2021 Richmond Trips

[Huntlyfossils]

While 2021 was an extremely difficult year with coivd and the loss of my mother we were able to make it out to Richmond in NW Queensland for 2 fossil digs. The conditions out here can very harsh 40c plus days so we did a bit of night time digging under lanterns to avoid the heat.

 

The material here is marine cretaceous sediments from the Toolebuc formation. Our goals this year was to finally find a large ichthyosaur bone (I have found 2x isolated teeth in the past)  and find a NW Queensland ammonite.

 

Below are some of best finds from the two digs.

 

While the ichthyosaur bone eluded us for another year while going through our material we brought home we found what has been ID as a Pterosaur digit bone which we were very excited about as these are rare in Australia as is by far my most exciting find to date the fossil is approx 8cm long.

 

Another rare fossil from the site is Johnlongia shark tooth we have found average condition teeth in the past but this year we found a very well preserved one.

 While turtle fossils are very common on this site we did find our first almost complete one however it was very fragile so decided the best option was to leave it in the location we found it . (Sorry these pictures were taken at night so are not very good)

 

Another very common fossil is fish remains however we found our best fish jaw to date this took quite a few hours to prep.

 

Lastly I was determined to find at least one Ammonite these are not found in our usual site so after been given some guidance and contacting land owners we were given permission to hunt on a station which was well known for ammonites and it didn't disappoint we made some nice finds.
 

 

The best part of the fossil hunting this year was spending quality time with my son who loves doing it too, thanks for reading my run down of this year collecting I hope everyone has a great 2022. Cheers

 

 

 

[RuMert]

Very interesting finds

[FossilNerd]

Nice report and finds! Congrats on the pterosaur digit and the ammonites.
 

I wish you better luck in your next hunt for finding a large ichthyosaur bone. 
 

Thanks for sharing! 

[Sjfriend]

Great report and finds. I'd have to dig that turtle up! Even if it took me a couple days to properly excavate. And nice you could get permission to explore and collect some nice looking ammonites from that station.

[Jared C]

Insane!! As much as I'm spoiled with the Texas cretaceous exposures, I must say I'm jealous! Very impressed with the pterosaur digit, jealous of the fish material and very interested by that Johnlongia tooth. 

 

 

Do you think you have an ID on the fish?