Matoaka Beach Cabins 6/17/19

[timmy6848]

Hello community!

 

I hate to spam the feed or post these findings at such a late time, but I finally made an account suppose any information is better than no information. Anyways, this mixed bag is my best haul to date in my one year as an amateur fossil hunter. I was with 2 other people and spent 6 hours on and off searching. Some finds were given away before I can record them but this sums up the best of the trip.

 

    - Timmy

[grandpa]

10 minutes ago, timmy6848 said:

 

I hate to spam the feed or post these findings at such a late time

No need to apologize in any way for posting these.  We love picts of exciting finds.

[Shamalama]

The Moderators will likely merge the topics but you have some pics of different fossils from your trip. Good job!

[b. bartron]

You'll want to pay attention to the falling material at the shoreline. On calmer days move around as much material as you can. Theres lots of tips and little tricks to be more productive in heavily hunted areas like the matoaka stretch. Remember all the fallen material is legal to search there when you access it through the cabin rental office. Theres lots of good fossils in that material and its often overlooked by the beach combers. A good oyster knife helps in recovering teeth shells and bone material from blocks of clay. 

[timmy6848]

Thank you for these tips but to clarify, I should be searching around the huge chunks of fallen cliffs? Everytime I have searched around there my luck has been nonexistent whether I was sitting or breaking apart the fallen cliff. Is there more to this technique? To be completely fair, I do not break the boulders up that much and I have only done this once or twice. Last time I did this, the boulder I was working with was full of clam shells and nothing else. Nonetheless, I appreciate you taking the time to respond and educating me on this topic.

 

 - Timmy

[Shamalama]

You have to be patient and have a little luck to find anything and even more so with the fallen material. If you can split it up you might find something or it may all just be clams. Don't let that discourage you from looking though. You never know when you will come across that meg tooth.

[timmy6848]

Just now, Shamalama said:

You have to be patient and have a little luck to find anything and even more so with the fallen material. If you can split it up you might find something or it may all just be clams. Don't let that discourage you from looking though. You never know when you will come across that meg tooth.

You do have a good point and honestly if finding an amazing specimen was guaranteed, it would take away from the thrill of the unknown. Thanks for writing in.

[b. bartron]

On 3/11/2020 at 9:22 AM, timmy6848 said:

Thank you for these tips but to clarify, I should be searching around the huge chunks of fallen cliffs? Everytime I have searched around there my luck has been nonexistent whether I was sitting or breaking apart the fallen cliff. Is there more to this technique? To be completely fair, I do not break the boulders up that much and I have only done this once or twice. Last time I did this, the boulder I was working with was full of clam shells and nothing else. Nonetheless, I appreciate you taking the time to respond and educating me on this topic.

 

 - Timmy

In the beginning You may not have the best of luck. But as you learn and gain experience you will become more productive. Key factors will be how much time you spend learning the bed layers and being able to identify what fossils those beds contain. Being able to identify the basic area a particular fall came from and what is or isnt in it. Different "hights" in different areas have different probability. The amount of time you spend in each area working with different techniques will increase your overall chance. Master the overall locality you visit. Every location randomly produces fossils in each case of erosion. One day you may have the most luck walking a few feet offshore. Or right at the waters edge. Maybe another day the sand is pulled back off the beach and that area now sucks cause the sand filled the trough just offshore and the better materials are left around the high tide line after the tide went out. Some days the exposed area has been heavily picked over and your best luck will come from flipping material off the tide roll (bucket) and up on the beach for receeding waves to wash back. (A method i brefore over sifting) breaking up fallen materials isnt always the best option for discovering "amounts" of fossils. But when you do find something its usual a very well preserved specimen. Keeping that in mind i feel like its one of the best methods to master. Start small. Try observing fallen blocks while you're beach combing. Learn to spot things being exposed in them from crashing waves, rain or whatever. As you start to spot stuff and learn more you'll get a better handle on whats worth breaking down and whats worth just moving around and looking under or whatever. Its all about details. 

An example.  Matoaka has a few seabed layers. I prefer more of the bottom bed to middle upper bed for fallen material. The upper bed is more sandy and poor preservation not to mention the naturally accuring cement layer. While the bottom bed is most rich in clay and preservation is much better. 

I wouldn't waste time on falls from the upper shelf of the cliff. I wouldn't spend hours just breaking up blocks of random clay. 

