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Hi Everyone, I have just joined the forum and am on the hunt for fossil enthusiasts in the UK for an editorial photography project for a very well known publication. For quick reference, here is my instagram page: www.instagram.com/maxmiechowski In an ideal world, the photography story would focus on an individual who is particularly passionate about fossil hunting. My preference would be if they live near the Jurassic Coast, as it's so good for fossils and is very picturesque. Of course, it would be perfect if the individual is photogenic - perhaps someone a little older, with a strong look (think long white beard/hair/interesting clothes etc). It would also be great if their home was filled with fossils! The series would be a mixture of portraits, still life images of fossils, and atmospheric shots of the subject hunting for them. I'm also open to alternative suggestions - perhaps youth groups that do fossil hunting, or any other interesting stories! Let me know if this is you or anyone you know, or any suggestions for other forums that could be worth trying! I would, of course, provide some beautiful prints of the images as a thank you for your time. Looking forward to hearing from you all, Max

Found this bone fairly deep on the floor in a cave called Horseshoe cave in North Yorkshire England Looks quite old ,very light its 11cm long and 3 cm depth

Found this specimen at a site in High Wycombe, England within Clay-with-Flints Formation approximately 1m below existing ground level.

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!

Location: Tankerton, Kent, UK Epoch and Age: Eocene; Ypresian Geology: London Clay formation Date visited: 3 March 2024 This is written with an intent to help other people visiting Tankerton, rather than to brag about all the great finds I had (of which there were none). We decided to try out this location as prior in the week there had been substantial rain storms with high winds, so I thought perhaps scouring conditions may occur to reveal the clay. I was wrong. At roughly an hour before low tide there was a great deal of shingle/pebbles on the beach, but also a fair amount of silt. I trekked out as far as I could go while my daughter and husband went to play in the sandy part of the upper foreshore, but met with no luck. We were about 200m west of Long Rock, as the UK Fossils website <https://ukfossils.co.uk/2012/01/24/tankerton/> had said that was the best area. Perhaps the low tide also wasn’t low enough? I also don’t have any experience looking for nodule beds, whereas someone else may have been able to locate them amongst the pebbles. Everything looked more or less the same to me, apart from a couple of ‘rivers’ running from the foreshore into the sea, which I did investigate to no avail. Upon further reading, it seems that scouring conditions are difficult to predict and really require substantial winds at the time of the visit, creating that ‘wavy’ pattern on the sediment of the beach. I looked at some picture of ‘scouring conditions’, and it definitely was not like that when we went. Unfortunately, this meant that the finds were thin and far between. I only found one nodule of the correct type – that light brown ‘milky tea’ colour, and unfortunately it was empty. My daughter really likes ‘sea treasure’, and I did find a few pieces of old pottery, so she was delighted with those bits. One is in her bed to keep it safe and didn’t make it into the photo as I dare not remove it. As far as other finds go, the only thing I’m pleased with is a tiny fragment of pyritised crinoid stem. I thought it was a stick when I went to pick it up, but couldn’t break it with my fingernail, and upon closer inspection the rings around the outside are visible. It doesn’t have a star pattern, though, just round. I've attached my reference image, too. I found a couple of things that might be lobster burrows (B and C); I noticed the presence of an outer ring around a central core, so that’s where I got my identification. I would be grateful if someone could confirm/correct this guess. D and E have interesting shapes. D appears to have some small pores at the top of what looks like branch stems, so perhaps some sort of coral structure? E is a very smooth long oval shape, and has a tiny section of pattern. Not sure, but thought the shape might be suggestive (of what, I couldn’t say). F has a nice colour and perhaps an imprint on the inside? That could certainly be a geologic formation, but didn’t want to rule it out. G (on main photo) I think is half of the outside of a worm burrow. It could be man-made, but the material does seem to be rock rather than concrete. H (on main photo) appears to have a number of tiny worm burrows digging into the material. I found a few pieces like this, so just took one as an example. My other that was that it was more recent sea creatures digging into it as there was a fair amount of seaweed growing on it stuck fast – is there a way to tell? I is another interesting one, and not sure if it’s geologic in nature. The round circles in the middle are of a different quality from the rest of the matrix, and I’m hoping that someone can indicate whether it’s fossil material or just a different mineral inside. Regardless, it looks cool and is the only one of its type I found. A few neat stones, some larger worn shell pieces, and a few shells my daughter picked up round out the collection. My improvement points would be to definitely make sure the conditions are correct in order to not be met with disappointment and frustration. Perhaps if someone is really experienced in spotting the cream-coloured nodules they would do fine in just a low tide, but it proved beyond my capacities. We still had a great time as the wind was very mild, particularly in the first hour, and it wasn’t raining (about all you could ask for in early March). It’s a lot of fun to check out new locations, and at the very least you learn something for the next trip! Cheers!

Greetings, I have 4 pieces from Charmouth on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset that I am having trouble identifying. They were found during a fossil hunt led by the Charmouth Heritage Coast Center when they brought us to a stretch of beach between the Centre and Black Ven to the west. We would have been looking through the Black Ven Mudstone 'Shales with Beef' portion on the foreshore, which is from the Jurassic (no surprise, given the name of the area) period. Here are my best guesses: A = rolled bone, B = crinoid stem or coral, C = multiple bivalves and ammonite impression in matrix, D (the unlabelled one) = wood As always, corrections/confirmations/clarifications are much appreciated, as is your time for reading my post!