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Fossil hunting trip to Couvin (Devonian of Belgium)
ziggycardon posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hi everyone! Today I went on another fossil hunting trip with the fossil club the BVP. https://www.paleontica.org/sites/fossil_site.php?plaats=3&language=en We visited the "La Couvinoise" quarry in Couvin, Belgium. The rocks in this quarry are part of the Hanonet Formation which lies at the boundry of the Eifelian & Givetian. But the layers we searched in today where all Givetian in age (387,7 - 382,7 mya), I mainly searched in the Crinoïd & Brachiopod layer. Although I have to admit that we probably visited the quarry at a bad moment, as the yield was quite poor in the quarry this time according to members who've been there before. Which was quite obvious as I think we only found our first fossil rich rocks after 50 minutes of searching and even then the first hour of finds where few and poor in quality. But after a while of searching I found some good and rich blocks and managed to get some decent Crinoïd stems, Brachiopods and some rugose coral pieces. But the best 3 finds we did during the last 30 minutes of being in the quarry. The 1st one was the only Trilobite I found during the hunt! Trilos are very rare from this quarry and I believe only 1 other member found one before me on this trip. I found a pygidium which is still partially enbedded in rock. At first I wasn't sure whether I was a trilo or a brachiopod but after having a couple of other members checking it out, they all believed it to be trilobite. The excursion leader time was quite amazed by the find as this trilo came from the Crinoïd layer, which is a layer where he believed no trilobite had ever been found. The trilobites are usually found in another part and layer a bit further in the quarry. So yeah I am very pleased with that find! The 2nd best find, was one I didn't find myself but recieved from our Excursion leader Tom, which was a piece of very nice Stromatoporoidea which I wasn't lucky enough to find. The 3rd best find an perhaps my favorite was something that Tom told me to check out. He had discovered the remains of a cave that collapsed during some excavations in the quarry. You could clearly see the remains of dripping stones on the walls and luckily for us, some pieces of those dripping stones where also laying on the ground. So I managed to take a nice piece of them home with me They are encrusted with a layer of dried mud but I am sure they will look gorgeous once they are cleaned! The rings are already clearly visable in some areas. Here are some pictures from inside the quarry. This was the way to the newly excavated plateau which unfortunatly was a complete was of time as not a single fossil could be found in those rocks. After that we went to the other lower parts of the quarry where I mainly worked in a single piece of wall in the Crinoïd layer. I was lucky enough to find a few good fallen blocks and some good places in the wall with some decent Crinoïds and Brachiopods. One of the nice Crinoïds stems I found in the layer. And here is the piece of wall that has some of the dripping stones in it.- 12 replies
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- trilobite
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Fossil hunting trip to Resteigne (Devonian of Belgium)
ziggycardon posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hi everyone! Yesterday my girlfriend & I went on a fossil hunting trip to an abandoned quarry in Resteigne in Belgium. https://www.paleontica.org/sites/fossil_site.php?plaats=10&language=en I am currently at home for some time due to mental health issues. I am currently dealing with despression and severe anxiety attacks all related to COVID-19, I am in a risk group and work in an essential store and the stress and way that people threat you finally became too much and I simply snapped. I finally decided to go see a doctor and a psychologist to help out of it all. Since besides going to work I hadn't left the house for the past 6 months and I really needed to get out to help me get rid of the stress and fear, so both the psychologist and doctor encouraged my to go on some fossilhunts as I needed to come out of the house and do some outdoor activities to help with my healing process. So yesterday I went on my first hunt to help me recover! The quarry we visited was an abandoned quarry in Resteigne and the rocks found there are Devonian in age. Most of the fossils found here are from the Eifelian (393.3 - 387.7 mya) and are part of the Jemelle formation. We arrived quite early at the quarry and spent almost 5 and a half hours searching for fossils here. Since we went on a normal week day, we were lucky enough the have the quarry all to our self! Since it was our first time in the quarry we didn't really find anything too spectacular, but I am very happy with the things we found and most important of all, we had a great and fun day! The surrounding environment was stunning and the weather was prefect, sunny but not too hot and not too cold! Ruguse coral in the rocks Only 15 minutes after we arrived we already found our first trilobite! Unfortunatly it was enbedded in a big boulder of very though rock at an impossible angle to remove. We did try to remove it, but when we noticed it would be near impossible and removing it would probably destroy the trilo we eventually decided to leave it. There where multiple other fossils in the same boulder, among them these nice Brachiopods- 25 replies
