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Hi all! Today I'd like to introduce you to another place to hunt for small Oxfordian fossils, a quarry by the village of Timonino, located to the east of Moscow. The finds and hunting method are pretty much the same as in the previous site. Basically, surface collecting small Oxfordian fossils, usually gastropods, is a distinct sort of fossil hunting in the Moscow region. To the east of the city lies a sort of "Oxfordian belt" with similar geologic setting, finds and hunting conditions. Here's a map of the Oxfordian sites in the region. The quarries in operation are marked in blue, they usually extract older layers, thus removing Oxfordian clay and stacking it in spoil piles. Fossils can then be collected from the piles' surface. Due to specific conditions, ammonites are not preserved at all, but bivalves and gastropods retain a very good quality. People usually search for the latter. Most such quarries are located around the city of Kolomna, including Peski quarry I've already presented. Shchyolkovo quarry (in brown) is out of operation and completely flooded, but there are a couple of tiny clay patches with mostly belemnites. A group of sites marked in orange are located on the Moskva river bank and accessible only in winter (focus of the Frozen fossils topic), the hunting season is about to resume. They are also Oxfordian with the same set of gastropods, but also well-preserved ammonites everybody looks for. Timonino quarry is an isolated site with conditions similar to Kolomna's. Unlike the latter, it strangely extracts white Bathonian clay instead of limestone. The quarry came in operation just a few years ago and ultimately became popular among fossil collectors. Going forward I can say its reputation is greatly exaggerated.

Hello, I found this. It looks like a bit of a large gryphaea, but it's probably not. Sorry there's no scale, it is 6cm long. I found it in Northamptonshire, UK. Thanks.

I am fortunate to live in a fossiliferous neighborhood in Fort Worth Texas. Not only have I found a strata of gryphea across the street from my house, but I have found pelecypods in my backyard and an ammonite in Arcadia park down the street from where I live. Just recently I found more gryphea in my yard. All of the fossils in my neighborhood are, according to my research, Lower Cretaceous in age. I took one of my grandsons down to one site a mere one hundred yards from my home and he found excellent specimens of gryphea. (Samples are attached). Have any of my fellow Texans found gryphea in their locations? ----- Olenellus