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Hi everyone! Last week we went on a weekend trip with our fossil club the BVP to go on a fossil hunt to the jurassic clay cliffs "Falaises de Vaches Noires" between Houlgate & Villers-Sur-Mer in Normandy, France. https://www.paleontica.org/locations/fossil/68 The famous cliffs of Vaches Noires date back to the Jurassic period, and span both the Callovian & Oxfordian stages (166 - 157 mya) and the Cretaceous period spanning the Cenomanian (100 - 94 mya). Back in the jurassic this area was a rich marine environment and fossils that can be found here are many species of bivalves (like Gryphaea, Lopha & Myophorella), ammonites, gastropods, belemnites, brachiopods, crinoïds, sponges and other invertebrates. The cliffs are also known for marine reptile material and even dinosaur material, though these finds are rather rare but you'll see some nice pieces in the museum pics later. We arrived Thursday afternoon (november 3th) and stayed to Sunday (november 6th). We were very happy to join this trip organized by our club since it is probably the last year that fossil searching is allowed in this amazing location. We were with around 27 people I believe and met each morning at the entrance of the beach at Houlgate. We searched the cliffs for 2 days and went to the local museum "paleospace" on sunday. The weather was amazing for the 2 days of searching, it was even sunny the first day! The first few hours we mainly searched among the rocks on the beach which were littered with large Gryphaea fossils and other bivalves like Lopha gregarea. After our lunch break we moved on to search more near the clay to find smaller fossils. On our second day we again searched the clay, went through some interesting places in the sand which were littered with oysters, gastropods and had some ammonite and crinoïd fossils and we ended the day at the cenomanian rocks in search for some fossil urchins. The Cenomanian rocks on the beach A piece a chalcedony A partial ammonite Me very happy with my first complete ammonite, which I found next to me while having lunch One of the mystery fossils which nobody could really determine (we brought it home along another we found) The tubes seem to be pyritised. I believe it to be some kind of Echinoderm and someone suggested it might be a Crinoïd with a parasite on it. But eventually our top finding (and the best of the entire trip) was spotted by my girlfriend Elise and is this gorgeous fish (probably Lepidotes sp.)

Hi all, Last summer, while out hunting at the Vaches Noires on the Normandy coast of France, we found the below tooth in the Marnes de Dives (upper Callovian) . I extracted it from its matrix in order to be able to tell with confidence whether carinae are present or not and thus whether the tooth could be metriorhynchid - which I thought, at the time, to be the only other major contender. Carinae are not present. As such, I then arrived at the conclusion that the tooth is plesiosaurian, and in absence of striations - anastomosing or other - that it probably belonged to Cryptoclidus sp.. This is the state in which it has remained since then. From left to right: Muraenosaurus leedsi, Cryptoclidus oxoniensis and Tricleidus seeleyi (Noè, Taylor and Gómez-Pérez, 2017) However, I keep occasionally bumping into Hypsocormus sp., a pachycormiform fish with a temporal range from the Callovian stage of the Middle Jurassic all the way through the Late Jurassic up to the Cretaceous - most recently today with the jaw below. And I must certainly say that I see some semblances... Specimen from the Oxford Clay at Peterborough An unidentified pachycormiform fish tooth from the Oxfordian levels of Vaches Noires (source) that I, here, suggest may, in fact, represent Hypsocormus sp.. Two specimens of Hypsocormus sp. from further up north on the French coast, in the Boulonnais, dating to the Kimmeridgian/Tithonian (source). Given sizes are 6.45mm and 13.1mm respectively. Two Hypsocormus sp. specimens from the Lower Oxford Clay, UK (specific locality unknown; source). Hypsocormus sp. from the Callovian of the Tournus-region of Saône et Loire in France (source). One thing that stands out from all the specimens that I've been able to identify online is that most have an notable acrodin cap, which clearly marks them as fish teeth. It's based on this that I've identified the below tooth from a vendor site as Hypsocormus sp. (or a pachycormiform, at least) tooth, although the seller had listed it as plesiosaur. Thus it seems that confusion surrounding this topic is not uncommon. Unfortunately, however, my specimen is lacking its very apex (though, could this fact in itself be an indication of there once having been an acrodin tip that more easily got damaged or eroded away?)... Pachycormiform tooth mislabelled as plesiosaur, from Fletton, Peterborough Size cannot be used as a distinguishing feature either, as, while my tooth's total length is 1'' or 2.54cm exactly, the enamelled part is only about 1.5cm, which seems to be close to the upper limit of what Hypsocormus sp. teeth were able to grow to, from what I've been able to find out. Ornamentation/striations then? This feature can't be used either, since not all positively identified pachycormiform teeth in my sample have these. How about an in-filled hollow root? Both have these. Though it seems that the pachycormiform teeth actually often lack the enamel-free part you'd identify as the root, with them apparently having broken off close to the enamelled crown, as is the case with most fish teeth. In fact, this was my main argument to reject my specimen being fish before. However, looking at the jaw posted above, you'll notice that the largest tooth lying next to the jaw does have an enamel-free, irregularly broken-off base as well. I thus find myself wondering what the exact features are that define these pachycormiform teeth, and how to distinguish them from reptile teeth. Anybody have any ideas on this or on the argued identification of my tooth? I'll start by tagging @PointyKnight, @RuMert, @caterpillar, @Carl and @taj, but please don't hesitate to join the discussion!

Hi, I propose to the identification a fossil of a friend. This little sea urchin comes from the Black Cows, a famous site in the north of France. The age would be between Callovian and Oxfordian, or even more extensive. It is really pentagonal in shape, with a relatively flat profile, and it has two rows of interambular tubercles. It measures 12 mm in diameter and 7 mm high. Thanks for your help Coco

Hi! I found these fossils on my day at les vaches noires in Normandie, France today and i could really use your help identifying them. Thanks in advance!

Though I've found plenty of info to help me identify what I collected at Vaches Noires I haven't sat down to get it all straightened out, and I thought I 'd post these images of a few items found during 2-3 hours walking on the beach from Houlgate to Villers-sur-Mer. I'll see if I can't give it a go during the holidays and add a few tags, but I thank any of your suggestions :-). Of these #17 is not a fossil and include it as a comparison to #14-16 which are equally sized but much thiner and blue/black in colour. Also not sure whether #8 and #27 are fossils. Just at the beginning of the cliffs there are large numbers of rusty fragments among the large limestones and I am not sure to what extent these are remnants from shells of the military type or from boats or other harbour equipment (not that there is much of a harbour to speak of) or metal refuse. I didn't get a chance to inform myself during my short stay about this and haven't found hints online, but the Germans put a battery on top of the hill by Houlgate which was heavily shelled. The info regarding the geology of the site was swipped from the French and is only an indication of the geology of the beach where one is allowed to pick fossils, not the cliffs themselves which release fossils as they are eroded. I don't include any Griphaea dilatata which have a truly impressive heft. I wouldn't be surprised if these were used as hoes or tools and weapons back in the stone age. Cheers