My Yorkshire Ammonite Collection

[DanJeavs]

I’ll start off my collection with the most common ammonite you can find on the Yorkshire coastline in England. 

Dactylioceras Commune

Lower Jurassic, Upper Lias. 
Roughly 180myo
 

You can find these ammonites in abundance in Whitby. No exaggerations when I say iv seen thousands over the years. You can find them in plenty of other locations all over Europe, though they’re most known as the Whitby Dac. 
 

Now, while they maybe common, size comes into play with mine. You’re usual dac, will probably be between 2-3 inches. If you’re lucky, you can get a 4 inch one, though uncommon. 
map imagine my shock, when I found a monster with its keel poking out. It takes something special to get me excited about one these days, and this one did just that. After prep, I measure from mouth to keel, and it came in at 5inches to the dot. 

 

 

With the mouth hood preserved, and as good a middle as you’ll get, it’s safe to say you don’t get better. Iv asked around and have yet to see one bigger, though I can guarantee, I’d say this may be the largest Dactylioceras Commune to come from Whitby to date. 
 

I hope you enjoy my collection as I post them, as much as I do. 

Thanks for reading. 
 

Dan

[DanJeavs]

Harpoceras Falciferum

Lower Jurassic, Upper Lias

180myo

 

One of my favourite ammonites as a whole. A fairly uncommon Ammonite to find, until you understand the right nodules to hit. 
Recently, I hit a hot streak of finding them, 10 in total over the past month or so. Some good quality, most average/poor. 
I’m also a sucker for a large nodule with ammonites inside. So on a recent trip out, I was very pleased when I cleaved open a nodule and saw a small section of mouth border and inner whorl poking out. 

 

Of course, it jumped straight to the from of the prep queue, and so began the prep. 
Sometimes these ammonites can be incredibly sticky, either from the matrix in general, or they’re covered in a thin layer of calcite which needs to be abraded. Luckily! This one prepped beautifully, always a job when the matrix peels away beautifully. Once finished, it measure in at 4 inches from mouth to keel. A stunning and pristine keep may I add. 

 

 

One of my favourite preps, for one of my favourite ammonites. Stunning. 
 

Dan 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Awesome specimens! I'm not one to go in for ammonites much, but these are some really nice pieces!

[Ludwigia]

Looking forward to more

[RJB]

  Hey man, I've got a fresh $10 in my pocket.  $5 for each......................... ok just kidding.  These are some really nice ammo's.  Even the Dac.  Something we dont find over here.  Looking forward to seeing some more of your fossil rocks.

 

RB

[DanJeavs]

20 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Awesome specimens! I'm not one to go in for ammonites much, but these are some really nice pieces!

Oh man, why not? I find them incredible with how diverse they are, and the fast that the smallest difference could mean a new species. Iv got a really special once I’ll be posting today, along with something else special that isn’t an Ammonite though

[DanJeavs]

9 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Looking forward to more

More to come today 

[DanJeavs]

7 hours ago, RJB said:

  Hey man, I've got a fresh $10 in my pocket.  $5 for each......................... ok just kidding.  These are some really nice ammo's.  Even the Dac.  Something we dont find over here.  Looking forward to seeing some more of your fossil rocks.

 

RB

Haha. You’ll have to fight me for them Got some more to come today! 

[DanJeavs]

Eteoderoceras Hastatus

Unsure of age with out diving into scientific papers myself. 
 

last year I had the opportunity to get my hands on one of these incredible ammonites. I visited a fossil friend who I trade material with every now and then. I’m not too big a fan of having pieces in my collection that isn’t found by me, but while looking through some of his boxes, I noticed it sat on a shelf. It was in a bit of a state, averagely preserved I would say, with some moulded spines out back on, and patches of putty everywhere, filling in holes that had rotten away, either that or worn burrows. Can’t be for certain, so after almost begging him, he agreed to the trade, and I took my new prized possession home. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures before, so you’ll have to trust me with how it looked.

So began the prep as always, i revealed a few more spines sat in the matrix, carefully abrading them out after some detailed pen work. Some sculpting of the matrix was also done to make it more presentable. the finally clean up today, was to get the acrylic paint out, and match up the puttied parts with the shell itself (first time doing this, but rather pleased with the outcome. All the was left was to apply some wax to bring the colours out, and onto the shelf it went. 

 

Its an incredible ammonite, and one I don’t expect to find myself any time soon, as I said before, they are awfully rare, but who knows. Maybe one day, I’ll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best! 
 

Dan

[Ludwigia]

Luverly! So what's the genus? Looks like an Euaspidoceras to me.

[DanJeavs]

10 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Luverly! So what's the genus? Looks like an Euaspidoceras to me.

Eteoderoceras Hastatum. Euaspidoceras are not found in Whitby. You can though find them further south on the holderness coast as glacial erratics. A friend of mine found a quality one quite recently. 

[RJB]

 That is freakin AWWESOME!!!   $15 for this one.   Ha!  Just kidding again.   That makes for quite the display!   Would be proud to add it to my collection.

