Isle of Wight Holiday September 2021

[Calli99]

Last month my boyfriend and I went on our first ever trip to the Isle of Wight. We stayed for four full days and managed to squeeze in a fossil trip each day.

 

On the first day we met up with one of my friends who was staying on the island with her boyfriend who is an 'islander'. We decided to visit the popular Compton Bay, an interesting and well known cretaceous site famous for dinosaur remains. When we arrived the tide was quite high and I didn't realise just how long it takes to go down (several hours, for future reference), but we were able to get onto the beach and walk a somewhat narrow strip of sand.

 

 

After less than 10 minutes I picked up the first fossil! To me it looks like bone, but it has been loosely suggested to me it might be plant. It has a lot of iron rich matrix still attached to it which has unfortunately stained all my other fossils from this location as I desalinated them all in the same container (I would be glad to hear any advice for removing this staining?).

 

 

 

 

Not 10 minutes after that I made the next find of the day, a small chunk of rolled bone.

 

 

The tide was still very high so we decided to wander about the island and came back later that evening.

Our lunch spot.

 

The tide was lower in the evening and we had a wonderful time pointing out the dinosaur footprints, the trackway and finding pebbles full of shells, a pebbly full of bony fish bits and one more bit of bone for me and finally one for my friend as well (don't have pic of that though).

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure how well the photos demonstrate this, but I think this may be a broken bit of a caudal vertebra.

 

 

 

On day two we tried, and failed to get to Rocken End for some lovely ammonites. We couldn't find the right spot, so planned to try again the next day. In the afternoon we went to Bouldnor in search of some Oligocene turtles, crocodiles, mammals and whatever else we might find. However we were unlucky again and only found four chunks of Emys turtle shell. I am pleased with them though, as three of the four are really rather nice. It was a muddy but pleasant evening.

 

Once again we had to wait a while (though 30 mins or so) for the tide to retreat.

 

 

 

The first two pieces on the left were found within about 1m of each other. I'm not sure what to make of the 'stripe' on the top side of the third chunk.

 

The next morning we found the correct access point and made our way to Rocken End, it's a fairly long walk down a steep hill(/mountain??) but wasn't as bad as it looked from the car park, there are steps carved into the mud at regular points.

 

 

Soon enough we were scrambling over boulders of cretaceous upper greensand and pointing out ammonites that were poking out. Extracting the ammonites proved a significant challenge. They are incredibly delicate and soft. You could reach up and snap the ends out the rock very easily and practically all of the ammonites we attempted to extract came out in pieces, or broke irreperably. 

 

 

 

I did find two lovely little shark teeth sticking out, I believe these are somewhat uncommon here so I feel lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

Just as we were leaving, my boyfriend found three ammonites practically lying on the ground in front him. They were by far the best ammonites we collected, he was very pleased with himself considering I had spent the previous two hours chiselling away whilst he sat and read his book...

 

 

Prep in progress from the other side.

 

The third one as found, just peeking out...

 

... and after some prep, it's still in the big block though, will (try to) cut a little pedestal out of the rock. Unfortunately the centre is missing.

 

 

I also found a few beautiful brachiopods, bivalves and worm tubes - and also an echinoid! I have yet to ID any of these, but I think I actually prefer them over the ammonites, I wish I collected a few more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paleoworld-101]

Very nice trip report! The IOW is a fantastic place. You did quite well for a first trip to Compton/Brook Bay/Hanover Point. The pieces are all bone, including the first one that you said someone thought it was plant. I would guess that it is a rib fragment. 

Rocken End is a location i've not done during my IOW visits so it's nice to see something different. 

[Calli99]

 

 

 

On our final day we went to Gurnard Bay, once again in search of Oligocene fauna. This was my favourite fossil hunt of the trip. We found plenty of Emys, Trionyx, crocodile and a few bits I'm not sure about. I found the first bit within less than a minute of walking onto the beach.

 

 

And about 30 seconds later I found a crocodile scute!

 

 

Here are some in situ photos, see if you can spot the bone

 

 

 

 

 

There are some more interesting bones other shell pieces but I haven't ID'd them all yet. I'll be posting some of them in the ID section of the forum today or tomorrow. I think potentially mammal bone, but no teeth unfortunately. This location was great fun, very easy to access and very productive. I would even recommend having a look in front of the see defence blocks to the right of the beach as you enter it. I had a look there just for kicks as we were leaving, not expecting much, but found loads more. What a fun place.

 

 

 

 

 

And that concludes my trip! I hope you enjoyed my rather indulgently long report, I certainly loved the Isle of Wight. 

[Calli99]

1 minute ago, Paleoworld-101 said:

Very nice trip report! The IOW is a fantastic place. You did quite well for a first trip to Compton/Brook Bay/Hanover Point. The pieces are all bone, including the first one that you said someone thought it was plant. I would guess that it is a rib fragment. 

Rocken End is a location i've not done during my IOW visits so it's nice to see something different. 

 

Thank you! I thought rib as well, glad you agree!

 

Rocken End was a fantastic spot, very secluded. Definitely worth a half day - just don't be put off by the view from the car park!

[Tidgy's Dad]

Lovely report and I adore the brachiopods too. 

Thanks for sharing.