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Help! I am looking for fossilhunt spot in Belgium (Easy Access)
ziggycardon posted a topic in Europe
Hi everyone. I was hoping some of our European members might be able to help me out a little. I am currently at home due to depression, burn-out and severe anxiety attacks all related due to the COVID-19 situation (I work in a essential store and I belong to the risk groups, so after 6 months the stress finally became too much). Long story short, I haven’t left the house since march (except for work), the only 4 times I left was because I had to go to the doctor. But now I am at home and I am currently in therapy with a psychologist and the natural next step is to finally venture outside for the first time since march. So one of the idea’s I had was to go out and pick up fossil hunting again as a way to deal with the anxiety, stress and trauma. I started in august last year and managed to go on 3 hunts since then. 2 with the fossil club (the hunt to Eben-Emael & to Rumst) and 1 hunt one my own in close proximity to home. But since I am new to hunting I don’t know that many good spots to start, I have some idea’s but I have no clue where to start. I already have 1 hunt planned with the club on september 19 to the Devonion of Couvin, but I would like to have been out there again before I go on a group hunt. So I am looking for good fossil locations in Belgium (Normally the Netherlands of Germany would be fine too, but I am not quite mentally ready to leave my country at the moment), I don’t really care about the age of the fossils, I am interested in pretty much everything. But I am looking for places that are easy to access, places where you can hunt without permission. I also asked on the dutch forum, but I know there are a lot of Dutch, Belgian, French & German members here as well who might be able to help. So any locations, suggestions and tips are welcome, if anyone knows some fun places to hunt, I’d love to hear your experiences from there. Some places I had in mind where: The Ardennes: I have heart many great things about people hunt in the Ardennes, but I don’t really know where to start and which are good and easy spots to visit. I was thinking to maybe visit Barvaux, as I have heard it is legendary for it’s brachiopods. But any suggestions are welcome or if any one has some experiences of their own in Barvaux or other places in the Ardennes. Resteigne: This location really sparked my attention as I heard many great things about it. If I read correctly it is a closed quarry that is free to access and which is easy to hunt where some cool Devonian finds can be done. If anyone has been to this quarry I would love to hear your experiences! Antwerp: I know the Antwerp region is world renowned with fossil lovers all over the world because of it’s richness in Miocene & Pliocene shark teeth. And I know that many people hunt there, but I have no idea where these locations are and if they are free to access? Is anyone here on the forum active there? And do you recommend going there as a beginning fossil hunter? And while I don’t know a location to start looking for them, but I am very interested in searching for Carboniferous plant material, preferably in some coal quarry dump site. I know that we had many coal mines in the past, but I don’t know if there are any dumps left that are accessible. I looking for one that are preferable in Limburg or near Liège as that is quite close to where I live. The Schneeberg in Aachen: this is the last place I have in mind and while it isn’t located in Belgium, it is located very close to home. This hill lies on the Dutch/German border the Maastrichtian limestone there is part of the same formations that can be found at Eben-Emael, ENCI in Maastricht and all the other Dutch Limestone quarries that are part of the Maastrichtian type locality. Since those quarries are one of my main interests, but most are closed, the Schneeberg is quite high on the list. So I was wondering whether anyone has hunted there yet and what are your experiences there. I know I ask a lot about a lot of very different localities, but I really need to get back out there to help me put my mind at ease. And I would really appreciate any help and tips and suggestions that I can get. My goal is to trying to visit a different location every week. Maybe @Manticocerasman, @Natalie81, @Indagator, @gigantoraptor & @Joeri_R know some good places to start and have some tips or suggestions? Thank you all in advance! Yours sincerely, Ziggy -
I have a few shark teeth from Belgium here. Belgian shark teeth are not my area and I'd appreciate some help identifying these. They're from the Antwerp Miocene, around 1/2" each. Thank you, Bellamy
