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Ok..so far I’ve posted my turrilites and my woodbine ammonites, next will be these eopachydiscus ammonites and my oxytropidoceras, with echinoids and most (some are at the beauty shop) of my mortoniceras ammonites. these eopachydiscus ammonites represent at least a couple of different species from the looks of it, though I am not knowledgeable regarding scientific names, I just know they look different! LOL..no preparation has been applied other than soap/water and a little careful chiseling of matrix that I thought I could tackle. One of the big ones cracked in half due to it being my first big one to remove. I used Elmer’s glue and crushed limestone to fill the crack but I’ll likely soak it to get it out and replace it with an epoxy. Another one is cracked but never broke, I put super glue in the cracks just in case. Nice sutures on a few! 2 of the smaller eopachydiscus are 11-12 inches across, the biggest is around 17 inches, most are 14-15 inches.

I had to return some clothes to the shopping mall yesterday. Rather, I volunteered to return them with a spot in mind that is right next to the mall where I found some big boy ammonites, eopachydiscus upwards of 15-19inches. The rain uncovered a nice one that was in loose soil. For some reason, many of the ammonites in this creek are really worn down in the center. How do you all handle removing matrix if you’re concerned about leaving a hole in the middle? I’m thinking I can simply “file” down the matrix until it looks like it’s as far as I can go using some sort of air abrasive tool? This one is 15.5 inches and I like the symmetrical shape and visible ridges. Many eop. I find are smooth around the outside without the wavy appearance. Different species?

At two different times this year (but at the same basic location), I found sense interesting ammonites that both contained other ammonites inside. This is near Johnson/Tarrant County borders in North Texas. The first shown is an eopachydiscus in fairly rough shape that has a hamite embedded. The second is a mortoniceras with two extremely tiny mortoniceras ammonites visible inside. I’m guessing the smaller ones settled on the ocean floor after the larger ones and actually ended up inside those larger ammonites? I am not an expert on these so I appreciate your input!

I went to my first show in Glen Rose over the weekend. I met some great people and had a good time! I managed to only buy 2 fossils….LOL! I sold everything I didn’t want to keep from my entry year to collecting halfway through the show, which amounted to a lot..I will miss some of the big eopachydiscus (19 incher was sold) but I have bigger ones I kept at home..also sold one of my nice oxytropidoceras but have 3 big ones at home. I’m ready to replenish my empty bedroom with new fossils! I was also really proud to see how well Mercer Brugler cleaned up the mortoniceras he got from me that I originally found this summer, if you saw them when I gave them to him you wouldn’t recognize the fossils..very motivating to learn how to clean them like he does.

Hello everyone , this is my first post on here so go easy on me lol. I just bought this Eopachydiscus and im waiting on it in the mail. Is there anything i can do to clean it up a little ? or do you think i sjhould just leave it as is? thanks for your time ! p.s -its 12 inches across if you needed an idea of size.

Last Saturday I took a break from the Austin Chalk experiment that I am conducting. I decided to go hit a Lower Cretaceous-aged, Washita Group, Pawpaw formation site I have not been to in a while. It was pretty successful. I was able to find many near complete and partial examples of crabs, mostly of the genus Xanthosia. I believe I found 2 species of that genus. I got one nice Cretacorina (may have butchered that name) and a few examples of an elongate crab as well. There were also a few partial examples of lobster, Linuparis. Add in a couple of Leptostyrax macrorhiza and Cretolamna appendiculata shark teeth, and a few fish vertebrae, and it was a pretty good trip. There were even a couple of dwarf ammonites present, which is fairly rare for this particular site, though not really that rare in the Pawpaw. On the way home I passed right by a Duck Creek Formation site my father and I collected together probably 20 or 25 years ago. I did not believe there would be any fossils there, but remembering the times he and I had, I stopped anyway. There were a few Mortoniceras ammonites there, and at the bottom of the hill someone had apparently highgraded a large but partial example of an Eopachydiscus marcianus ammonite. I left it there for the next guy. I found one of the morts in a block of Duck Creek limestone. I took a picture of it as I found it. Then there is another picture of what it looked like when I removed the matrix block from around the ammonite. It was almost complete and not nearly perfect, but a reminder that sometimes these ammonites only show you a little and have a lot more hiding underneath the matrix. I have included a lot of images, some of the fossils as they looked in the field and some group shots as well.