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Hello everybody! After a week of snow, saw sun for three days and decided its a good idea to visit a honey spot. Sadly, the sun was deceiving, the snow has not yet melted. Actually it was about 20-50cm. This location is very special to me because: i) Its 30mins from home, which means I can visit again and again. ii) According to the scientific researches I managed to gather, it has an extreme variety of fossils and exposed outcrops, dating from the WHOLE Mesozoic era. iii) Furthermore, all researches state that it bears excellently preserved fossils of ammonites, belemnites and brachipods. Of the last two, I do not have even purchased samples. PBDB has nothing published for this place. There are places around with some information and findings but it is not the perfect places. I managed to put together 5 different researches so I have narrowed down my possible locations. The last one, which actually gave away the location with coordinates is here: With a first glance I do not see much exposed outcrops, but the existance of a creek is a good sign to have caused erosion. Click here for the location through google earth. My other lead comes again from the same professor. The previous research was isotopic while this one studies only the distribution of ammonites and bivalves during the Toarcian in that specific section. Through this map, I conclude that following the small river you should see Aalenian to Callovian, on the small hill NNW of the river is the upper part of the Jurassic and the beginning of Cretaceous. East and following the course of that small river, you may be able to see exposures of Triassic. Last picture shows what I have put together and my possible places I will visit. I) The sections marked with yellow next to the main road cutting represent this description: It is an exposure of the Ozirovo Formation which is composed mainly of Fe-ooidal limestones and rare ferruginized marls, having a total thickness of 3.25 m. I will not check those places as I would prefer to avoid curious eyes and questions like what are you doing here. II) Marker with coordinates after Dr. Metodiev and his isotopic research on belemnites. On google Earth doesnt look promising, hope I am proven wrong. III) With light blue I depict the area which seems most interesting to me. IV) Orange triangle is possible location for Triassic exposure. V) Purple is the road I followed today. Line with car and dots on foot. I spotted some rocks, definately CaCO3. No sign of fossils. Almost everything was covered with snow. I will visit it again next week, weather permitting. Meanwhile, I would like to hear your comments concerning the locations I mark. What other spot looks good to check? Do I miss something? Findings, pictures and the rest will continue on the same topic of course. Thank you everyone for reading until here, sorry for the long post! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sources: GEOLOGICA BALCANICA, 36. 3—4, Sofia, Decemb. 2007, p. 91—96. Documentation and correlation of transgressive-regressive cycles from three Lower-Middle Jurassic successions of the Western Balkan Mts, Bulgaria Elena Koleva-Rekalova, Lubomir Metodiev, Daria Ivanova Geological Institute, Sofia Biostratigrapy of the Toarcian in the section at the village of Beledie Han (Western Balkan Mts), Bulgaria L. Metodiev, D. Ivanova, E. Koleva-Rekalova Trans-border (south-eastern Serbia/south-western Bulgaria) correlations of the Jurassic sediments: the Getic and Supra-Getic units PLATON TCHOUMATCHENCO , DRAGOMAN RABRENOVIC , VLADAN RADULOVIC , NENAD MALESHEVIC & BARBARA RADULOVIC Geological Institute, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Stable isotope records (d18O and d13C) of Lower-Middle Jurassic belemnites from the Western Balkan mountains (Bulgaria): Palaeoenvironmental application Lubomir Metodiev *, Elena Koleva-Rekalova

Hello everyone! Like most Europe, here in Bulgaria the winter is also very warm. Today we had 16C with totally clrear sky, so I decided to go hunting on a placed I was gathering info. 150Km from Sofia to the North, is the village of Belotintsi. There is a small Gorge formed by a creek "Nechinska bara" and the outcrops are part of Jurassic of Bulgaria. My source was the National history museum of Sofia and some publications of professors found online. The initial goal was to observe mostly the area as I was little tired for climbing and not properly prepared in terms of equipment. The whole area around (Border with Serbia, Stara Planina Mts, Golo Burdo Mt close to Sofia) were the bottom of Tethys sea. Here is a general aspect of the locality. Next time I plan to go to the upper part of the formation (Oxfordian). Pictures numbered from 1 to 4 show some spiecements on the field. The rocks are rich in CaCO3 as they highly react with vinegar. The stones are easily separated with very light blows. Picture number 1, I think I forgot it there Pictures Sa-Sd: Macrocephalites versus or gracilis I think. Se: This big fella, sadly found in pieces. I believe it is a different spieces to Macrocephalites. Probably it was detached from a formation above. Sf-Sg: Some fragments Sh-Si: I gathered these only to try testing with preparation process. As a novice, I do not want to ruin something nice that was preserved for million of years due to lack of experience. Hope you like the pictures. None of the fossils are museum quality; nevertheless I really enjoyed the day. Wish to everyone happy and fruitful hunting trips! Regards, Dimitris.

Hi guys, Last week I was on a vacation in Balchik on the northern coast of the black sea and I visited a small fossil site there. It's a small shoreline littered with mudstone and limestone (I think). Previously there I have been finding bones of sea mammals but this time I found something even more interesting... From what I can tell it's a feather. I just wanted to ask you if you can confirm that it's a feather. I was also wandering if there is anyway that it is a modern birds feather somehow imprinted on the fallen rock. Happy New Year to everyone !!!

Seeking publications of Creta sup. (cephalopodi) Bulgaria locality Pleven I thank Michele

Hi guys, Today I was going trough some old boxes of not very well preserved fossils and I stumbled upon this rock which i found before a few years in a limestone deposit on a fossil beach here in Bulgaria. (Echinoids and ammonites are common for this site). When I found it I thought it really resembled a fish spine, so I took it just in case it really was a fish spine (although I doubted it). So can anybody tell me if this is really a fossil of some sort or is it just some natural rock markings. Best regards to everybody!!

Hi, I've collected this fossil on a beach near Balchik in Bulgaria and have wandered what it is. On the same beach I've also found small parts of bones and a partial vertebrae. Since there have been previous finds from Deinotherium bavaricum , Trilophodon angus-tidens and Choerolophodon pentelici in the region I was pretty exited that I've found a part of a tusk or one from a baby, but I am really not sure what exactly the fossil is. Please if you have any good guesses for the origin of the fossil please let me know.

His all I found this what I assume is some sort of petrified bone. It is shiny and very hard, and seems mineralised. About 2.5cm long by about 2. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I only joined the forum after finding this.

So, I live in Bulgaria and I found this fossil in my backyard, I was wondering what it might be, and I thought you guys could help me

Hello fellow fossilers, I am currently staying in northern Bulgaria, around 30km south of the Danube and there are a some limestone formations close to another local river. I found this fossil and am very curious to identify it! Perhaps it is some sort of bivalve animal but would be great to get some more information. Any thoughts?

Hello again. So the story behind those is that I found the smaller one when I was a child.. may be around 15 years ago and I kept it to bring me memories for the adventurous spirit from those times. This year, my brother found the bigger one.. it is similar but a little bit larger so I decided for a first time to investigate the origins. I found the little one in area with trees and leafs on the ground and somehow I think I stepped and dug it from the ground cause the angle of the soil was too sheer. The area is central Bulgaria, seems like some kind of cockle ? Seen more like this ? The closest sea is 180km away... is that a proof for area being full of water may be long time ago?