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TFF friends, How are you? It's been a while i post here although i still read almost daily posts on the forum. Last month on the 30 and the 31th, i had the opportunity to make a 2 days field trip to the yamaguchi prefecture with the association of the Goshoura Cretaceous Museum's friends. We spend 2 days there discovering the local geology and history with paleontologists friends. Let me share with you this experience. First day. We left kumamoto at 7 in the morning and drove for about 3 hous to our first destination called Mine. Around the city of Mine and particularly on the northern part of the city can be found the toyoura formation. It is a clastic sediment marine formation that formed during the sinemurian-bathonian period. This formation formed the same way Holzmaden formed and a lot of very well preserved marine organisms such as bivalves, ammonites, belemnites and plants can be found. We first explored a small river without much success. While everybody found plant fragments, i found 2 nice belemnites. I read that belemnites were pretty rare and that only one specie was described from this formation so i believe they are Acrocoelites mantanii from the megateuthidinae sub-familly. We found only few fossils there but it was a great occasion to enjoy our meal under a japanese cherry tree, symbol of the japanese spring. We then followed the stream until the main river where we search the river bed for ammonites. We found some nice specimens (Dactylioceras, Cleviceras and Protogrammoceras) and some plants material (i love the coloration) but we had to leave quickly the river bed as the water level rose-up in a blink of an eye. Weather was good but where we were but you never know what happen upstream. One cannot be too careful. We leaved the field and were about to drive to the Hotaru Museum when somebody told us by inadvertancy that the older part of the parking lot was filled with fossiliferous limestone from the Akiyoshidai locality. We didn't have to think twice and went through all the gravel in hope to find carboniferous fusulinas, brachiopods, and corals. We spend 30 minutes there and were about to leave when we noticed tortoise bones were here and there, lying on the floor. Do i have to explain you what followed? TREASURE HUNT! We finally left the place for the hotaru museum. It is a small museum dedicated to the fireflies but part of the exhibit contained also fossils. Here some pictures. After the museum, we checked-in at the hotel and had a rests with well-deserved beer, some card trick and a lot of fossils conversations. It is being late here so i will post the next post tomorrow. I hope you have enjoyed this one. David.
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