fossil shells

[Khyssa]

This past Saturday I had to make the drive down to Tampa for the Tampa Bay Fossil Club meeting and decided to spend the day down in that area. Another forum member had mentioned that there were fill piles of fossil shells at Bradenton Beach so I decided that it was the perfect time to check them out. I had planned on getting an early start since I had a couple stops to make but a friend from out of country called and we ended up chatting for about an hour. So I didn't manage to get on the road until 10:30 and by then it had started to rain lightly on top of the weather being a bit on the chilly side, the high for the day was supposed to be 61 degree F.

The first stop was an hour south in Tarpon Springs to pick up some riker mounts with jem jars in them. I picked up four with different sized jars. Then it was on to Bradenton Beach which should have been around an hour and a half drive. No such luck. What I hadn't taken into account was there was a boat ragatta taking place on the Manattee River right in the middle of Bradenton that had closed down one of the bridges which caused all kinds of traffic snarles. It ended up taking me nearly 3 hours to get there and it still hadn't stopped raining. By now any sane person would have called it quits and found something else to do but not me. I'm just too stubborn for my own good sometimes!

I got to the beach just after 3:00 and quickly located the shell pile. The rain had slowed to a light mist although it was still pretty chilly. I parked near the pile, put on my jacket, and grabbed a bucket before strolling over to the pile. Not surprisingly everything was covered in mud but I wasn't about to let that stop me. After all I'd planned ahead and had a change of clothes in the car although I did forget to bring a second pair of shoes. Let me say right now that I didn't get a single picture of the location but if you take a look at Fossil Beach's post he has some.

I was amazed at the number of shells in perfect to near perfect condition, including several varieties that I've not found before. And a surprising number of them still had hints of their original color. Many of the small shells still had that slick outer coating on them even. My plan had been to leave no later then 5:00 so that I had plenty of time to stop for dinner before the club meeting at 7:30 but with how wet everything was I left my phone in the car and had no way to keep track of the time. I didn't end up leaving until 5:30 and was soaked to the skin by then. But if I hadn't had somewhere to be I could have easily stayed there until sun down. As it was I only got to search about half the pile and only got to give the other half a quick look over. Several trips were made to the car to empty my 2 gallon bucket into the 5 gallon one in the back. I also filled up the smaller bucket so that means I left there with about 7 gallons of fossil shell and a few pieces of coral.

I didn't actually get home that night until midnight so I had just enough energy to unload the car, spread some of the muddy shells out to dry overnight, and then went straight to bed. Sunday morning I woke up with quite the sore back from all that heavy lifting in such chilly weather but it was well worth it. I spent the much of the day sunday using picks to clean the worst of the dirt off some of the shells and found some real jems. And still have most of them to sort through. I won't know exactly what I have until I finish cleaning everything up which might take a couple weeks. In the meantime here are some pictures of what's clean so far.

So far my favorite finds are the large cowrie shell and sharks eye which still have hints of their original color. Both shells have only minor damage and are rare to find at this size and in such good condition.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Khyssa

[Khyssa]

Here are some more of my finds. All of the large shells have been washed off but the plate of smaller shells have only had the dirt scrapped off. Right after I took the pictures they all went into a bowl of water to soak over night to help get the last of the dirt off. It's much easier to clean the large shells as I can use a toothbrush to remove any stubborn dirt. The small shells require a much more delicate touch. I'll post more pictures of them once they are cleaned and dry. As I clean more of the shells I'll add pictures of them too.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Khyssa

[Auspex]

Quite the adventure, and a five-star report; thank you!

[ynot]

After all the tribulations of the day it looks like You came up with some great finds, and plenty of them!

(Nice report also!)

Tony

[anjayenunciates]

These are amazing. I want to go to Florida now just to look myself!

[MikeR]

Those are most definitely from the Upper Pliocene Pinecrest beds (member) of the Tamiami Formation. Since SMR is the last of the Sarasoata quarries mining the Pinecrest, it is a good bet that they are from there.

Mike

[Plantguy]

Nice finds Kara! Yep the Tamiami is full of stuff and will make your head spin trying to ID it all! I missed the club mtg too trying to get some other stuff done. Club Fossil show is coming up next month! The year is flying by already.

Regards, Chris

[jcbshark]

That's quite the haul, at least it made all the travel and crappy weather worth it On some of the construction sites down here they use that shell for the roads

[Fossildude19]

Very cool report and finds.

