Ammonite Hunting in Yorkshire

[Welsh Wizard]

Unpacking stuff:

 

Pseudolioceras nodule. Small section of ammonite showing:

 

 

Possible Amaltheus nodule. I’ve started prepping and have my fingers crossed:

 

 

 

[Welsh Wizard]

Partial oxynoticeras. Another rare ammonite.

 

[Everhardus]

Love it all !!

[fossilhunter21]

Very cool finds! Those ammonites are very lovely!

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

-@fossilhunter21

[Welsh Wizard]

Update on the one nodule. Definitely an Amaltheus. Coming along nicely but starting to get sticky. Is the centre there?

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2022 by Welsh Wizard

[Ludwigia]

55 minutes ago, Welsh Wizard said:

Is the centre there?

 

I would think so.... 

[fossilhunter21]

Looking good!

 

-@fossilhunter21

 

 

[Welsh Wizard]

Best I can do. 4 inch Amaltheus stokesi in septarian mudstone nodule. Found Robin hoods Bay, Yorkshire. You can see the classic rope keel

 

[fossilhunter21]

Nice job!

 

-@fossilhunter21

[Welsh Wizard]

Another from last year. A 4 inch pseudolioceras 

 

Before

 

 

After

 

[Ossicle]

Really beautiful finds and prep work. Thank you for sharing!

[Welsh Wizard]

An update on that crinoid I found last year. As found:

 

 

Prep completed this week by a friend.

 

 

 

 

 

Hispidocrinus scalaris from the Oxynotum zone.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Lovely ammonite thread and that crinoid is super! 

Glad I caught up with this thread. 

[Welsh Wizard]

Partially prepped block with Hildaites murleyei showing. Pretty rare ammonite by all accounts.

 

 

On the back is a cleviceras sp. It’s going to take a while to prep this.

 

 

These ammonites contain oil. If you break through the shell, the black oil seeps out.

 

Found Sandsend near Whitby. Exaratum zone.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

22 minutes ago, Welsh Wizard said:

Partially prepped block with Hildaites murleyei showing. Pretty rare ammonite by all accounts.

 

 

On the back is a cleviceras sp. It’s going to take a while to prep this.

 

 

These ammonites contain oil. If you break through the shell, the black oil seeps out.

 

Beautiful ammonites! And the first time I've actually heard of oil shale containing liquid oil like that! Very interesting (and rather tricky, I suspect), since I'm used to great degrees of refinement to turn the Posidonia oil shale into usable product...!

 

Makes me wonder: can you hear the oil slush around when you tilt the ammonites? And does the oil derive from the decayed ammonites themselves, or would this be a mixture of different decay products? If the former, it might be possible to perform some very interested chemical analyses on the oil...!

[DPS Ammonite]

21 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Makes me wonder: can you hear the oil slush around when you tilt the ammonites? And does the oil derive from the decayed ammonites themselves, or would this be a mixture of different decay products? If the former, it might be possible to perform some very interested chemical analyses on the oil...!

Most of the oil comes from microscopic creatures such as algae. The partly hollow ammonite along with any other cavities were just good spots for the oil to accumulate.

 

Rudist reefs are a great reservoir for oil to accumulate with all the nooks and crannies.   Oilmen look for rudist reefs for oil even though the rudists don’t create much oil themselves.

Edited March 21, 2022 by DPS Ammonite

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

1 minute ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Rudist reefs are a great reservoir for oil to accumulate with all the nooks and crannies.   Oilmen look for rudist reefs for oil even though the rudists don’t create much oil themselves.

 

Which, I guess, explains why a primary school friend of mine left me two beautiful rudist specimens from Oman, where his father worked as a geologist for an oil company

 

2 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Most of the oil comes from microscopic creatures such as algae. The partly hollow ammonite along with any other cavities were just good spots for the oil to accumulate.

 

But, yeah, that most oil derives from plankton and algae I knew. It's just the rare mode of preservation that made me wonder otherwise... Anyway, thanks for clearing that up for me!

[Welsh Wizard]

29 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Makes me wonder: can you hear the oil slush around when you tilt the ammonites? And does the oil derive from the decayed ammonites themselves, or would this be a mixture of different decay products? If the former, it might be possible to perform some very interested chemical analyses on the oil...!

Hi. No not sloshing around. It tends to be thick and gloopy and looks and behaves like thick black oil. I’ll see if I’ve got a broken ammonite with some in and post a photo tomorrow.

[Welsh Wizard]

A quick day trip to the Yorkshire coast on Saturday. Whilst it was the Easter weekend, the beach we visited was pretty quiet. It’s a place called Mappleton which has cliffs of boulder clay left behind by the glaciers from the last ice age. The clay contains all sorts of rocks that were ripped up and transported by the glaciers, so you never know what you’re going to find.

 

 

 

There was a lot of sand and few rocks showing but we picked up a couple of finds. Here’s one pebble with a part of an ammonite showing:

 

 

After preparation today. It’s an Androgynoceras maculatum. Three inches at its widest point:

 

 

 

[Everhardus]

Very nice and great prepwork !

[Welsh Wizard]

On 3/21/2022 at 9:03 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Beautiful ammonites! And the first time I've actually heard of oil shale containing liquid oil like that! Very interesting (and rather tricky, I suspect), since I'm used to great degrees of refinement to turn the Posidonia oil shale into usable product...!

 

Makes me wonder: can you hear the oil slush around when you tilt the ammonites? And does the oil derive from the decayed ammonites themselves, or would this be a mixture of different decay products? If the former, it might be possible to perform some very interested chemical analyses on the oil...!

Hi Alexander @pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon. Sorry this took so long to respond to but I couldn’t find an ammonite oozing oil. Here’s one, a broken clevaceras? 

 

 

You can see the oil coming out of the chambers.

 

[Welsh Wizard]

Here’s some progress on that multi block. It’s soul destroying but coming along.

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2022 by Welsh Wizard

[Ludwigia]

That's really going to be something special when done.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

5 hours ago, Welsh Wizard said:

Sorry this took so long to respond to but I couldn’t find an ammonite oozing oil. Here’s one, a broken clevaceras? 

 

You can see the oil coming out of the chambers.

 

Very interesting specimen, and something completely novel for me! Thanks for providing me with the example!

 

5 hours ago, Welsh Wizard said:

Here’s some progress on that multi block. It’s soul destroying but coming along.

 

4 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

That's really going to be something special when done.

 

And I agree. These multi-blocks are rarely prepared. But when they are, they typically turn out something special! 

[MeargleSchmeargl]

If any of y'all have played RPGs before, this is like that one guy that gets every rare drop in a dungeon in 1 try. Absolutely amazing finds.