clams. Here is a calcite-replaced Turritella on the right, and on the left is an odd-shaped chunk of calcite. It almost looks like the shape of an Ecphora shell's lower half, which makes me wonder if it could be a calcite cast of an Ecphora interior. Here are a few large coral chunks right after I has washed them off. (Septastrea marylandica?) A couple of scaphopod "tusk shells" (Dentalium attenuatum) with a lustrous, double-valve Pandora clam. Some fairly intact Turritella shells. (Turritella subvariabilis?) I found quite a few nice double-valve Chesapecten this trip. Some show up in the UV light at night, which helped me find them. However, some of the larger specimens had a lot of erosion or biological damage to them such as bore holes, so they would fall apart when I tried to clean them. I still ended up with a decent number of them, so it all worked out in the end. The leftmost specimen has a bit of calcite on the outer edge. Here is my largest Chesapecten next to my smallest once again (the large one is about 17.78 cm, or 7 inches, wide). Some large clam tubes I found. (Kuphus fistula?) A few gastropods of decent quality with a double-valve oyster and a Crucibulum limpet. (Crucibulum grande?) This Naticidae shell (Lunatia sp.?) is fairly large, probably my favorite gastropod aside from the Ecphora! Unfortunately, it's extremely fragile, so I refuse to move it until I get something set up for coating my specimens. Because of this I haven't measured it properly. There is a smaller specimen in the opening underneath. A half whale vertebra alongside some different rib fragments I found. One of the friends I made found a fairly sizeable, nice quality whale vertebra. I found this nice tympanic bulla with only a small bit of damage. Definitely better than the one I found in Green's Mill Run! I found this micro crab claw dactyl while cleaning a different specimen. Some areas had microfossils inside of larger specimens, depending on how the preservation was. I finally found shark teeth as well! The white mako is around 5.715 cm (2.25 inches) long, and if the marbled one had it's full root it would be even longer. I found the bottom four purely by accident while getting the coordinates of the deceased sturgeon early that morning. One visitor found a half Otodus megalodon or Otodus chubutensis tooth with beautiful serrations. I found a lot of Discinisca lugubris brachiopod shells this time around, particularly in the area where the calcite was common. Here is one with some calcite to the left of it. There were a lot more Skolithos to be collected this time! The first specimen was given to me by the man who put the whole hunt together, and the second one was one I found later. These particular specimens are nice because they are visible both as cross sections and from above / below, whereas usually it's just one or the other. I found a new type of scallop this trip as well, Placopecten! These are also extremely fragile, so they're currently on-hold and sitting in one spot until I can get some better preservation for them. This one I'm a little unsure on, I'm thinking a Cliona sponge but it might also be a bryozoan colony. It's on a fragment of Chesapecten with a lot of sponge bore holes. (I'll make a post with better pictures in Fossil I.D. later when I get time.) The last on my major finds, these are some intact clams, and they are a lot more durable than the last ones I found! I can handle these to a higher degree than the other ones I found without them falling apart on me. I still want to get some kind of preservation on them. Someone at the hunt recommended Krylon clear coat, I'll have to experiment with it on some other specimens. And as a bonus, these are not my finds, but one of my cabin neighbor's finds. This is an regular echinoid he found, as well as a plate he found containing a fragmented Mellita sand dollar. While I found the very small fragment attached to a Chesapecten, according to the man who set up this hunt he's never seen a sand dollar like that found in the locality, making it a first. That's all for now! Nothing new on the Triassic spots, but I'm closing in on one, and the other is looking promising for next January once hunting season has passed.- 14 replies
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- early pliocene
- late miocene
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Hello ! just wondering if anyone has ever been to Chippokes State Park Plantation in Surry Va. I have been there about 6-8 times haven’t had much luck there. I’ve found probably only 10 teeth at that location. Can anyone share their finds from there? @HoppeHuntinghave you ever been to Chippokes? If so have you had much luck there?
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Acquired by purchase a while ago from a collector from Surry, VA. The site is no longer available to the public.
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- james river
- surry
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Amazing I haven't joined this page before, in the past few years
DustyRanger posted a topic in Member Introductions
From Virginia, now living in Corpus Christi, going to TAMUCC. Each Winter I go home for Christmas and kayak miles on the river, to look for fossils.. I started out hooked on blackriverfossils years ago, then all the fossil pages on FB.. Fossil Forum, Fossils of Calvert Cliffs, Megalodon Maniacs, etc.. It's hard being in Corpus, where hunting for vertebrates is ....slim.