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How to ruin your wrist extracting an ammonite


Ludwigia

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I guess as you get older, you get a little more crazy. :) I had sworn to slow down a bit, particularly after my exhausting hike down the mountain recently, so I'd been visiting easy-to-work sites like the ditch and the shark tooth exposure the last few weeks. But then my colleague told me that he'd opened up another section at the Callovian site in the Wutach Valley and that I should have a look at it. Maybe you can make some good finds. Well, why not? So off I went today.

At this site you have to remove a lot of overburden to get at the good horizons and then you're whacking away at a hard concretionary sandy limestone in search of fossils. I use a pick hammer and club hammer for those purposes, which makes for a bit of wear and tear on the old tendons. The first 3 hours were not all that productive for my liking. Here's what my efforts had produced up to that point.

 

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But then I finally stumbled on something interesting and quite large to boot.

 

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The photos above were taken after about an hour of overburden removal. I needed yet another hour to remove the rest, which was absolutely necessary, since the ammonite was resting in the middle of an extremely hard concretionary lager and the chances of breakage were high. I was also already pretty sure at this point that the outer whorls would not survive the treatment, since they appeared to be unstable.

Here's how things looked towards the end.

 

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You can see where the outer whorls have broken off and after I was able to pry out the inner whorls, I could see that the outer whorls didn't continue around to the back, since those parts were already eroded away. So that wasn't too bad after all and the inner whorls appear to be well-preserved as you may be able to discern below. ø is 16cm.

 

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So after this action, my heart was happy, but my wrist was aching like crazy and my legs were about to collapse because of crouching and bending the whole time. So I took a break, emptied my water bottle, and packed the things up for the return trek to the car, which in this case is happily only about 500 meters. I stopped in for roast beef with onions and french fries on the way home, so that pepped me up a bit :) I've also just discovered that Kytta ointment is good for aching wrists.

 

 

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Same here. Had plenty of twisted ankles and sore wrist while extracting ammos.    I'm thinking about buying a battery powered portable hammer drill in the future. That will save you lots of labor and time. 

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1 minute ago, Creek - Don said:

Same here. Had plenty of twisted ankles and sore wrist while extracting ammos.    I'm thinking about buying a battery powered/portable hammer drill in the future. That will save you lots of labor and time. 

This is true. I have a friend who uses one sometimes, but you're actually not allowed to use them here.

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Roast beef and onions with French fries? Disbelief.gif.8147fa4f18d991db71335b15c173bbcd.gif

Should be roasties and Yorkshire pudding. :)

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the best specimens are often the most difficult to exctract <_<

Great job Roger, what genus is the ammonite?

 

 

growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional.

 

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8 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Roast beef and onions with French fries? Disbelief.gif.8147fa4f18d991db71335b15c173bbcd.gif

Should be roasties and Yorkshire pudding. :)

That's one reason I miss my mother's cooking :drool:

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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2 minutes ago, Manticocerasman said:

the best specimens are often the most difficult to exctract <_<

Great job Roger, what genus is the ammonite?

 

 

Thanks. It's a Choffatia by the looks of it, although I still have problems distinguishing between that genus and Homeoplanulites.

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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I see you had to do some hard work to get to this one it seems like it payed of. It looks well preserved ! Can’t wait seeing this one prepped....

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4 hours ago, Everhardus said:

I see you had to do some hard work to get to this one it seems like it payed of. It looks well preserved ! Can’t wait seeing this one prepped....

One side seems to be a bit eaten away, but I think it should still be a good one.

 

1 hour ago, RuMert said:

That was definitely hard but after all physical training strengthens the body and mind. Better than lying on the couch

Right you are!

 

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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The best way to treat tired tendons is to enrich your diet with zink (almonds) and do a lot of stretching after workout. 

First picture looked very promising. Seeing it, I can feel your rush and desire to remove it in one piece. That excitement makes us forget pain and everything. 

Rest well! 

 

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2 hours ago, Dimitris said:

The best way to treat tired tendons is to enrich your diet with zink (almonds) and do a lot of stretching after workout. 

First picture looked very promising. Seeing it, I can feel your rush and desire to remove it in one piece. That excitement makes us forget pain and everything. 

Rest well! 

 

Thanks for the advice, but it wasn't all that bad after all and it's just fine now.

 

Well, the ammonite turned out to be somewhat discombobulated. But it's interesting enough to look at, so I'll be keeping it as is for the collection.

 

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Some of the smaller things turned out alright as well. I've given all the ammos a simple Choffatia sp. id.

 

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And a few terebratulid brachiopods to close off the presentation.

 

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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Nice !  I would have thought the bigger one would be better but i still like the look of it. I just prepped a similar one which i thought wasn’t any good which turned out pretty well. I guess you never know until you start prepping these...

The smaller ones are really nice ! 

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8 hours ago, Everhardus said:

Nice !  I would have thought the bigger one would be better but i still like the look of it. I just prepped a similar one which i thought wasn’t any good which turned out pretty well. I guess you never know until you start prepping these...

The smaller ones are really nice ! 

I had also been hoping for more, but was already braced for the reality. I was actually quite surprised to have found a(n almost) complete one in that strongly mineralized and turbitized concretionary lager.

Klein is almost always fein in the herveyi zone.

 

Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

http://www.steinkern.de/

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  • 4 months later...
On 9/14/2020 at 5:17 PM, Creek - Don said:

Same here. Had plenty of twisted ankles and sore wrist while extracting ammos.    I'm thinking about buying a battery powered portable hammer drill in the future. That will save you lots of labor and time. 

Well, I finally got my hammer drill.  This thing cuts and breaks any limestones like butter.    It will save  my wrist and fingers from getting smashed.  LOL

image.png.59a953cf90f2a2e486845c13c3c61a3d.png

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  • 11 months later...
On 2/8/2021 at 5:59 PM, Creek - Don said:

Well, I finally got my hammer drill.  This thing cuts and breaks any limestones like butter.    It will save  my wrist and fingers from getting smashed.  LOL

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This is available through WM for. $100.still recommend it??? Where do you buy your bits? 

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32 minutes ago, Nick G. said:

This is available through WM for. $100.still recommend it??? Where do you buy your bits? 

 

Yes, I still have mine and works great.   I got my bits via online.   Charged once and it lasts for months.   

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On 2/8/2021 at 5:59 PM, Creek - Don said:

Well, I finally got my hammer drill.  This thing cuts and breaks any limestones like butter.    It will save  my wrist and fingers from getting smashed.  LOL

image.png.59a953cf90f2a2e486845c13c3c61a3d.png

Excellent! Glad you posted this and your experience with it. I've got a boulder here that I REALLY want to get into and need something like this. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 1/9/2022 at 11:30 PM, Creek - Don said:

 

Yes, I still have mine and works great.   I got my bits via online.   Charged once and it lasts for months.   

Thanks! I'll pull the trigger on this with my next paycheck. Too good to pass up, right?

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From my experience it works best when used on softer limestone rocks, but harder to break when used on granite or other similar rocks. 

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