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Exceptional fossils may need a breath of air to form University of Texas at Austin, November 6, 2019 https://phys.org/news/2019-11-exceptional-fossils-air.html https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191106112109.htm https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-11/uota-efm110519.php Exceptionally preserved Jurassic sea life found in new fossil site by University of Texas at Austin https://phys.org/news/2017-01-exceptionally-jurassic-sea-life-fossil.html The paper is: A.D. Muscente Et Al, Taphonomy Of The Lower Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte At Ya Ha Tinda (Alberta, Canada) And Its Significance For Exceptional Fossil Preservation During Oceanic Anoxic Events, Palaios (2019). DOI: 10.2110/Palo.2019.050 https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/sepm/palaios/article/34/11/515/574686/TAPHONOMY-OF-THE-LOWER-JURASSIC Martindale, R.C., Them, T.R., Gill, B.C., Marroquín, S.M. and Knoll, A.H., 2017. A new Early Jurassic (ca. 183 Ma) fossil Lagerstätte from Ya Ha Tinda, Alberta, Canada. Geology, 45(3). https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10066020 https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/81874/Geology 2017 Martindale-2.pdf?sequence=1 Yours, Paul H.

So for several years i knew that getting better prepresults would have to include a air abrader. With my Junair silent compressor this was problematic as there is not enough airflow, so these last years i was limited to pen work.... A few month’s ago my beloved Junair got a leak in the tank, repair was not very cheap, so i upgraded to a much more powerful compressor, not silent but workable....I also bought a very old Renfert abrader, very cheap, which after replacing the filter set started to work very fine.... So here’s some prep results with this setup. At last i was able to prep a few of my finds from my 2012 trip to the Lafarge quarry at Belmont, France. Allthough i ‘m really happy with the results so far, it’s a very slow process, even with the replaced filterset on the Renfert. Some matrix is just too problematic for this Renfert machine. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s not effective enough, or maybe it’s because the unit is limited to 6 bar, so i cannot push it more..... At the moment i’m waiting my custom build Eckhard Petersen abrader, this unit should cover it. So i hope for more and better pix in the future....

Hi Is this gastropod or horseshoe crab? Age:Jurassic, Oxfordian Location:Jasna cave, Kraków, Southern Poland

I have found this partial bone into the jurassic (Portlandian) mud of Wimereux yesterday,is it possible to say anything else than fossil bone on it?

It was a Sunny day and we went to the Portlandian beach of Wimereux,northern France Many pelecypods internal mold

