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Last month my boyfriend and I went on our first ever trip to the Isle of Wight. We stayed for four full days and managed to squeeze in a fossil trip each day. On the first day we met up with one of my friends who was staying on the island with her boyfriend who is an 'islander'. We decided to visit the popular Compton Bay, an interesting and well known cretaceous site famous for dinosaur remains. When we arrived the tide was quite high and I didn't realise just how long it takes to go down (several hours, for future reference), but we were able to get onto the beach and walk a somewhat narrow strip of sand. After less than 10 minutes I picked up the first fossil! To me it looks like bone, but it has been loosely suggested to me it might be plant. It has a lot of iron rich matrix still attached to it which has unfortunately stained all my other fossils from this location as I desalinated them all in the same container (I would be glad to hear any advice for removing this staining?). Not 10 minutes after that I made the next find of the day, a small chunk of rolled bone. The tide was still very high so we decided to wander about the island and came back later that evening. Our lunch spot. The tide was lower in the evening and we had a wonderful time pointing out the dinosaur footprints, the trackway and finding pebbles full of shells, a pebbly full of bony fish bits and one more bit of bone for me and finally one for my friend as well (don't have pic of that though). Not sure how well the photos demonstrate this, but I think this may be a broken bit of a caudal vertebra. On day two we tried, and failed to get to Rocken End for some lovely ammonites. We couldn't find the right spot, so planned to try again the next day. In the afternoon we went to Bouldnor in search of some Oligocene turtles, crocodiles, mammals and whatever else we might find. However we were unlucky again and only found four chunks of Emys turtle shell. I am pleased with them though, as three of the four are really rather nice. It was a muddy but pleasant evening. Once again we had to wait a while (though 30 mins or so) for the tide to retreat. The first two pieces on the left were found within about 1m of each other. I'm not sure what to make of the 'stripe' on the top side of the third chunk. The next morning we found the correct access point and made our way to Rocken End, it's a fairly long walk down a steep hill(/mountain??) but wasn't as bad as it looked from the car park, there are steps carved into the mud at regular points. Soon enough we were scrambling over boulders of cretaceous upper greensand and pointing out ammonites that were poking out. Extracting the ammonites proved a significant challenge. They are incredibly delicate and soft. You could reach up and snap the ends out the rock very easily and practically all of the ammonites we attempted to extract came out in pieces, or broke irreperably. I did find two lovely little shark teeth sticking out, I believe these are somewhat uncommon here so I feel lucky. Just as we were leaving, my boyfriend found three ammonites practically lying on the ground in front him. They were by far the best ammonites we collected, he was very pleased with himself considering I had spent the previous two hours chiselling away whilst he sat and read his book... Prep in progress from the other side. The third one as found, just peeking out... ... and after some prep, it's still in the big block though, will (try to) cut a little pedestal out of the rock. Unfortunately the centre is missing. I also found a few beautiful brachiopods, bivalves and worm tubes - and also an echinoid! I have yet to ID any of these, but I think I actually prefer them over the ammonites, I wish I collected a few more.

Hello, I picked this pebble up from the beach at Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight, this area is Lower Cretaceous. The pebble looks like it’s full of bony bits, but I have no idea what they might be from and it might prove too difficult to tell. If anyone has some insight I’d be delighted to hear it. Scale accidentally in inches rather than cm in this photo Close up photos taken with microscope attachment to my phone.

Anyone any ideas on this? I picked this up because the multiple ridges and shape was interesting. Now I’m home I’m more and more intrigued by it. Was laying at the cliff base.

Found this at Compton Bay. Thought it was bone because of the striations and shape on the outside. But inside looks nothing like the honeycomb I would expect. Anyone got any ideas?

Found this on beach. Was blacker when wet. The knobbly bit drew my eye. Once home and cleaned I could see there is a smoother black core running through it. Is this some sort of bone? Any ideas anyone? Thanks

I was hoping someone could give some suggestions what this could be. I found it at Hanover point, Compton/brook last week. Wealden Cretaceous. Terrestrial. It had clearly been in the water for a long time and was covered in all sorts of sea life which has now mostly been removed. initially I thought it could be a large piece of dinosaur bone, but now it’s been cleaned I can’t figure out what it is. Any ideas what it could be?

My nephew spotted this down at Compton bay on the Isle of Wight. Sorry about the poor photos. The area is early Cretaceous wealden. The fossil is about 1.5-2cm long. Not sure what it could be but hoping it could be some sort of jaw. If anyone has any suggestions it would be most appreciated. Many thanks.

Today I went to Compton Bay, Isle of wight. By the time I got there I only had an hour before a storm stopped me. I found a large 23cm section of fossilised wood with some pyrite covering it.