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A new paper is available online: Bisconti M, Bosselaers MEJ. 2020. A new balaenopterid species from the Southern North Sea Basin informs about phylogeny and taxonomy of Burtinopsis and Protororqualus (Cetacea, Mysticeti, Balaenopteridae) PeerJ 8:e9570 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9570 The description of a new Protororqualus species from the Zanclean of the southern North Sea basin as well as North Carolina comes months after the publication of the PeerJ paper describing a new Archaebalaenoptera species from the southern North Sea, furthering making clear that the geographic distribution of extinct rorqual genera is widespread like modern rorquals. This paper also re-assesses the genus Burtinopsis, agreeing with Steeman (2010) in treating this genus as dubious (of the material included in the hypodigms of both Burtinopsis species, only 11 can be safely regarded as belonging to Balaenopteridae, of which RBINS M 688 and M 702 mostly closely resemble the earbones of Protororqualus).
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After a pretty succesfull hunt in Germany last week i’m now in Belgium for a week with my kids. Due to Covid this trip was poorly planned. We were basically happy to find accomodation at last notice and have a nice stream nearby for a swim. Arriving here i noticed a place called Barvaux which sounded familiar. Yesterday i suddenly realised it is a well know site for fossils from the Carboniferus. So without any tools ( all left at home ) we still managed to find these Sperifer’s. I’ll probably check the site again later this week for better ones....
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Last weekend we were invited by a few friends to joint hem on a fieldtrip in Famennian ( Late Devonian ) deposits in Belgium. They sometimes visit this place specifically to look for Devonian plant material. Although paleobatany is not our cup of tea they convinced us to come along because they had also found fish remains from time to time, so we tagged along in the hope to find some Devonian fish. At first we didn’t find much apart from the plant material, but one of our friends led us to a boulder where he had seen some fish scales on a previous visit. And indeed, after closer inspection we saw a big scale on the surface, but also a fish tooth from a Dipneustes. So once we knew what to look for we checked out different layers with the same correlation as the one where we had the first fish remains. It didn’t take us long after that to find a deposit where we found other fish remains, although the layer was hard to get to we did find some loose rocks from there that we cracked open with good results. Finally we got home with multiple scales from Holoptychi and Tristichopterids, a few Dipneustes teeth and we even found a quite impressive Arthrodire placoderm jaw. Most of this material was really brittle and we had to consolidate most of the specimens before extracting them. I would say not a bad catch for a first try at famennian fish Field pictures: This is an overview of some of the best finds from that day: dipnoi teeth: Tristichopterid: Holoptychius: The placoderm jaw:
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One for @Auspex in case he missed it. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00876-x Skull found by an amateur fossil hunter in Belgium, now THAT is a candidate for FOTM!!! Enjoy
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This weekend we finaly got out after those long months of lockdown. This time I am prepping a gephuroceratid that Natalie found. They are often found on top of the limestone banks, but this time she found one peeking out the center of the limestone bank. The position of the fossil didn’t make the prep any easier, since I had to grind away as much as possible of the matrix with a powertool without cutting in the fossil. Luckily I just missed a 2d goniatite hidden in the matrix with the grinder. After 4 to 5 hours of prepping with grinder, chisels, with air scribe and a finishing touch of color deepener for marble, this is the result: 2 Manticoceras sp. Late Devonian ( Frasnian ) Lompret ( Belgium ) As found: Step by step:
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It has been a while since I've posted on the forum, so here is a prepwork from this weekend It is a late devonian orthocone, it was quite a hustle to get this out of the rock, it broke in 3 pieces during the extraction in the field. Only a part of the shell was exposed, so I took a whole lenght of matrix back hoping that it contained a whole specimen, and it did The prepwork went realy well, and even the tip of the orthocone was preserved. The 3 parts glued back together, showing only a glimps of the orthocone: clearing out the fossil: a bit of marble treatment on the shell and done
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Found this, what looks like a shell in granite. Riverbed in Wallonia, south of Belgium. River, the Ourthe (or Semois). Any chance this could be named or roughly dated?
