Still more questions

[olddude]

On 3/15/2020 at 2:35 AM, Wrangellian said:

This is an admirable haul.. Is it all from one trip, or several? I don't know if I've seen so many fossil corals all in one pile like that before, at least from that location/formation.

All of these are from the same site and were collected on the same day. When I found this place these were the main thing that caught my eye. I was searching the creek for arrow heads and once I got to a certain level the creek bed was white with these corals and all kinds of other fossil shells. I then shifted gears from a arrow head hunt to looking for shark teeth. That day I really didn't have a container large enough to haul out everything I wanted so I started little piles here and there along the banks, of the corals and the whole shells and bone fragments and other odd looking rocks I was finding. I finally decided to walk out to my truck and see if I had anything that I could use to get my haul out of the woods. All I could find were two 5 gal buckets and a small cloth bag I used sometimes when point hunting. Needless to say they filled up rather quickly so I decided to just leave that stuff there and haul it out when I left. I still had about an hour and a half of light left and I wanted to explore the rest of the creek. At that point I was only about half way to the point where the water was running out the base of the cliff. At this point the creek is very narrow only about 2 feet wide and the last hundred feet or so the creek bed was cutting into a layer of that blue/grey hard packed sand/clay material. At this point the water had carved roughly 10 to 15 feet path through this grey material and on the sides of the wall you could see that actually it had cut through several different shelly layers of material and I picked several small shark teeth that were sticking from the sides of the bank.

 

By then the sun was almost gone and I had several more piles of shells, corals and other stuff I wanted to look at closer. So I decided to just go back to where my buckets were and get them out of the woods before it got too dark and come back the next day with something larger to haul my goodies out of the woods. The next day I brought one of my large dive gear bags and several more 5 gal buckets. I hauled 5, 5 gal buckets full of corals and shells and other stuff that was to fragile to get dragged out of the woods in my dive bag and by the time the day was over that bag was too heavy to carry or drag and I had to cut a pole about 5' long and looped it through the handles on the bag and somehow got it over my shoulder and hauled it out like a hobo would haul all his worldly possessions to his next rail town. It wont all that easy with all the logs, bushes and other sticky things that would always try to trip me up I finally got it down the hill and to my truck. I opened the tailgate and let the bag fall into the truck because I knew that if I had set it down I would never have been able to lift it back up without unloading it first. I was one tired puppy but I got that load out. Many more trips since then but I don't try to haul out that much at one time anymore. I just pile the heavy stuff on the side of a bank and on days that I don't pick up much I'll take that heavy stuff a little at a time.

 

These coralsl seem to mostly all to be in one section of the creek about half way to the top. These formations age is Tertiary (66- 2.588 ma) and include a number of other formations such as Chowan River, Yorktown, Eastover, St. Marys, Choptank and Calvert. Cheasapeke Group (Upper Pliocene to lower Miocene. That is according to the app I have on my phone called Rockd.

[FranzBernhard]

2 hours ago, olddude said:

At this point the water had carved roughly 10 to 15 feet path through this grey material and on the sides of the wall you could see that actually it had cut through several different shelly layers of material and I picked several small shark teeth that were sticking from the sides of the bank.

I love those kind of outcrops/exposures! It seems you were the very first human at this outcrop. Thanks for sharing your thrilling discovery!
Franz Bernhard

[Wrangellian]

Franz may be right - even if any previous humans were only looking for shark teeth and ignoring the corals/etc, they still missed some!

I know what it's like to haul the maximum weight you can possibly move off a hillside. Sometimes it's "now or never", you have to strike while the iron is hot.

[olddude]

On 3/16/2020 at 2:47 PM, FranzBernhard said:

I love those kind of outcrops/exposures! It seems you were the very first human at this outcrop. Thanks for sharing your thrilling discovery!
Franz Bernhard

Actually I had been in there several times before while deer hunting and also Civil War relic hunting but never thought to much about what was laying in those creek beds. Also about 40 years ago it was logged of all the giant pine trees that were there. They left most all of the hard woods and they have been holding their own against the erosion that is taking place all along the cliff banks. Though, in a couple of the creeks there are huge oak trees that got in the way of the runoff and the earth has completely washed out from under them but have several huge roots that have managed to keep the tree upright and anchored in place. You can almost stand up under one of these trees and it really gives you an uneasy feeling when you are crawling around in there.

 

 In some places giant sections of earth have just been swallowed up from below. One of these places has one dry creek bed winding down from an area of about 30 or more acres that has just disappeared into what looks like one giant sink hole. That area is covered by thick vegetation but I have found several pieces of whale vertebrae laying right on the top of the ground there. I think I have a couple pictures I have taken in a couple of these spots and I'll post them.

[olddude]

Still a few more..... The last 3 pics are big rocks that are sitting on the top of the ground in that sunken in place. It looks like the dirt just melted away from them leaving them exposed.