Thanks for posting it.

Regards,

[sixgill pete]

Awesome!!!

[Coco]

Hi,

Very nice shells ! I love them !

Coco

[squali]

Thanks for showing us the invertebrates of that ecosystem.

Did you happen to grab some of the soil matrix for screening?

Your report reminds me of a saying I heard somewhere.

Adversity=Diversity. Nice job.

[squali]

Those are most definitely from the Upper Pliocene Pinecrest beds (member) of the Tamiami Formation. Since SMR is the last of the Sarasoata quarries mining the Pinecrest, it is a good bet that they are from there.

Mike

Is there an estimated sea depth of the Pinecrest member?

[MikeR]

There are estimated depths but I am on a business trip at this moment so it will be this weekend before I can find the data. Essentially the main shell beds are shallow marine with some beds brackish back bay and others near shore. Warren Allmon of PRI has published about water temps, depths and species origination rates of the Pinecrest molluscan fauna.

Mike

[squali]

Thanks Mike

[Grimlock]

Those are some very nice shells! Way to persevere.

[DinoMike]

Nice finds! That's my old home turf... I grew up in Bradenton, but wasn't aware of the fossil hunting possibilities til the 90s. If I had only known... back when I was a kid, my grandmother had a bunch of smaller megalodon teeth that she picked up at Longboat Key. Didn't know they were fossils back then, we just knew they were shark teeth.

[Khyssa]

Thanks for showing us the invertebrates of that ecosystem.

Did you happen to grab some of the soil matrix for screening?

Your report reminds me of a saying I heard somewhere.

Adversity=Diversity. Nice job.

I didn't intentionaly grab some dirt but a lot of the shells are filled with as well as what's caked on the outside of them. I'm carefully working loose all of the dirt and collecting it into a bucket to be dry out. Once it's dry I plan on sifting through it looking for micros. I've already found some truly tiny shells in the that dirt.

[Khyssa]

I'm glad you are all enjoying this post and if anyone sees a shell they know the name of please feel free to share it. I'm working on identifying everything but it's slow going as I only have one book on fossil shells and the internet isn't the most helpful in this case.

Here's some more pictures. The largest of the olives in the first picture is 2" long.

[Khyssa]

And some more. I hope to start adding some IDs later tonight.

[Khyssa]

Here's a look at the next batch that just needs to be washed. I spent far too much time last night using a pick and toothbrush getting the worst of the dirt off them. I still have a 5 gallon bucket to go through.

[digit]

Love the trip report--and the finds!

Notice how you never remember trips that go smoothly? It's the classic struggle against adversity where the hero is dauntless (or just plain silly) in the face of adversity and prevails in the end--with a 5-gallon bucket of booty as reward.

As the Peace River refuses to cooperate, Tammy and I may just have to make a cross-Florida trip to go repeat your quest (though hopefully without the annoyance of a regatta or misty rain).

Great diversity of shells--more than we find when digging/planting in the back yard, which turns up mostly Chione and whelk species.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Khyssa]

Thanks, Ken! The drive down there was well worth it even with the traffic and rain. You're lucky to be able to find shells when digging in your garden. I find nothing but sand due to my houses location on what is known as the sand hills of Florida.

If you do make the trip over I hope you find plenty of goodies! It looked like the piles would be there for a while as they were doing quite a bit of construction along the beach.

Kara

[typhis]

The 3 muricids in the photo from your 12:13 PM post (with the turritellids and penny) are Eupleura metae Petuch, 1994 and what I believe now goes by Vokesinotus lamellosus (Emmons, 1858) [as opposed to Vokesinotus lepidotus (Dall, 1890) which is the name for the Caloosahatchee Formation variant].

In the first photo from your 12:15 PM post, you have Chicoreus floridanus E. H. Vokes, 1965 at the top, as well as a specimen of Calotrophon ostrearum (Conrad, 1846) on the left side of the pic next to the cancellariid.

All 4 are extremely common muricid species. I only do muricids from the Tamiami Formation, because Ed Petuch's many books on the south FL fossil shell beds took all the fun out of trying to properly ID every other gastropod family over 2 decades ago. Keeping up with, and trying to reconcile, all the synonymies over the years for one family is quite enough.

Edited February 10, 2016 by typhis

[Coco]

Hi,

I can't really help you for names, but I flood my keyboard of slaver every time I look at your shells ! Please, continue to show them to us !

Coco