Overnight fossil hunt in New Zealand - Doctor Mud and Mamlambo's adventure

[mamlambo]

@Doctor Mud and I managed to get away for an overnight hike / fossil hunt we have been talking about for ages!

 

We set off with high hopes around 11am from near Motunau Beach in New Zealand and within 2min,I found a beautiful crab fossil and a new species for me, an Actinocarcinus sp.

A little further into the hike I noticed some shiny flecks in the cliff which turned out to be some cookie cutter looking shark teeth, probably Miocene era. This was really exciting for me as I don't often find shark teeth here where I am.

 

It was an incredibly hot day, somewhat cooler than it should be because of all the smoke from the Australian bush fires which gave everything a rather strange tint. The first few hours were quite easy as it was all sand, but the going got really tough once we hit the jagged boulders that make up most of the coast in North Canterbury. We spent the new 5 or 6 hours clambering over them, exploring little coves full of cobble stones every few hundred meters or so.

 

There was no shortage of cetacean bone and towards the end of the first day I found my first whale ear bones! I was over the moon with this find, I've been wanting to find some for ages.

 

After a looooong day of hiking, we made camp just before 10pm, scoffed down some sausages and tried to get some sleep. We didn't quite get to the spot we intended to, so we had to make do as best we could which for me meant a night on some cobblestones 

 

 

The next morning we got up bright and early, a bit rough around the edges and headed back. Just after breakfast, we stopped and rescued a trapped sheep which seems to have been good for our karma because Doctor Mud made an amazing find later that day, I will let him share that himself.

 

We got back to our car around 3pm and headed for the nearest coffee shop to feed the caffeine craving - neither of us had brought coffee along!

 

It was a great hike and we saw some beautiful places 

 

Here is the video of day 1:

 

 

[belemniten]

The video and your finds are great  Congrats! 

Are these whale bones easy to prep? 

[caterpillar]

Amazing

You need a road train to report everything you saw!

I hope one day to come on this coast

[digit]

On 2/28/2020 at 1:17 AM, mamlambo said:

A little further into the hike I noticed some shiny flecks in the cliff which turned out to be some cookie cutter looking shark teeth, probably Miocene era. This was really exciting for me as I don't often find shark teeth here where I am.

 

You said the magic words "cookie cutter"! Cookiecutter Sharks (Isistius sp.) are a particular favorite of mine. Was the tooth above collectable?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[mamlambo]

On 2/28/2020 at 4:27 AM, belemniten said:

The video and your finds are great  Congrats! 

Are these whale bones easy to prep? 

I'm trying to acid prep some of the bones at the moment, very slow going! Going to try a combination of manual and acid next, remove as much matrix with a scribe and then use acid to get the bone exposed.

[belemniten]

5 minutes ago, mamlambo said:

I'm trying to acid prep some of the bones at the moment, very slow going! Going to try a combination of manual and acid next, remove as much matrix with a scribe and then use acid to get the bone exposed.

Sounds good! Can't wait to see some finished examples 

[mamlambo]

2 hours ago, digit said:

You said the magic words "cookie cutter"! Cookiecutter Sharks (Isistius sp.) are a particular favorite of mine. Was the tooth above collectable?

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

I recovered 5 of them I think 

[digit]

Sweet! Would love to see photos of them when you have the chance.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[FossilNerd]

Great trip, great finds, and great company. Doesn’t get much better than that.  

[Doctor Mud]

Thanks for getting this going @mamlambo

 

It was a great trip. @mamlambo is a great guy to hunt with - always so positive and curious. Even towards the end of day one when we were both exhausted.

 

Nothing like the sound of crashing surf, exercise and the sound of a crackling fire to recharge the batteries!

 

I had my heart set on finding a bird. I had a false alarm on an earlier trip. Looked so much like a bird but wasn’t ☹️. 

 

Well we were almost back to the car after a nearly 30km round trip when I saw this little concretion and I couldn’t believe my eyes! It was just sitting there With these bones showing right in front of me.

 

 

I said “I think I might have found my bird!!” and @mamlambo came running over.

 

I was tired but certainly had a spring in my step after that!

 

Its a penguin!!!! This site has produced a few penguins over the years. Three that have been described and published and one other that I know of - a beauty sitting waiting to be described at the Canterbury museum. Stay with me folks as I have some pretty cool updates that just happened last night!