[FranzBernhard]

Very, very nice, thanks for posting these impressive field pics! Reminds me very much of my hunting grounds in western Styria (Miocene), including sink holes. Fossils are generally a little bit smaller her in Styria, though. But locally as abundant as at your sites.

Franz Bernhard

[olddude]

I was wondering if someone could take a look at those rocks in the last three pic and tell me what type they are.

[FranzBernhard]

2 hours ago, olddude said:

I was wondering if someone could take a look at those rocks in the last three pic and tell me what type they are.

Not easy to say with these pics!

First two could be dolostone.

Last one could be limestone or dolostone or even a sandstone.

All based on overall appearance and fracture pattern.

But other rock types can not be excluded!

If you go back to this site, take small specimens of each rock with you. Show us more detail and you can also make some simple tests.

Franz Bernhard

[olddude]

22 hours ago, FranzBernhard said:

Not easy to say with these pics!

First two could be dolostone.

Last one could be limestone or dolostone or even a sandstone.

All based on overall appearance and fracture pattern.

But other rock types can not be excluded!

If you go back to this site, take small specimens of each rock with you. Show us more detail and you can also make some simple tests.

Franz Bernhard

Will do.....I've been pretty busy but I hope to get back at it hopefully this weekend. Thanks

 

 These rocks are located on mounds that pop out of ground in those sink holes. It's really strange how this spot really is. Inside the area of the sink holes there are small areas that shoot up out of the ground and some are 10 to 20 maybe even 30 feet higher than the sunken in part. Some of these mounds are maybe 30 X 30 feet of area. Where a few of them are smaller there are others that are much larger that run around 30 feet wide and go for a hundred feet or more. The rocks in the pics, are just sitting on top of the ground on one of these mounds. I haven't looked around on the other mounds to see if there is rock on top there also.

[FranzBernhard]

Your description reminds me somewhat of this:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdpyramide

or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(geology)

Franz Bernhard

[olddude]

On 3/20/2020 at 2:54 PM, FranzBernhard said:

Your description reminds me somewhat of this:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdpyramide

or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoodoo_(geology)

Franz Bernhard

That's pretty cool, I hadn't thought of it that way but I guess it could very well be HooDoo's in the making. I got out for awhile yesterday but didn't make it to those high spots to take samples of those rocks but one day I will. I got a couple more nice Meg teeth yesterday and a bunch more coral pieces along with more bone fragments, and a bunch of other different rocks that caught my eye. I'll post a few pics when I get them on my computer.

[olddude]

I have a few pictures of some of the stuff from yesterday. Both of the larger teeth have some damage from being washed downhill but I think I'll keep them. These coral are the first ones I have found in this creek. I was cleaning out a bunch of leaves, sticks and other brush from the creek bed and uncovered a layer in the bank that was loaded with these. I don't like to dig into the banks if I can but these were already partially washed out so I picked them. I found a caved in section that was loaded with all kinds of shells and after poking around in the mud I came up with this whole clam and some smaller shells that normally fall apart when you look at them. These were pretty solid so I added them to my bag.

[Notidanodon]

nice finds

[olddude]

On 3/18/2020 at 12:38 PM, olddude said:

Actually I had been in there several times before while deer hunting and also Civil War relic hunting but never thought to much about what was laying in those creek beds. Also about 40 years ago it was logged of all the giant pine trees that were there. They left most all of the hard woods and they have been holding their own against the erosion that is taking place all along the cliff banks. Though, in a couple of the creeks there are huge oak trees that got in the way of the runoff and the earth has completely washed out from under them but have several huge roots that have managed to keep the tree upright and anchored in place. You can almost stand up under one of these trees and it really gives you an uneasy feeling when you are crawling around in there.

 

 In some places giant sections of earth have just been swallowed up from below. One of these places has one dry creek bed winding down from an area of about 30 or more acres that has just disappeared into what looks like one giant sink hole. That area is covered by thick vegetation but I have found several pieces of whale vertebrae laying right on the top of the ground there. I think I have a couple pictures I have taken in a couple of these spots and I'll post them.

Could someone look at the 1st 3 pics and the last on and give me a general idea of what these different layers are. The top layer is grey softer clay like material. Then the shell bearing layer a little harder more compact looking but still rather soft. The third layer is a blue grey sand/clay material that is a bit harder but still not like stone. There is a layer under the last one that is compacted sand, small pebbles and some iron looking material that is quite hard. In some places this layer is quite thick several feet, but in other places it's only a four or five inches thick. I assume these layers are all different time periods but I'm not really sure about that.

 

There is another layer on top of these that is light, fine, brown looking sand and pea gravel material that is several feet thick and is the layer that is holding a lot of the shark teeth I have been finding. I have found small shark teeth and other teeth in most all these layers just sticking out the sides. It just seems strange that the larger teeth are in the higher up layers.