Shmelovka: the 3rd place to hunt in Moscow

[RuMert]

Hi everybody!

Today I’ll show you yet another distinct fossil hunting location within the city limits. It’s situated in the south-east in the direct vicinity of the Moscow ring road (city and regional border). The outcrops are located on the banks of the shallow Shmelovka (Shmelyevka) river, effectively a small fordable creek.

[RuMert]

The location is rather depressive, attractive to crows and people with barbecue/alcohol/garbage dumping addictions. Most photos will probably contribute to that depressive feeling, but it’s mainly because they were taken last snowless winter

[RuMert]

[RuMert]

[RuMert]

It looks different with snow and full of overgrown vegetation in summer, effectively a patch of wilderness

[RuMert]

The fossil layers are numerous, in theory you can encounter everything from Oxfordian to Upper Tithonian. In practice, we are talking about mostly Panderi zone fossils, with the advantage you can gather them all year round, unlike Moskva river, which is only productive in winter. Unfortunately the place is naturally picked over and produces mostly belemnites and ammonite imprints.

 

Here you see black Jurassic clay at the cliff's bottom

 

The ammo looks nice, but it's only an imprint

[RuMert]

As for me, the main point of interest was Upper Tithonian with a visible border between Subditus and Nodiger ammonite zones. When I looked around the place last winter, I found a small suitable outcrop. I visited the place a couple of times in winter and a couple of times recently, with the results I’ll be sharing here.

The outcrop:

 

Having found these 2 ammos (Craspedites aff. kachpuricus) just lying on the ground, I decided to examine it further

 

Working on the outcrop recently

 

The gray clay relates to Craspedites subditus ammonite zone, while the red one - to Craspedites nodiger. The red blocks below fell from the cave ceiling

[RuMert]

That's how ammos are found in clay

[FossilDAWG]

Don

[RuMert]

Unfortunately they are mostly desintegrated and finding anything good-looking is exceptional

 

Even with a good imprint (on the right) the ammo itself is a pile of debris (on the left)

 

They are often "coalificated" leaving such 3D imprints (ammonite section below)

 

The place was full of slugs, so I had to take a pic of this modern mollusk guarding the fossil ones

[RuMert]

As with other Upper Volgian ammos the green color is widely represented (ammonites: Craspedites sp., Garniericeras subclypeiforme)

[RuMert]

But there's also golden (Garniericeras: 1, 2, 4; Craspedites: 3)

[RuMert]

And blue, everything turning whitish and silvery upon drying out

[RuMert]

Belemnite preservation is peculiar: calcite is dissolved leaving only fragmacones. 

 

Protoconch is visible here (0,3mm or so)

[RuMert]

Bivalves are found as steinkerns only

[RuMert]

There are also brachiopods akin to those found in Fili park (Rhynchonella sp.), but as steinkerns, worms and even very small crinoid stems (1 mm in diameter)

[RuMert]

I guess that's all for now, thanks for reading!

[Fossildude19]

Another report with atmospheric moods and beautiful finds!  

I really enjoy these reports. 

Thanks for posting, Rumert.  

[Masp]

@RuMert so awesome and informative, thanks so much for sharing this! 

[taj]

Nice report! You're lucky to have some productive sites so close to a major city!

[mr.cheese]

I enjoyed reading that, the walk in to the dig is a really nice touch! Lots for a newcomer to learn there, thank you.

[RuMert]

Thanks, I couldn't fail you after that MOTM award

[Tidgy's Dad]

And this is precisely why you're MOTM. 

Wow! 

They might be a little fragile, but well worth the effort. 

Beautiful fossils. 

[minnbuckeye]

Another outstanding report!!!  

 

[grandpa]

In addition to the beautiful fossils, the trip into Moscow was quite a treat.  Thanks for sharing your part of the planet with us.