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Fossil hunting in the Santonian - lower Campanian Geistthal-formation of the Gosau basin of Kainach, Eastern Alps (Styria, Austria) As a whole, the Gosau basin of Kainach - St. Bartholomä is not very fossiliferous. In contrast to the St. Bartholomä-formation with its rudists etc., the other, much more extensive formations, especially the very extensive, somewhat tubititic Afling-formation, are generally very poor in fossils. Some are known, eg. ammonites, but their occurrences are rather elusive. One exception - or at least in part - are Trochactaeon snails. They are known since the beginning of geological documentation of the area (around 1850), but only as loose pieces. It took until about the 1960ies for the first finds of this snails in outcrops. However, only a few sentences were (repeatedly) published since then, only a list of the species is given (without any description), and also no detailed description of the occurrences and their exact locations. That´s the sad side. The good side is: There is at least one (permanent) occurrence of this snails in an outcrop at a major road! This occurrence is at the red X... Part of Geofast-map (left, squares are 2x2 km) and geological overview from Ebner (2000) (right). There seems to be not much correspondence between these maps. For orientation, see village Geistthal in upper part of both maps. ...and it is featured in an excursion guide from 2015 (from Hubmann & Gross, 2015): The snails are located in the upper part of the Geistthal-formation, a succession of gray conglomerates, sandstones and siltstones with very occasional thin coal layers and thin beds of calcareous onkoids. The lower part of the Geistthal-formation is a coarse-grained, red conglomerate; its the basal formation of the Gosau basin of Kainach. I have visited this outcrop in December 2015, and yes, the snails are still there.

Snail fossils reveal origin of rocks used to carve ancient Spanish monuments. The snails trapped in the monument stone are 85 million years old. By Brooks Hays, UPI, Aug. 3, 2017 https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2017/08/03/Snail-fossils-reveal-origin-of-rocks-used-to-carve-ancient-Spanish-monuments/9001501769546/ The paper is: Freire-Lista, D.m., and R. Fort, 2017, Historical Quarries, Decay and Petrophysical Properties of Carbonate Stones Used in the Historical Center of Madrid (Spain) AIMS Geosciences, 2017, 3(2): 284-303. doi: 10.3934/geosci.2017.2.284. http://www.aimspress.com/article/10.3934/geosci.2017.2.284 PDF file at: https://cronicaglobal.elespanol.com/uploads/s1/52/76/85/Carbonate stones Madrid.pdf Yours, Paul H.