Hello there fossil forum! This post will actually contain some of my finds from 2 trips to the same location, namely the island of Bornholm in Denmark. I went there this summer, and made quite an interesting discovery, which I will get back to, and then went on yet another trip, which I got home from less than a week ago. I doubt many of you know about it, unless you're Danish or have an interest in the geology of Denmark, but most of Denmark was underwater for pretty much all of the Mesozoic era. That is, of course, with the exception of Bornholm, which is a geologist's/paleontologist's/amateur fossil collector's dream. Denmark is not well known for any dinosaur fossils whatsoever, except from a few teeth found in the Robbedale Formation, and a bunch of foot-prints scattered along the west and south-coast of Bornholm. As recent as last year in April though, someone discovered the very first dinosaur bone in Denmark, at Hasle Beach, Bornholm. It's supposedly from a young sauropod, and is still being studied at this very moment. After I heard of the discovery, I desperately wanted to go to Bornholm. So I went there for 5 days in July, and 7 days in October, where the second time, I brought some of my friends from my heavy metal band along with me. On the first trip, the very first day at Hasle Beach, I searched for about 5 hours along the beach, with not a single fossil in sight. Just as I was about to leave the beach to get something to eat, I stumbled upon a very odd looking rock. Which obviously wasn't a rock, it was a bone: It measured about 6x5x6 (LxWxH) cm. I brought this into the museum located at the island, called "Naturbornholm", which is where a lot of the fossils found on the island are showcased. I had some of the people from the museum take a look at it, and they agreed on that this was definitely bone. What was very unlikely about this bone however, is that it looks like the end of a limb-bone, meaning it probably wasn't a plesiosaur, but something that was able to walk on land. In Denmark there's a law concerning fossils, saying that if the fossil could be valuable to science, it is obliged to deliver it to the Geological Institute of Copenhagen for research. The bone is currently being examined and studied. I still haven't received any new information regarding the bone. However they have said, that there's a good chance it's probably from either a crocodile, turtle or dinosaur. Whatever the species might be, it is most likely also a new species, as most of the bone material found at Hasle are plesiosaur bones. I went digging in the exact same area for the rest of the days, in hope of finding other bone-pieces. The picture below shows other pieces I found, which according to the museum, are bone fragments. Some of them are very worn though, and covered with conglomerate and iron. They are in no way as well preserved as the slightly worn bone piece I found on the first day: Other than those, I found another piece of bone, however it is very hard to tell what it is from. I'm considering trying to open up the lump of sandstone, however the black layer of bone material is fragile. The picture quality might be bad on this one, but I can assure you, it is not coal or mineral: So after the first trip to the island of Bornholm, I was invited over there by some of the people from the museum in the autumn holiday. I brought some of my bandmates with me as well, in an attempt to up the amount of fossils we'd find. And we did find a lot of stuff. On the first day we started out slow. The guitarist from my band was the first person to find a fossil. He found a small tooth, which might be from a type of bony fish. We're currently talking with one of the paleontologists of the Geological Institute, who wants to have a look at it in person. It measures about 5 mm, and was cracked in half when found, but afterwards repaired. The second day, we went out digging up on the more northern side of Hasle Beach, where the cliff is a bit taller. We didn't find much though. The other guys went back to the hut after a few hours, and I worked my way back to the spot where I had been digging during the summer. Shortly after, I found a small fragment of bone, most likely a rib-fragment. It's probably not from a plesiosaur though, as all the plesiosaur ribs found on the beach are usually very round, and not flat. The next day, we all went to the museum, showing a few of the fossils we had found to the people we knew there. Other than that we took a look at all the awesome finds exhibited at the museum. Including 2 of the dromaeosauroides bornholmensis teeth found in the Robbedale Formation (1 of them was a replica though). Most of the dinosaur fossils found, as showcased by the museum, are trace-fossils. Dinosaur-tracks and coprolites, with the exception of the dromaeosaur teeth. However those are from the early cretaceous period (140 million years ago), while the place where we were digging, Hasle Beach (The Hasle Formation), is about 170-180 million years old. Later I went digging again the same day. Some of the others didn't feel like digging, so I went out alone. I searched in about the same area where I had found the bones last year, and got really lucky once again. First I found a nice jet-black hybodont shark tooth, measuring about 9 mm in length. Then a piece of fossil wood/branch shortly after. 2 hours after the last find, I decided to go back to the cabin we had rented not far from the beach, and once again I was super lucky, and then stumbled upon a large bone-piece! A plesiosaur paddlebone, measuring about 4x4x1 cm! The fourth day, the other guys wanted to get back in the game after showing them the paddlebone. The next day we found a couple of odd pieces, mostly shells, but also another tooth, this time it was a chimaera tooth. On the fifth day, we went to a slightly different location, about 4 km further south of Hasle Beach, at a place called "The Pyrite Lake", where there's an abundance of plant-fossils, but there has also been found a couple of plesiosaur teeth there, as well as large dinosaur tracks. These tracks, as shown at the museum, are not negatives however, but a "positive". As in, when the creature made the track, the track was filled up with mud or another sediment later, basically making a 'positive' "sculpt" of the foot so to speak. At the Pyrite Lake, we found some huge chunks of fossil wood. Some a tad too heavy to carry around in a rucksack. We did however also spot a very interesting-looking rock, that shared a big resemblance to the dinosaur-tracks at the museum. We sent the coordinates of this rock to the people at the museum, and they're gonna send a paleontologist out to take a look at it at some point, to try and determine, if it is indeed a dinosaur track. So it's going to be interesting to see, if this truly was made by a prehistoric animal, or if this is just a very funny looking rock. On the sixth, and last day of digging, we found a lot of odd looking fossils by Hasle Beach again, which we could not identify. One may have been a bigger, but crushed, hybodont tooth, trapped within a lump of sandstone. And another could be a rib or just some plant-material. Either way, we left a lot of the fossils at the museum, for them to take a look at, if any of it should hold any interest to them, or to the people of the Geological Institute of Copenhagen.

These pictures aren't the best, but when I align the triangle hole to a picture of a nodosaur, most of the facial characteristics are exactly where they should be. This includes the line of the lip, the jawbone thing, the eye lid or whatever that is, etc. When you peer into the eye, you what looks like 3 spider legs perfectly fossilized. These must be veins, tendons, or ligaments. Theres a bunch of these on the other side of the face, along with what appears to be the meninges or dural matter. Two more facts on this heavy 15 inch piece - the optic nerve is about the size of a nickel and fossilized a crystal sandy color. Also, when I put the diamond tester to it, it goes right off. What do you think?

