How to exactly study fossils in your collection ?

[Coco]

 

Coco

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

On 11/20/2021 at 8:42 AM, Coco said:

Write the genus or genus + species on G00gle and clic on "photos".

 

Here is an example :

 

https://www.google.com/search?q="Clypeaster+aff.+crassicostatus"&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=AOaemvJrj0oglngj4URQybyV9-Z-P99_gQ:1637393963345&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwju-qrst6b0AhVP1BoKHdLmD8sQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1560&bih=803&dpr=0.9#imgrc=qhfdHCFxr734xM

 

Coco

That's the first thing I tried to do,but sometimes it shows many different specimens that doesn't even resemble to each other so it's a bit confusing for certain specimens.

However I manage to narrow down seashells types that I've got and I think I may even manage to found out exact genus.

I'm fairly sure I've got many specimens of Pecten sp.

I'll take the list I found about Miocene animals that lived in my area and mark off the ones that lived on exact quarry where my fossils came from.

It will be much easier and faster that way.

On 11/20/2021 at 9:02 AM, FranzBernhard said:

 

Some of these sound familiar to me.

There is a bivalve in the middle Miocene beds around me, that is called "Cordiopsis islandicoides". This species was assigned to at least 9 different genera, one of them Cytherea:

This is often a big problem. I myself got very confused at the beginning with all those species shuffling between different genera. My solution was to give all the ID work to a real amateur paleontologist, with the results checked by a Miocene professional in Vienna.

 

This sounds also familiar! I don´t know where you are exactly located in Croatia, but we have something similar in Austria, called "Leithakalk" or "Weissenegg-Formation". You may try googling for Weissenegg and limestone, resulting in some papers in English.

Franz Bernhard

I found pictures of Cordiopsis islandicoides that you published on your website when I was searching for photos on Google.

i have few specimens that greatly resembles to those seashells,but I'm not sure if they are the same since most of them don't have whole exoskeleton ( I forgot the actual term) but only imprint in the rock that is shaped like shell.

But now that you mentioned that one of your seashells is Cytherea,it's possible that's the same genera I have.

I'm planning to contact my local Natural History museum and ask them if they can give me more info about flora and fauna from Miocene that were obtained from quarry that my fossils came from.

I saw they accept requests to share research data for anything related to museum's collection,but I'm not sure if that works for ''standard'' citizens or only for collages,universities,schools etc.

I'm gonna call them in next few days and ask them if it's possible to get data for all fossils found on that specific quarry.

I may also visit one paleontologist on nearby university that said I can bring fossils for ID,but I had to postponed that since Covid-19 outbreak happened.

 

I'm located in Northwest Zagreb and I live right beneath mountain Medvednica that has 12 quarries (I was aware of only main 3 until few days ago since other 9 are very,very small).

One of those quarries is also the oldest one in Europe that's been used for excavating raw materials since 12th century.

Most of famous historic Zagreb structures were made out of limestone from there.

I Googled Weissenegg-Formation and it looks so similar to those three quarries from my area.

Your formation is also from Miocene as I can see,which means we may have some mutual species of extinct sea organisms.

I was shocked when I read that they found Megalodon in Weissenegg-Formation.I only saw replica of head from Megalodon around 12 years ago in my museum and it also served as entrance for visitors that led to small room where were authentic smaller bones of Megalodon.I never forgot how huge that head was,it was breathtaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 11/20/2021 at 11:24 PM, IsaacTheFossilMan said:

 

I'm very sorry you're going through that, mate. It's very hard, but, hey, at least it shows you that you're progressing!

 

You may not be confident in your knowledge in this moment, but I am very confident in your willpower to better that knowledge, as evidenced by this post. I'm very glad I've brought you up, and, hey, remember the definition:

 

A paleontologist is a scientist who studies fossils. If your basement is filled with fossils found while out on hikes, then you're an amateur paleontologist.

 

Happy hunting,

Isaac

Awww,thanks man!

I finally decided to ''squeeze'' paleontology back in my life and get in it completely.I will never neglect paleontology as long as I'm alive.It's most fascinating thing in my life and my childhood obsession that never ceased to exist,but I had to let it go for some time for other things that were more ''important''.

