Collecting Complete Florida Fossil Bivalves

[Nimravis]

A couple of weeks ago I was in Southern Florida with my wife and my sons family for 8 days.

 

My wife, my 7 year old grandson and your’s truly.

 

 

During this time I was able to get out and collect fossil Pliocene-Pleistocene shells from the Caloosahatchee Formation. Collecting fossil shells is one of my favorite fossils to collect and I love it when I find complete examples. I have been to the Peace River a couple times, and even stopped there on the way home to take a look at it, it was very shallow, there was a group of people sifting, but I did not partake.

 

 

I do enjoy collecting fossils from the Peace River, but I would rather collect fossil shells.

 

During this trip I did collect hundreds of fossil shells, but I am only posting a few species of complete fossil bivalves, some of these have predatory drill holes in them.

 

@MikeR hopefully you can let me know how my identification is on the following shells, I tend to mess these up.

 

Eucrassatella speciosa

 

 

 

Chione elevata

 

 

 

Arcinella cornuta

 

 

 

 

Plicatula marginata 

 

 

 

Carditamera floridana 

 

 

 

 

Same as above-

 

 

 

 

Noetia ponderosa macnelli 

 

 

 

 

Lucina pensylyancia

 

 

 

Solecurtus cumingianus 

 

 

 

Arca wagneriana 

 

 

 

 

Dosinia elegans 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Nimravis

[historianmichael]

Some really pretty shells. The Pliocene-Pleistocene shells of Florida have such great ornamentation compared to the simpler ones up north.

[FranzBernhard]

Sweet!! 

Thanks for sharing!

Franz Bernhard

[Wrangellian]

Nice!

I like shells too. I'd rather collect shells of any sort than bits of bone any day, though here in my collecting areas bone/teeth are rare so I'm always pleased to find them.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Wrangellian

[minnbuckeye]

8 hours ago, Nimravis said:

 

 Impressive finds! I always take special notice of the Arca wagneriana  because of the unique markings  as shown in this view!!

[fossilnut]

I'm with minnbuckeye, the Arca hinge markings just blow me away. @Nimravis Your pictures are spectacular thanks for posting.

[fossilhunter21]

Those are some fine looking bivalves!  

 

Thanks for sharing!

[digit]

You did well in finding bilvalves with both valves. The vast majority had to be disarticulated. Surely, you had some nice gastropods as well that you could feature in another topic.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[minnbuckeye]

8 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I did collect hundreds of fossil shells

 

36 minutes ago, digit said:

Surely, you had some nice gastropods as well that you could feature in another topic.

 

I concur with digit!! There must be gastropods amongst the 100s of fossil shells!!!!! No pressure. 

 

Mike

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, digit said:

You did well in finding bilvalves with both valves. The vast majority had to be disarticulated. Surely, you had some nice gastropods as well that you could feature in another topic.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Correct, I have many, especially some beautiful Olives, which are one of my favorites.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Nimravis

[Nimravis]

47 minutes ago, minnbuckeye said:

 

 

I concur with digit!! There must be gastropods amongst the 100s of fossil shells!!!!! No pressure. 

 

Mike

Lol- It is not posting the pictures, it is getting the ID’s correct, I always mess them up and hate to put out wrong info. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great finds.

Great pictures.

Great holiday. 

[fossilnut]

@Nimravis You might want to check with ultraviolet light to see if it would reveal some of the original color patterns-especially the olives. Good luck

[jerseygurl]

Wow! Nice pics and beautiful finds. 

[Nimravis]

48 minutes ago, fossilnut said:

@Nimravis You might want to check with ultraviolet light to see if it would reveal some of the original color patterns-especially the olives. Good luck

I do that every time that I get down to Florida.

[fossilnut]

@NimravisWould love to see a post of ones showing color patterns under ultraviolet light. Please

[Praefectus]

Nice finds!

[Nimravis]

21 hours ago, fossilnut said:

@NimravisWould love to see a post of ones showing color patterns under ultraviolet light. Please

Per your request, here are a few- the cones are always my favorite and coral pieces, large and small are great.

 

 

[digit]

Reminds me of this video from forum founder @Cris:

 

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[fossilnut]

@NimravisReally enjoyed seeing your ultraviolet colored fossil shells. The cones were gorgeous. Thanks I need to go back thru the ones I found to see if I checked them out.

[Nimravis]

A couple more fluorescent shells from this trip.

 

 

[digit]

Pretty cool how the hidden patterns can be brought out by looking at the fossils in a different way (wavelength).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Nimravis]

On 5/31/2021 at 11:26 AM, digit said:

Pretty cool how the hidden patterns can be brought out by looking at the fossils in a different way (wavelength).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

I agree. I hit this one with the black light last night, it is now one of my favorites.

 

 

These two little ones are not bad either.

 

 

Ken, the funny thing about these shells is that I really love to collect them. My main interest has been Mazon Creek fossils, but I would much rather collect these common fossils versus the Mazon stuff. One of the guys that from time to time, I collect MC stuff with calls this stuff “Road Kill” because of it's age and he would never collect it.