 

RB

[DanJeavs]

Kind of cheating here, I do have marine reptile and other things in my collection, but this may just be the rarest of them all, for one amazing certain reason, but first, I have to take you back to September last year. On a trip out I came across a flat nodule in a rock pool. As I turn it over, I noticed some small outlines of something that resembled crinoid, but didn’t look like the usual stuff you find here. 
So after the usual climb back up the cliffs (if you didn’t know, 95% of the beaches we hunt here, you have to go up and down rather large cliffs to access them) I posted a picture on one of the Facebook pages asking if anybody had any ideas. See image below So off I drive home, unknown to me it was amassing quite a few comments. So as I pull up on my driveway, I see a lot of notifications, so go check them out. Well, it turns out it’s not crinoid, but starfish, which is VERY rare here. I was overjoyed, as you would be to find something so rare, but ahh, the plot thickens. Then, I get a message off of one of the commenters, asking to send some more close up detailed pictures of said starfish. After sending some more information over, he tells me, he can’t be absolutely 100%, though it does seem to be a new species, even more so, from a location where none have ever been found before, which is something I never thought I’d see happen for myself. 
The gentleman by the way is the curator of starfish and echinoderms and at the natural history museum in London. 
I was going to take it there, get it described etc, but covid played a big factor there, so I haven’t had chance to yet, but will be sorting all this out soon. 
so keep an eye out for a new one haha. Now, what to call it? 

 

Dan

[Ludwigia]

Very interesting. Is there any more of it under the matrix, or is that all of the remains which are exposed which we can see? Any idea which stratigraphical layer it originates from?

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Yup, that's a starfish, alright! Not really my speciality, but indeed pretty rare on the British coast from what I know about them. And then for it to turn out to be a new species! That's a really exciting find! 

 

I can imagine there might be more underneath the rock, since I'd this much of the specimen is preserved in association like this, it's likely the rest was too - though it's always possible, of course, that part did erode away with exposure to the elements... Stil, with how fragile these specimens are, I suspect that if an attempt is made to expose more of it, this will be under controlled lab conditions as part of the description, wouldn't it?

[DanJeavs]

10 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Very interesting. Is there any more of it under the matrix, or is that all of the remains which are exposed which we can see? Any idea which stratigraphical layer it originates from?

I’m not 100% sure yet. I’m doubtful there will be a disk, but apparently the arms are enough to confirm. I think it’s Toracian but that’s all I know to date. I’ll be updating once I know more. 

[DanJeavs]

Oistoceras Figulinun

Lower Jurassic

Middle Lias. 
 

I found this beauty last year, not long after coming out of the dreaded lockdown. 
I like the challenge of finding middle lias material, it’s far more difficult to pick up than your lower and upper lias stuff in Whitby. 
So I was pretty pleased when I came across a nice sized nodule with quite a number of worn ammonites poking out the side, and all around too! I wasn’t sure of an ID at first (it’s not my speciality, that’s for sure) 

So straight to the front of the queue for prep. 
To my surprise, the material was penning beautifully, no pyrite in the matrix makes things a lot quicker. If you’ve ever prepped Whitby material before, you’ll know it’s some snarge tough rock, but we persevere because of the quality lol. 
After uncovering a few ammonites, it was clear this was going to be a special piece. This was around 25 minutes into the prep. Around 40 minutes into prep and it was really starting to take shape. The middle caps of the ammonites were popping off, giving me perfect middles all the time. You can’t beat that! After all the pen work was done, into the blasting cabinet it went for a quick once over with some iron powder to finish the job. Safe to say I was pretty pleased with the outcome. I’m not 100% on this, but if I remember rightly, the white colouration on the ammonites is some type of pyrite, which makes them look different compared to a lot of Yorkshire ammonites. 
Thanks for reading as always. 
 

Dan

 

 

Edited April 20, 2022 by DanJeavs
Other pics weren’t supposed to be in

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Nice fossils, and a wonderful prep work !

 

Coco

[DanJeavs]

Cleviceras Elegans/Hildaites Murleyi

Exaratum/Falciferum subzone 

 

[DanJeavs]

Peronoceras Subarmatum

[Bobby Rico]

2 minutes ago, DanJeavs said:

Peronoceras Subarmatum

That’s lovely. 

[DanJeavs]

Ovaticeras Ovatum

A rather rare Ammonite from just above the falciferum zone in Whitby

It comes from a very small 35cm band the stretches across most of the coastline, so theoretically, you should be able to find it anywhere here. 
From what I have read, it is the very last descendant of Harpoceras, so it would have been the very last of its kind. 

[DanJeavs]

9 minutes ago, Bobby Rico said:

That’s lovely. 

Thankyou! They usually an absolute nightmare to prepare. I can’t remember the name, but where the first inner whorl meets the mouth border is usually either blown out, or is terribly calcified, and will not prep

[DanJeavs]

Pyhlloceras Heterophyllum

[DanJeavs]

Harpoceras Falciferum

Falciferum zone

 

An absolute fave of mine from the collection. 
The ammonite was much larger, but terribly preserved, so a decision was made the remove it. Interestingly, the preservation is MUCH, different than the usual Harpoceras that I find. I’ll include a picture of the usually colours you get as an example.