 

 

 

 

[digit]

We will wait with breath abate.

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Doctor Mud]

I got in touch with some of my colleagues at the facility I work at and next thing you know we are sat in a cafe passing around the penguin and hatching a plan to use some of the amazing equipment we have access to - to virtually prep this fossil. To scan it and use software to strip away the rock and make a 3D model of the bones. Even 3D print it.

 

Most of you will have heard of normal x-rays, they can sometimes be used to see inside rock, but often more power and penetration is needed.

 

We tried x-rays first in a micro CT scanner. It has much higher resolution than a normal x-ray we are talking about 100 micron pixel size.

 

As we suspected. X-rays were not enough.

 

 

You can make out some bone around the edge. But it was time to get serious and use synchrotron radiation.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron_radiation

 

Australia has a Synchrotron in Melbourne, so off the little penguin went for its “close up”

 

10:30 pm last night I got an email with a sneak preview; just a screen shot of a single slice. Success! It took the full power of this machine to get through the dense mineral laden sediment but just enough energy (5%!!!) made it through for imaging. Normally they like at least 15% but this is certainly usable!

 

 

This is a virtual slice, like a normal CT scan. At the bottom is a slice through a humerus. Elsewhere there is part of the pelvis and vertebral column. 

And this is not the coolest and most bone dense part of the rock. 

 

Im so excited!

 

Next I can use software to virtually remove the rock and make a 3D model. Then I hope to print it. I wonder if I can enter the first virtually prepped fossil into VFOTM? 

 

Everything will end up in the Canterbury museum and I have already got a penguin specialist waiting to write it up as a paper!

 

more to come folks!

 

We will also try neutrons, which are produced locally in our research nuclear reactor. Lucky to have access to such amazing equipment.

[Doctor Mud]

14 minutes ago, digit said:

We will wait with breath abate.

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Sorry for the dramatic pause,

 

Thought I would do the rest in another post. Thought about waiting a while, but I’m not that cruel 

[Tidgy's Dad]

How utterly fantastic.

[FossilNerd]

Just now, Tidgy's Dad said:

How utterly fantastic.

Completely agree. Amazing! @Doctor Mud

[Monica]

Congratulations on the fantastic finds, guys!!!  The cookiecutter tooth is a sweet find, and the penguin is unbelievable!!!

[Ancient Bones]

VERY interesting , great trip.

[mamlambo]

@Doctor Mud I am blown away by the synchrotron images! What a game changer that is  Imagine being able to 3D print fossils without having to prep them!

 

So excited to see the further developments!

[digit]

22 hours ago, Doctor Mud said:

We will also try neutrons, which are produced locally in our research nuclear reactor. Lucky to have access to such amazing equipment.

You can keep the jet pack and the flying cars--the future is here!!!!

 

Very cool use of technology. I can't wait to see the 3D print based on this.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Ash]

It’s interesting where technology is taking palaeontology. They’ve been doing scans of various things (including trackways) and revealing some incredible and previously unknown stuff here lately.

 

Admittedly it’s not as cool as seeing the actual bone prepped out though.

[Doctor Mud]

7 hours ago, Ash said:

It’s interesting where technology is taking palaeontology. They’ve been doing scans of various things (including trackways) and revealing some incredible and previously unknown stuff here lately.

 

Admittedly it’s not as cool as seeing the actual bone prepped out though.

You are right - the spectacular site of actual ancient life embedded in rock is what sparked our curiosities and passion for paleontology. It’s science and art combined!

 

The other neat thing with a print is that we can now reveal delicate and complex structures and preserve their orientation.

 

This fossil has no bedding plane. The bones are preserved in 3D orientation.

 

Probably possible to prep out with care, but not all bone surfaces. You can print out the complete fossil, making the rock transparent (no need for support structures anymore) or print out the bones individually.

 

Prepping can still be done where possible and practical, but this provides a more rapid way to see the fossil.

Probably will work best with small fossils like this one too given the limits of penetration into rock.

[Doctor Mud]

Here’s a penguin fossil from the same site to give you an idea of the preservation. Pretty amazing. Not sure how this was prepped, but they did a great job!

There might still be an advantage to scanning this fossil to more clearly see bone surfaces that couldn’t safely be exposed by prep.