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Amateur with regards to stones and fossils but always interested me since I was little. Got this collection of stones an aunt assembled on here journeys. My jongest still picks up stones wherever he goes so I guess it runs in the family. He was actually looking in that same collection and broke what I believe is slate and found something with a distinct shape and different colour. Could this be a fossil or formation of other type of mineral? Region is unsure, most likely Belgium, Wallonia (south) Regards, Simon
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Two new papers on fossil Balaenidae are available online: Guillaume Duboys de Lavigerie, Mark Bosselaers, Stijn Goolaerts, Travis Park, Olivier Lambert & Felix G. Marx (2020) New Pliocene right whale from Belgium informs balaenid phylogeny and function. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2020.1746422 Yoshihiro Tanaka; Hitoshi Furusawa; Masaichi Kimura (2020). A new member of fossil balaenid (Mysticeti, Cetacea) from the early Pliocene of Hokkaido, Japan. Royal Society Open Science. 7 (4): Article ID 192182. doi:10.1098/rsos.192182. Until recently, the diversity of extinct balaenids from Belgium was confined to three genera, Balaenotus, Balaenula, and Balaenella, but the description of Antwerpibalaena adds a new twist to balaenid diversity in the North Sea. Interestingly, Archaeobalaena was originally considered a specimen of Balaenula, but its recognition as a generically distinct form muddies waters with regards to the diversity of balaenids phylogenetically intermediate between Peripolocetus and crown Balaenidae. By the way, could I have a copy of the paper titled "New Pliocene right whale from Belgium informs balaenid phylogeny and function"?
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These Oligocene shark teeth from Temse (Boom formation, Rupelian, Oligocene) were classified as Odontaspis robusta, but I'm not so sure about it, as some of them lack cusplets. Could they be Isurolamna/some kind of Isurus?
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'Wonderchicken,' the Earliest Known Modern Bird (Belgium)
Oxytropidoceras posted a topic in Fossil News
Fossil Reveals 'Wonderchicken,' the Earliest Known Modern Bird George Dvorsky, Gizmodo, MArch 18, 2020 https://gizmodo.com/fossil-reveals-wonderchicken-the-earliest-known-modern-1842395362 'Wonderchicken': oldest fossil of modern bird discovered Tiny creature, half the size of a mallard, found in rocks dating back to dinosaur age. The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/18/wonderchicken-oldest-fossil-of-modern-bird-discovered Papers: Field, D.J., Benito, J., Chen, A. et al. Late Cretaceous neornithine from Europe illuminates the origins of crown birds. Nature 579, 397–401 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2096-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2096-0 K. Padian. Poultry through time. Nature. Vol. 579, March 18, 2020, p. 351. doi: d41586-020-00766-2. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00766-2 Twitter - Daniel J. Field - Discovery of skull while CT scanning https://twitter.com/daniel_j_field/status/1240308990694825991 "Best heart attack ever." Yours, Paul H.- 3 replies
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Quick fieldwork in the devonian before the storm
Manticocerasman posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Saturday we went back to the south of Belgium to check out the quarry where I like to hunt for goniatites. The last 6 months there was litlle activity in the quarry and I was hoping that things had changed by now and the would have dug further, but alas there stil was no change. Still the bad weather and the storms of this winter cleaned out a lot of debris, we did find some nice fossils. At 1 pm we had to give up searching and ran back to the car due to heavy downpour and wind. Start of the day, gray and windy , but still dry: ptospecting the rubble , the first fossils apear: A big goniatite in the mud: Carinoceras sp. some parts of the shell missing. peeking out of the dirt: A little game for the TFF members, find the goniatite: the 2 best finds of the day: From Natalie a cute piece of placoderm: For me, I picked up a crinoid calix, I still have to remove some of the sediment around it: And we brought this one home to show to@Tidgy's Dad a large brachiopod -
I have a few teeth from the Lede Formation in Belgium. I've been using the belgiansharkteeth.be website, but these last few are making me scratch my head. The first one is 0.75 in long. Is it Brachycarcharias with very worn cusplets?