Hello, I have found these ammonites a few years ago in Bavaria, Germany. These are found in an area roughly 20km from Solnhofen (Jurassic). I beleave the geological formation in this area is a little older then the formations in Solnhofen but i can't find proof if this. I hope these pics are of enough quality to provide an ID. Regards, Arno

Hi just putting this in as a placeholder. Found today at Penarth, South Wales, UK. An ichthyosaur jaw with some other bones. It’s in a shelly limestone which is hard to prep but fingers crossed.

I went back to Yaxley, and because my method of fossil hunting at this site is to sit on the ground and look very closely for often tiny fossils, got caked in mud. There was less visible than last week, but I found lots of crinoids and ammonites, including this, less than a centimetre.

I think this is a burrow, but is a lot more regular than the others I've found. Is there any way to tell what creatures made the burrows? And is this a burrow or something else? This is from the Oxford Clay, Peterborough Member Callovian - Middle Jurassic.

Hi, gang. Some of you may remember the Southern Morocco trip I took in February. One of the places visited was quite near to me, about 70 km, lovely Swiss style mountain town called Ifrane where I found some Middle Jurassic brachiopods and echinoids. See http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/93193-ifrane-middle-atlas-morocco/&tab=comments#comment-1026671 A friend offered to drive me up there for the day so off we went I decided to check some outcrops on the other side of the road this time so went and had a peek.Sorry, no photos this time as wifey didn't come, she was ironing her money and she has the only camera phone. The first outcrop is an oyster bed crammed with enormous oysters. This is incredibly hard and couldn't be broken safely. (safely as in getting the fossils out in one piece, not my own personal well-being). But I was lucky enough to find this monster just lying a the base: Scale in inches it would seem. I think I can clean it up a bit. Eventually. After i'd dragged my broken carcass a few hundred whatevers further on, the limestone became yellower, softer but still pretty hard. Lots of broken shell material, a couple of ammonite bits, but the only salvageable items were these couple of rather nice gastropods; again, they should clean up a bit better: Oh, the scale's in centimetres this time. I felt like a change. You know, it's amazing how often I've given up on a days collecting and then, on the way back to the car, you find something just in your path that makes the trip. Here was mine this time : Forgot the scale altogether. Sigh. Maybe four or five centmetres diameter. Harpoceras, perhaps? It has a very pronounced keel. @Ludwigia Roger? I'll be able to prep this pretty well in 2046 when i get to my Jurassic stuff. Nothing spectacular, but it's always so nice to be out in the field collecting. Life's Good. Adam.

so i went to Orlando Science Center today for the Dino Digs exhibition but in Jurassic Ridge dig pit area i know that there is a Camptosaurus, Camarasaurus, Ceratosaurus and a Stegosaurus, but there is some species and genus of dinosaurs and other animals that i dont know what there like take for example the turtle shell, the alligator crocodile like animal fossil, the ankylosaur like fossil and that bone that i dont know what species does it belong to and that nest that i don't know which dinosaur does it belong to.

It was raining this morning, so my best site was near Yaxley. The fossils really pop there when wet. In one hour of searching I had 13 fragments of ammonite. I thought it was 14, but when washing them realised one was a miffed snail, who is now in the garden. Mostly the ammonites are pyratised, and preserve sutures and ornamentation well. I found 8 crinoid sections, including round ossicles - I normally only find star shaped ones.

This is from the Oxford Clay, Peterborough Member so Callovian, Middle Jurassic. I'm not sure what it is, it's very small and I took the pictures with a digital camera - the scale is in mm. Other fauna found with it included ammonites, crinoids, belemnites and gryphia. Any suggestions appreciated. Other things I've found of a similar size and shape there are echinoid spines and some kind of burrow cast, but this is very different. I was wondering if it might be a different part of a crinoid than I'm used to finding?

In the last issue of our German magazine "Fossilien" there was an interesting article about a site right in the middle of my stomping grounds of which I was not aware. My area is practically all Jurassic, but this site is in a basin which exposes a middle miocene maar lake, so the other day I figured I'd go have a look for some gastropods, plants and bivalves. Sorry, I forgot to take my camera again. The area is not all that big and I was able to walk over and around the fields on it within a few hours. There were a lot of loose stones to inspect, but unfortunately there were hardly any fossils to be found despite the fact that I did an awful lot of hammering. At least I came up with a couple of little freshwater bivalves and funnily enough, although this was not mentioned in the description, an ammonite on a late Jurassic limestone block. Pisidium sp. on the left. Can't identify the other one. Any ideas? Trimarginites sp. I still had a couple of hours to spare, so I decided to take a walk over one of my favorite fields near Geisingen and this time I had a bit more luck. Here they are all prepped. Garantiana sp. Prorsisphinctes pseudomartinsi

Hi Some time ago I found such a Kelowa specimen in Częstochowa. Is this a coprolite? If so, who? It looks like something has been eaten by a brachiopod. thank you in advance for your help Dimensions: about 4.5 cm x about 2.5 cm.

