A field day with blueberries, some mushrooms and - fossils!

[FranzBernhard]

I would like to share a typical "day off & out" during summer.

During summer, I don´t do serious prospecting. Too hot, too green, too much distraction, like blueberries and mushrooms. So, last Sunday (07/03/2022), I mainly explored an area for "fruits" and visited two fossil sites discovered in October 2021. It was hiking-only, no driving between the various "stops". I found lots of blueberries (not fully ripe yet at 900 m asl), but it was much too dry for mushrooms. Nevertheless, I found a few places with a few Cantharellus cibarius:

Some of them were even growing on extremely dry tractor paths.

In the same general area, I have found two big Boletus edulis in May 31st by pure chance on a tractor path, which was very early in the year, hence my detailed prospecting for mushrooms in this area .

 

Anyways, the goal were the sites 63 and 64, two about 10 years old forest road outcrops north of Reinprechtskogel (977 m asl) in the "Mixed Zone" of the lower Afling-formation in the Santonian-Campanian Gosau-group of Kainach of the Eastern Alps, squares are 2x2 km:

 

Some landscape between the mushrooms and the fossils. That hill in the foreground a little bit right off the center in the first pic is Römaskogel hill (1006 m), the highest hill of the Kainach Gosau, with the rudist zones on its southwestern to northern slopes:

 

Despite being quite densely* populated by dairy farmers, I find the area incredibly lovely and appealing**. Highest mountain in the very background to the right is about 2000 m high. Pics taken at about 900 m asl. *About 200 years ago, there was much less forest and much more (dairy) farm land in this area! **Ten years ago, I didn´t know the area yet and found it most boring geologically, judging from the literature...

 

Site 63 exposes an about 1 m thick conglomerate bed with sparsely distributed Trochactaeon, rudists and some other molluscs, about 3 fossils per square meter are visible. The following pictured fossils were uncovered at 05/31/2022 and are somewhat clean now, scale is 1x1 m:

 

Detail A, two weathered Trochactaeon:

 

Detail B, a Vaccinites, a part of it still sticking in the outcrop:

 

Here are some pics from October 2021, site 63 as found:

 

I worked in slightly loosened parts of the exposure with a screwdriver and found some very "ugly" fossils. The following four pics all show the same specimen. The Trochactaeon is slightly flattened parallel to the bedding plane, the red object is about 11 cm high.

Nearly in-situ, note the two already pictured snails at the upper right:

 

Nearly in situ:

 

Recovered and still in the field:

 

Cleaned and at home:

 

Other fossil found, upper valve of a Plagioptychus rudist:

 

And a new one for the site, I don´t know what it is.

 

I am fascinated by these ugly fossils in this coarse-grained conglomerate. Very probably a mix-up of various habitats, transported and deposited in a quite coarse-grained sediment. I would like to share also a polished section from this site again, specimens become a little bit better that way :

 

I dug also a little bit at site 64, just a few tens of meters away from 63, and found again some rudists. Here, they are in a layer of sandstone, and no Trochactaeon have been observed yet. There are no outcrops between sites 63 and 64. The fossil beds could be in continuity, but it could also be a small fault in the small creek between the two sites. The fossil layer is at the red item:

 

 I took one specimen, its also not really a beauty . Freshly exposed and still in-situ:

 

Cleaned at home:

 

My recently bought pressure washer made cleaning of all these very dirty specimens easy. Not good, now I might take also big, very dirty specimens... 

 

Thanks for reading and looking!
Franz Bernhard

Edited July 7, 2022 by FranzBernhard
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[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice report and finds, thank you for sharing. 

I love mushrooms. 

We make mushroom double Swiss burgers at home. So yummy. 

What is the object that you are using for scale? A nose sock? 

[FranzBernhard]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Nice report and finds, thank you for sharing.

Thank you!

 

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

What is the object that you are using for scale? A nose sock?

Not a bad guess! Its a cell phone sock :

My mother knitted it for me about 14 years ago, that´s also the age of this phone. I tend to loose everything else, but have not lost the phone and its sock in 14 years yet . Its not a particularly precise measuring device (11 cm +/- 10 % 1 s ), but, hey, I have it when I need it .

Franz Bernhard

[Mainefossils]

Thanks for the report, @FranzBernhard!

 

Wonderful to see some more rudist fossils. Do you have any examples of other molluscs found in this formation?

Edited July 7, 2022 by Mainefossils

[FranzBernhard]

19 minutes ago, Mainefossils said:

Do you have any examples of other molluscs found in this formation?

Yes, besides rudists and Trochactaeon, its the un-IDed bivalve in this topic and this thing here:

Scalariform (?) Gastropod (?) - Cretaceous Gosau-Group of Kainach, Styria, Austria - Fossil ID - The Fossil Forum

I have not collected very much at this site 63 and I am quite surprised about the find of these two "different things".

 

More regionally, most abundant other molluscs are small oysters in the Trochactaeon Zone, partly still attached to the snails:

Fossil snails of the genus Trochactaeon from Kainach near Voitsberg, Styria, Austria (Gosau-Group of Kainach, upper Cretaceous) - Summary of this years prospection - Fossil Hunting Trips - The Fossil Forum

 

And very sparsely (two?) other bivalves beside all the rudists (hundreds!) in the rudist limestone (which contains also echinoid debris, some corals and also oyster debris, I think).

 

Franz Bernhard

Edited July 7, 2022 by FranzBernhard

[FossilNerd]

Nice report Franz! Lovely scenery and finds. 

 

Now I am craving mushrooms and blueberries. Though not necessarily in that order and definitely not together! Lol

[FranzBernhard]

5 hours ago, FossilNerd said:

Now I am craving mushrooms and blueberries. Though not necessarily in that order and definitely not together! Lol

I am trying these two together again next Sunday, with or without fossils, I don´t know yet . On another hill in the Kainach Gosau, know the fossil sites, but not yet the places with blueberries and mushroom in that area. Best of all, we had heavy rain two times this week!

Franz Bernhard

[DPS Ammonite]

11 minutes ago, FranzBernhard said:

Best of all, we had heavy rain two times this week!

Send a couple of heavy rain storms to the Arizona deserts.  It is difficult collecting fossils during a haboob.

 

 

[FranzBernhard]

12 minutes ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Send a couple of heavy rain storms to the Arizona deserts.

Understood, will do !

Franz Bernhard

[Top Trilo]

Great report Franz! Thanks for sharing. I really like the Trochactaeon snails and your polished Vaccinites piece.