An ideal situation for me would be a sunny day. A calmer bay. Arrive around sunrise. 

Depending on tide hight and conditions I'd make a pass along the exposed beach head and surface hunt to the small creek. Usually someone would be with me so they would cover the tide line and a few feet off shore. Then I'd focus on falling materials and look for signs of something worth extracting. Mentally noting any areas i may want to come back to for more in depth searching. This allows time for waves to move materials as the tide moves in or out. I'd flip flop back and forth working different methods looking for fossils. Ive found some really cool teeth bones shells bryozoans and other stuff poking around in blocks of clay. Fresh falls are great and the erosion of those falls in the days after often leave great fossils to find. Just picking up and looking at a block of clay out in two feet of water could change your whole day. All it takes sometimes is looking closer at one thing to notice something beside or under it.....

 

[b. bartron]

Heres a few examples of fossils i found in clay. Ive also found poop of various poopers. Shark verts. Various shells. Fish materials. Whale/dolphins. And everything inbetween. 

[timmy6848]

7 hours ago, b. bartron said:

In the beginning You may not have the best of luck. But as you learn and gain experience you will become more productive. Key factors will be how much time you spend learning the bed layers and being able to identify what fossils those beds contain. Being able to identify the basic area a particular fall came from and what is or isnt in it. Different "hights" in different areas have different probability. The amount of time you spend in each area working with different techniques will increase your overall chance. Master the overall locality you visit. Every location randomly produces fossils in each case of erosion. One day you may have the most luck walking a few feet offshore. Or right at the waters edge. Maybe another day the sand is pulled back off the beach and that area now sucks cause the sand filled the trough just offshore and the better materials are left around the high tide line after the tide went out. Some days the exposed area has been heavily picked over and your best luck will come from flipping material off the tide roll (bucket) and up on the beach for receeding waves to wash back. (A method i brefore over sifting) breaking up fallen materials isnt always the best option for discovering "amounts" of fossils. But when you do find something its usual a very well preserved specimen. Keeping that in mind i feel like its one of the best methods to master. Start small. Try observing fallen blocks while you're beach combing. Learn to spot things being exposed in them from crashing waves, rain or whatever. As you start to spot stuff and learn more you'll get a better handle on whats worth breaking down and whats worth just moving around and looking under or whatever. Its all about details. 

An example.  Matoaka has a few seabed layers. I prefer more of the bottom bed to middle upper bed for fallen material. The upper bed is more sandy and poor preservation not to mention the naturally accuring cement layer. While the bottom bed is most rich in clay and preservation is much better. 

I wouldn't waste time on falls from the upper shelf of the cliff. I wouldn't spend hours just breaking up blocks of random clay. 

An ideal situation for me would be a sunny day. A calmer bay. Arrive around sunrise. 

Depending on tide hight and conditions I'd make a pass along the exposed beach head and surface hunt to the small creek. Usually someone would be with me so they would cover the tide line and a few feet off shore. Then I'd focus on falling materials and look for signs of something worth extracting. Mentally noting any areas i may want to come back to for more in depth searching. This allows time for waves to move materials as the tide moves in or out. I'd flip flop back and forth working different methods looking for fossils. Ive found some really cool teeth bones shells bryozoans and other stuff poking around in blocks of clay. Fresh falls are great and the erosion of those falls in the days after often leave great fossils to find. Just picking up and looking at a block of clay out in two feet of water could change your whole day. All it takes sometimes is looking closer at one thing to notice something beside or under it.....

 

Thank you for writing in once again, I appreciate your willingness to help me with my journeys as a fossil hunter. I have one last question however: where/what can I read to understand more about the various layers of sediment? I wish to become a more productive and moreover a better fossil hunter. 

[b. bartron]

15 hours ago, timmy6848 said:

Thank you for writing in once again, I appreciate your willingness to help me with my journeys as a fossil hunter. I have one last question however: where/what can I read to understand more about the various layers of sediment? I wish to become a more productive and moreover a better fossil hunter. 

https://smithsonian.figshare.com/articles/The_Geology_and_Vertebrate_Paleontology_of_Calvert_Cliffs_Maryland_USA/9761762

 

I'd start with this most recent publication. I'd also do some googling for other relative pdfs. I dont have any saved links to refer you to but you should be able to find what ya need.