Search the Community

I was back in the Wutach on Friday and visited a spot in the Callovian. Found a few pieces worth keeping and this is the first one which I just finished prepping. One of the more rare ammonites. A Bullatimorphites bullatus. More to follow once I'm done with the prep.

I was hoping today to continue on with my foraging expedition from last week, but when I got to my little mountain in the Wutach, there was still too much snow lying on the slopes to guarantee me not slipping and sliding over precipices, so I decided to just go to my exposure and do a bit more digging. This time I remembered to take along the camera, so I can show you a bit of the landscape and give you an impression of the digging activity. The first three pics are on the approach to the exposure. Can you guess where it is? A little hilly, eh?

I had the whole day available for a prolonged tour on Saturday, so I decided to spend it exploring the sides of the small mountain in the Wutach valley where I've been making some good finds in the Callovian for the last year or so. Since my usual dig is getting tougher to work, particularly since I'm spending more time removing overburden than I am digging fossils, I figured I'd foray on into the unknown in search of new exposures. I spent a good 4 hours clambering about the slopes at the appropriate height and managed to cover about half of the mountain in that time. I did manage to find a few exposures, but they weren't quite at the horizon I was looking for. Never mind. You can't expect to strike a bonanza every time you do some exploring. I then headed back to my usual spot and managed to dig out a few little ammonites until dusk set in. The day was by no means a loss. It just felt good having a little adventure. If the snow holds back, I may head out again next weekend and check out the other half of the hillside. I'll try to remember to take my camera along with me then in order to let you join in. Sorry I forgot it again, but here are some pics of the little ones at least.

Yesterday I returned to the new spot in the Callovian of the Wutach valley which I presented in one of my previous posts. This time the guys couldn't come, so I walked in alone, not to say without a little trepidation since I lost my way on the return journey last time. But thanks to google earth, a geological map of the area and a memory of at least a couple of landmarks, I managed to find my way in. Finding my way out was no problem, since I made sure to file away every twist and turn this time. My knapsack was however so heavy that I ended up depositing it after I'd just managed to lug it up the steep incline above the exposure and found my way back to the foresters road. I then walked out and drove back in with my car to pick it up, which actually isn't allowed, but... well, rules are made to be broken, right? At any rate, I remembered to take along my camera this time and made a few shots while at the exposure which I'll show here for starters. The first is a shot of the corner I was working on, the second a typical oops, broke it in two and gotta glue it back together in the workshop situation and the third shows my finds at halftime. Just imagine double the amount plus all your tools on your back and trying to clamber up about 20 meters of slippery slope. At least I could use my pickle to keep my balance. I'll post the prepared finds bit by bit here as I get them done. I'm particularly excited about the large Macrocephalites on the right.

Yesterday I was invited by a few collector friends to join them at a site in the Wutach valley which I had not yet had the opportunity to visit. It was a bit tricky getting there, so I'm glad that they guided me on the walk in. I had to leave earlier than them and ended up taking a wrong turn on the way out since I was deep in conversation with them on the way in and didn't pay proper attention to the lefts and rights, but that's another story. Suffice to say I spent an hour longer in the woods than planned, but I was saved by a nice person in the town I ended up in who drove me back to my car. Anyway, we had a successful day of collecting and I just wanted to show an ammonite that I just finished prepping. It's a Bullatimorphites bullatus partial phragmocone with a diameter of 4.5cm. The stratigraphy is the same as at my other Callovian site, so it was also interesting to compare exposures. I'll post some more here as I get them finished and hope to get back there for some more digging in a couple of weeks time.

As many of you have probably noticed, I've been concentrating my fossil hunting efforts mostly on the Kimmeridgian in the Danube Valley or on the Callovian in the Wutach. Yesterday I felt like having a change of scenerey, so I decided to visit the classic site at Scheffheu in the Wutach Valley. I didn't realize it at the tme, but I hadn't been back there for a day of serious collecting for 5 years. My, how time flies! At any rate, it was amazing to see how the site had changed over these few years. The beaten path up the hill, which leads first through woods and which used to continue on up to the top through stone strewn open spaces was now practically overshadowed with tall shrubs and trees and only opened up at the very top. The exposures were basically the same ones, but some were now covered with debris and others were better exposed due to land slips. Also, some of them which had been composed of steely hard rock which was practically impossible to break into were now sufficiently weathered to be able to have a go at them. This time I thought to take along my camera, so I can give you a few impressions. First, a shot of the exposure in the middle Jurassic Aalenian which I decided after a bit of reconnaissance could be worth a closer investigation. I then decided to create a bench at this spot, which was out of the sun. I could tell by the makeup of the stone that I was in the staufensis Bank and it didn't take all that long before I had found a few ammonites. Yes, it was a little muddy in spots. In situ pics with a few ammos before and after excavation. Even though the matrix was weathered making for cracks, it is still extremely hard, so it's not always possible to extract the fossils in one piece. You just have to make sure to collect up all the bits and then there's some puzzle work to do at home. After a couple of hours at this level, I decided to try get down lower to the next fossiliferous layer, the sinon Banks, which provides a slightly different fauna. I had to remove a few larger blocks to this purpose. It was somewhat tedious, but it worked. Continued....