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The Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (Brussels): A tour by Ziggycardon
ziggycardon posted a topic in A Trip to the Museum
Hi everyone Last Thursday I went to visit the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels as a little pre-birthday trip. I have visited this museum several times in the past few years, but this time I took my camera with me and thought it might be fun to do a photo tour of the museum for this forum Beware, this will be quite a big topic that might take a few days to complete as I took nearly 750 photo's in the museum (a lot will have to be sorted out though due to blurry quality, photo's of only name tags and doubles) as I wanted to show pretty much all fossil displays Especially the Hall of the Dinosaurs, the hall of the Mosasaurs & The Hall of Evolution will be quite complete tours Starting off with some snapshots of the hall of the minerals. The meteorite display room- 63 replies
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Birthday fossil hunting trip (Cretaceous of Belgian & Dutch Limburg)
ziggycardon posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hello everyone, Yesterday my girlfriend & I went fossil hunting for birthday. This was the first fossil hunt the two of us did on our self, our previous hunts were all excursions with the Belgian Association for Paleontology. We visited two locations, but locations are part of the Formation of Gulpen, around 68 million years old, dating back to the Maastrichtian (these outcrops are part of the Maastrichtian type location where the first mayor Mosasaurus discovery was done). The first location we visited was a limestone outcrop next to the Albert Channel here in Belgium, only a 20 minute drive away. I discovered this outcrop while looking out the window whenever I drive to Maastricht and yesterday we decided to check it out. It is quite a little outcrop, no more than 70 meters wide, but one of the few places left where you can hunt in Limburg. We hunted here for around one and a half hour and we only searched the fallen and loose bits of limestone that were the results of erosion. We didn't want to start hacking in the rock. We mainly found ancient sea shells of different species and some bryozoa's in this location. And a some pieces of wall where teeming with urchin fragments, but we didn't find any intact one near the surface. But since the urchin graveyard was deeply enbedded in the rock and we didn't want to hack in it, we left it as it was The second location we visited was the "Grote Bos" in Beutenaken in The Netherlands. Here there are holloways in the forest that expose some limestone outcrops. This spot is known for it's belemnite which can be found on the forest paths, because the soft limestone gets eroded but hard belemnites remain, making them very easy to find. We found around 25 belemnites during our 1 hour hunt there as well as a shell imprint and a mystery fossil. Like the previous location, the patch of limestone where these belemnite can be found is also only around 70 meter long, but luckily very rich.- 26 replies
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This Monday we went on the last fieldtrip for this year, the weather forcast was cold but sunny so a good excuse to get out. We took te dog along and went to the quarry, A lonely excavator was operating in the far end of the pit, I went for a quick chat to let him know we were prospecting in the other side of the quarry and to ask if it was no issue for him. The fossil rich deposits had'nt moved since our last visit, but we still did find a few cephalopods. Natalie found a very promising one, the goniatite looks to be preserved completely in white calcite, I cant wait to get that one out of the matrix. For me the find of the day was a rare Carinoceras sp. goniatite , I have only a handfull of those at home, but this one is very well preserved and not compressed. Enjoy the pictures: Toto the dog prospecting the slates First goniatite of the day credits yo Natalie. a Tornoceras sp. A nice loose orthocone on the scree pile: The wite goniatite from Natalie: A large but wethered one on the scree pile. The Carinoceras sp.