To recap from my last post, I work for a large traveling animatronic dinosaur show. I handle our display of real fossils. Recently, the company's management purchased a number of real fossils that came to me without proper identification. However, most of the fossils we had previously also lacked proper identification in regards to where they were found, and I'm beginning to question all of our labels. Everyone involved in their original acquisition either can't recall where many of our pieces came from, or are now deceased. I'm hoping to try to verify or re-identify every major fossil in our collection one piece at a time This is a piece that was already in the collection when I joined. Its described as a Diplodocus toe bone, from one of the rear feet. There might not be enough here to confirm or rule out that description, but I appreciate any insight that anyone can give me. I have a vague recollection of being told it came from Colorado, but I'm not sure if I was actually told that, or if I just presumed that it came from the Morrison formation. More images: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=153AkHCZOrFkccnZ44ZTI_q8-i8SczWlI

Hello everyone, I got a few brachiopods from a trade with @will stevenson , I don't have much info on them other than that they used to be part of a Victorian collection and are from Wiltshire, as well as them being Jurassic. Very curious as to what they are, any info is appreciated. Brach 1: Brach 2: Brach 3, Very similar to 2: Brach 4:

Just got back from a trip to England - still fighting the jet lag a bit! 7 hours time difference makes for interesting sleep patterns! Thought y'all might want to see what I all I found in Great Britain! Of course, we started in London, doing all the London things, including the Natural History Museum! Got to see Mary Annings plesioarus and mosasaurs. And the archeoptyrix! And the dino room!! And much much much more.....whew. Left London to visit friends in Bury St. Edmund, near Cambridge. We went to see the Sutton Hoo burial near Ramsholt in Suffolk which I had heard of a fossil hunting spot there- didn't really get to look much because there was a boat burning at the docks.....so fire trucks and smoke and commotion. I found out later that the main hunting area was a 45 minute hike from the waterfront, so I kind of missed out. Wasn't really prepared to hike that far, with friends who aren't really into fossil hunting, so I contented myself with poking along the water front and found a couple of little things.... (not the shell, I found that embedded in the dirt at Framlingham Castle, not sure if it is a fossil or just a shell). I'm not really sure what any of them are, the bullet shape I was assuming was a cephalopod, but it might be a phragmocone and I really don't know what the little round one is, perhaps a vertebra? I didn't have a coin for scale, but the little round is 3/4 inch. Next on the fossil tour was Yaxley Hampton Vale lake near Petersborough. I had heard it was a good spot, if somewhat picked over, but I found it to be quite good! I didn't find any ammonites (which I was hoping for) or crinoids (although my friend who was driving found a HUGE crinoid stem - beginners luck, the rat). But found a nice sized belemnite, plus these those neat little white spicule things. I saw them ID'd somewhere a while back (sponges, I think) , but now I can't seem to find what they are called, so if you know, please let me know! A Swan at Yaxley: But the highlight of the trip was a guided tour around Weymouth, with the interesting and outspoken Adrian Davies! He picked us up and toured us all around Portland Island and Weymouth with info on the history of the town plus stops for fossil hunting! First stop was to a cobble beach with "roach stones"...what we in Texas call Rattlesnake Rock. My husband found a dolphin spine washed up (I really wanted to take some of the vertebra, but decided they might not let me back in the US)! You can see all the cobbles around the dolphin. My "roachstones" The view from Portland looking back toward Weymouth: And the best for last - my finds of ammonites (16 of which are pyrite!) , crinoids, belemnites, a phragmocone, a sponge and a bit of bone plus some other stuff: A few more pics of my finds: Me with my nose to the ground- it was a bit chilly and windy...and then I came home to the Texas heat.. And then a day later, I went to the Quarry at Midlothian on a 100 degree day. But that's another story.....

Hello everyone today I acquired this fossil from @will stevenson and am not sure what kind of brach it is. It looks really interesting and I believe it may be Jurassic, but that's just a guess. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Is this bite mark belemnite?

Today I found beautiful tooth, probably shark, maybe Sphenodus? Looking for confirmation. Only glossy part measures 38 mm Found near Cracow, limestone, jurrasic.

Hi, I've found this bone in France kimmeridge clay. It's marine deposit so the majority of vertebrates are marine reptiles like pliosaur, plesiosaur, crocodile, ichthyosaur etc.. I have some ideas about the determination of this bone but I do not prefer to influence you. Many thanks for your help. Regards Carbon.