I was halfway to the Wutach this morning when I suddenly realized that I'd forgotten my camera again. Sorry 'bout that There would have been some nice in situ shots, but at least I can show you what I found. It was a really hot day, and despite the fact that I was in the shadow of the woods, I was sweating like a race horse. I held out for about 6 hours, consumed 2 liters of water and had just told myself I'd had enough when I decided to just chip out that corner over there. And guess what? That big one at the top right popped out. A fine conclusion to a pretty successful hunt. I'll post some of these here as I get them prepped and I promise to do my best as far as cameras are concerned next time around.

I recently posted a report here about the finds I made on a trip to the Wutach Valley and promised that the next time I went there, I would finally remember to take my camera along. For those of you who may not be aware, the Wutachtal (in German) is quite a large area and also the name of a municipality in the southeastern Black Forest region. Within this area are a good number of beautiful nature reserves, the best known of which is the Wutachschlucht, or Wutach Gorge in English. It's not quite as huge as the Grand Canyon, but is certainly comparable with the Verdon Gorge, a famous tourist trap in the Provence in France. The Wutach (English: angry brook) has its source in the highest peak of the Black Forest massif, and winds its way eastward through crystalline paleozoic sediments and then more and more rapidly cutting down through first Permian, then Triassic and finally Jurassic and Cenozoic layers. One would think when you move down that the layers would get older, but due to 2 successive tectonic uplifts in the Late Jurassic and late Cretacous periods, the entire southern German tectonic plate is tipped 7° to the east. All of the Cretaceous sediments were also eroded away a long time ago, which is why they can't be found, even underground, in southwestern Germany. The area that has particularly interested me is the one in the municipality of Wutachtal, where a good portion of the Jurassic layers are exposed. It's a classical area for geologists and paleontologists and of course amateur collectors like myself. I've been exploring and looking for exposures for many years, first focussing on the Lower Jurassic, then particularly the Middle Jurassic Aalenian and Bajocian stages and now for going on 2 years, I've been concentrating my efforts on the Callovian Wutach Formation. I've managed to find an area where I've been able to regularly make some finds and recently returned to an exposure which panned out quite well, so I decided I definitely had to get back there again soon. So I was just there yesterday. Here come some pics of it to which I'll first describe the exposure for you. What you see here is a series of mostly soft clay marl layers with the odd hard marly limestone bank in between. Almost all of the sediment is extremely turbidite and full of iron oolites, which accounts for the pronounced red, reddish-brown, yellowy and violet tints. In the middle of the photo is the negative imprint of a large Macrocephalites ammonite which I dug out on the previous excursion. This imprint sits on top of a hard limestone bank. The sediment above it is a much softer clay, which allows mostly for a successful excavation of the fossils in this particular bank. And at this partular small exposure I should add. Conditions can vary when one moves horizontally. Nevertheless, fossils found in this bank here are by far the best preserved. This photo shows the same layers, just a little to the right. And here a little to the left. Note the white limestone sinter, which can be a disturbance to the fossils. The lithological name for this zone is the "Rotes Erlager". As a biozone it's called the herveyi zone. This is about 1 meter thick. This pile which lies between pic 1 & 3 accomodates my scree, broken bits of ammonites, for the moment. I'll be removing it later on, just as I have in the past at the other points, in order to get at the layers. This was my first find of the day. Looks to be a Choffatia sp. Slightly deformed. A couple more. Not easy to see what's in the matrix, is it? Now you know why I use an air abrader You just have to break up some of these big rocks in order to get the little jewels out. Otherwise your knapsack is so heavy by the end of a successful day, that you can't heave it onto your back any more. At this point, I'd dug into the sinter vein. Time to get it out and get around it. I've just run out of pixels. Time to move on to the next post