Now I'm finally back and I'm enjoying it more than ever.

On 11/20/2021 at 11:25 PM, IsaacTheFossilMan said:

 

 

Note:

 

When using the binomial system (genus + species), the text goes in italics, but nothing else.

E.g.:

Cardita sp.

 

I actually copy/paste names of those specimens directly from that list of animals from Miocene in my area and to be honest,I didn't even noticed italics on neither of them .

 

[FranzBernhard]

2 hours ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex said:

I forgot the actual term

External mold and internal mold. Internal mold is also called "steinkern". A German term, also used in English language.

 

2 hours ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex said:

i have few specimens that greatly resembles to those seashells

Complete or not, the group of "Venus clams" is a nightmare for ID in itself .

 

2 hours ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex said:

I Googled Weissenegg-Formation and it looks so similar to those three quarries from my area.

There are also quite similar formations in Slovenia, which comes at no surprise .

Do you know the (exact) age for your formation? Weissenegg-Formation is mostly Langhian with some Serravallian (the Badenian in regional stratigraphic terms), spanning about 3 Million years (about 16-13 Million years). Yes, species would be mostly the same in this case.

 

2 hours ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex said:

Megalodon in Weissenegg-Formation.

Yeah, but these seem to be rare. Anyways, its there!

 

Have fun!!
Franz Bernhard

 

 

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

9 hours ago, FranzBernhard said:

Complete or not, the group of "Venus clams" is a nightmare for ID in itself .

 

Agreed... If you don't know a locality, you're stuck with the horrors of Venus

[IsaacTheFossilMan]

11 hours ago, Tyrannosaurus Rex said:

Awww,thanks man!

I finally decided to ''squeeze'' paleontology back in my life and get in it completely.I will never neglect paleontology as long as I'm alive.It's most fascinating thing in my life and my childhood obsession that never ceased to exist,but I had to let it go for some time for other things that were more ''important''.

Now I'm finally back and I'm enjoying it more than ever.

 

Same here, same here. My room is now filled with rocks and fossils!

 

If you ever need something, who you gonna call - not the Ghostbusters... Lemme try that again. If you ever need anything, I'm here!

[jdp]

So I do this whole paleo research thing for a living so some clarifications:

 

There are two pieces of what you're asking: (1) how to determine what your fossil is and what is known about it and (2) how to generate new knowledge from a fossil.

 

For the former, there is a lot of good advice here already, but the rule of thumb is: use a geological map and stratigraphic column to identify the age of the rocks where you found your fossil, figure out the general type of fossil it is, and then using that information to constrain your search, dig down into the literature. For invertebrate fossils, a good starting place is the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology. This is a rather large and expensive set of books but you should be able to find copies at your local university library. For vertebrate fossils, there isn't the same sort of comprehensive reference but you should be able to find some information in textbooks like Carroll's Vertebrate Paleontology or the Handbook of Paleoichthyology/Paleoherpetology (again, expensive, but probably accessible at or through your local university library. Once you have a general sense of what it is you are looking at, you can do targeted searches for information about your fossil using google scholar.

 

For the latter, it really depends on your research question, but it also really does not depend on the quality of the specimen. An exceptional specimen of a rare taxon might contribute new information, but you could also contibute new info by simply measuring a few thousand super-common brachiopods...the scientific value really depends on how you as the research question and how you collect new data to answer it. I'm happy to discuss this all in more detail but it's a vast question where the answer of "how" really depends on your specific research goals.

[Welsh Wizard]

To answer your second question. How do you generate new knowledge from a fossil? In my view, the worlds your oyster as they say.

 

I am going to the Alan Turing centre tomorrow to scan one of my dinosaur fossils in one of the UKs most powerful CT Scanners.

 

Im not an academic and I have no affiliation with the university. I merely gave them a call and enquired how I could access the scanner. They explained the options I had, I then applied for beam time via the research council and it got accepted. All very exciting.

 

So I guess it’s up to individuals on how hard they want to push things and what they want to get involved with. Go for it be bold.

 

 

[doushantuo]

I might be back in here, but I noticed one response by Clearlake I can concur with:

 

READ

In my case: anything between 10 and 40 articles/week,on average,and you know what: even that is barely adequate