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On Sunday December the 1st we attended to a fossil fair close to our home, it was a 15 minute drive to the town of Harelbeke where the event took place. It was the fair of the “Litos” geology club with a multitude of stands, from local collectors to professional sellers. Natalie helped at the entrance of the fair where free raffle tickets were given to the visitors to attend to a tombola. There were a few stands that sold old collection lots, here I bought 2 boxes of Albian ammonites for a very good price. for the record, Harelbeke is situated here : A few guidlines for the sellers: Pictures of the fair: My acquisitions:
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Hi everyone, saturday I went on my 2nd fossil hunting trip with my fossil club to the Wienerberger quarry in Rumst in the Rupel area near Antwerp (Belgium). We hunted mainly in a thin Miocene layer dating back to the Burdigalian around 20.43 - 15.97 million years ago. We found many shark teeth, most of which are C. hastalis, but there are a few I can't quite identify as shark teeth are not really my area of expertise and I was not acquainted with the location until my visit. So I was hoping some experts could me out or someone who is familiar with the species from the location. I did send an email to one of the excursion leaders from the trip, but he admitted not being a sharkteeth expert himself either and couldn't help me much further with ID's. So any help would be welcome. So the first batch of teeth are what I all believe to be C. hastalis. I am pretty confident with my ID on them but the other teeth are a mystery for me. These two teeth are pretty beaten up. The tooth on the right has no enamel layer anymore and I doubt an ID is impossible. But the tooth on the right could be beat-up C. hastalis but I am not sure, it also kinda looks like a pretty beat-up Carcharocles angustidens. The latter can be found at the location and are usually found in the bad condition due to the fact that they were present in a now lost layer a little bit older than the one were most shark teeth were. But as said before I am not an expert and I am just purely speculating with the little info on the location I have. I don't really know how to ID these teeth. Are they C. hastalis but located on different locations in the jaws than the previous C. hastalis teeth or do these belong to a different species? Then there are these 3 teeth that I don't know how to ID We also found a few small shark teeth of which I believe they might belong to a different species than C. hastalis And then the last tooth is this one, on first sight it kinda looks like a C. hastalis tooth but when you take a closer look you can see that the edges are serrated. So I wonder whether anyone know what species this could be? Well that were all, I would really appreciate some help for their ID's Thank you in advance!
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This saturday Natalie and I went on a fossil hunting trip to my favorite huntingspot in the hope to find a few devonian cephalopods. The weather conditions were cold but sunny to cloudy and the rain of the last week removed the dust from the rocks (although making the place muddy ) Not a lot had changed since our last visit, no expansion in the quarry or new scree piles so it didn't look verry prommising. But with a little perseverence we did get our haul of goniatites and orthocones. most came from the upper parts of the quarry so the were a bit wethered, although Natalie found a few very nice specimen. My best find was a rare nautiloid, but I have to prepp it out to see how it will turn out. after the hunting trip we visited an old marble quarry hidden in the forests in the area: Enjoy the pictures some vieuws of the area when leaving the quarry: some of the finds of the trip:
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Last weekend we went to a fieldtrip with the BVP ( Belgian Associaton for Paleontology ) to my favorite quarry We had the opportunity again to prospect the frasnian deposits around this fossil reef. There hasn’t been a lot of activity in the quarry since last time, so the finds were less frequent than normal, but we still did find a decent haul of fossils, mainly cephalopods. The great weather conditions and the good company made this a very fine fieldtrip and ended with a visit to a local tavern for a few refreshments. (pictures by anthonie Hellemond (c) )
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I didn't realy found a category to post this so I put it in the fossil hunting trip section; Yesterday our paleontology club had its annual fossil fair in Sint-Gillis-Waas in Belgium. A small but convivial fair with lots of regional fossils and of course the publications of the club; The fossils were very reasonably prised, I usualy dont buy fossils, but we got a realy good deal on an Iggy vert from IOW. We also saw @gigantoraptor again Enjoy the pictures:
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