More Isle of Sheppey fossil's!

[gremlinshow]

Spent a couple hours early this morning slipping and sliding over wet clay and mud. Almost went home empty handed but decided to go over a patch a second time and found 2 beautiful nodules I had missed! Must have still been asleep. The first nodule I stumbled across looks like it contains most of if not all of a fish specimen (needs some prep work to id the species though) the other nodule contains a nipa palm fruit with a nice Glyphithyreus wetherelli crab on top of it and a much smaller glyph a bit further away.

Happy days! Enjoy the pictures :-)

[Welsh Wizard]

Cooking on the barbie as well. Nice one

How will you go about prepping the fish?

Nick

[gremlinshow]

I will be getting some advice from a friend of mine and then probably scrape away the soft matrix very carefully with a scalpel and maybe use an engraver for the harder matrix if needed.

I might even light the BBQ and cook it if it looks good enough when done! Haha!

[RJB]

Wow! That's cool. Would love to see the fish when its done. Nice find.

RB

[gremlinshow]

Ive just been having a bit of a closer look at the fish and trying to clear some of the soft clay from it, and it is proving rather difficult to clean up. Prepping it could take some time! But from what I can see so far it may well be worth the wait! :-)

it looks as though I have almost the full length of the backbone and some of the tail but I think the head may be crushed and possibly even inside the nodule which is a shame. But we will see what turns up after some work is done on it!

[Terry Dactyll]

Nice finds well done.... Look forward to seeing the finished fossils....

[gremlinshow]

Some close up pictures of the specimen after a little bit of prep.

[Terry Dactyll]

Thats looking very promising... Excellent preservation and nice work....

[gremlinshow]

It does indeed look promising, have uncovered some very nice scales so far. But it is extremely slow going and I think I migbt have to get some help with it. Going to look into professional help depending on cost.

[JustPlainPetrified]

Very nice!

[Terry Dactyll]

It might be worth investing in a pot blaster from Ken Mannion... I reckon a gentle air abraid with sodium bicarb would gently uncover more... If your paying for prep it would pay for itself over a few fossils....I'm lucky enough |I can borrow one when I need one but I stiull aim to get one... someday.....

[gremlinshow]

I would love to buy myself some proper prepping equipment but sadly dont have the funds at present. For now I will have to stick to the old fashioned method of scalpel and hours of work whilst I build my workshop! If I can get the flanks of the fish uncovered hopefully it will give some nice detail maybe even enough for an I.d. might even put some of my smaller specimens onto ebay to raise some funds to put towards better equipment.

[gremlinshow]

UPDATE!!....

Something to make my find a little more exciting was the discovery of the skull today by a fellow fossil hunter! He kindly notified me and gifted it to me! Once I have done a bit of a clean up of it I will post some pictures! Turns out my find wasnt as complete as i thought! Now I am wondering if there is more still to find!

I will keep you up to date asap!

[gremlinshow]

Some more pictures after a little cleaning of the skull. Turns out the exposed part of the body on the nodule appears to be the belly of the fish and not the spine as previously thought! Cant wait to find out more!

[Terry Dactyll]

What a gift.... The fellow collector is a true gent.... Well done...

[gremlinshow]

He is indeed! And I would do the same if I found a piece of any of the fossils he finds. We quite regularly let each other know of the finds we make. It is much better for everyone if we have as complete specimens as possible so no point in holding onto a piece of a fossil that some one else already has. :-)

[gremlinshow]

The fish saga continues! ... popped to be the beach for an after work speed search before it got dark and managed to fine a third piece of my fish! Looks like im still missing most of the tail though :-(

[Terry Dactyll]

Keep hunting... I hope the rest shows up....

[gremlinshow]

Well its been 10 days since my last find and still no luck finding the tail :-( oh well, I will keep looking on the off chance it appears!

[RichardC]

Good luck finding it, great if you can!

[fossilized6s]

Good friend!

Very neat finds. I can't wait to see an updated pic of the prep.

[Auspex]

Well its been 10 days since my last find and still no luck finding the tail :-( oh well, I will keep looking on the off chance it appears!

It will be in the last place you look

[gremlinshow]

Good friend!

Very neat finds. I can't wait to see an updated pic of the prep.

It is proving very difficult to prep with the tools I have. But I will keep on trying!

[gremlinshow]

Im going to have to invest in some better prep tools to make any inroads into prepping my fossils.

[Terry Dactyll]

You will never look back.... We all get to the stage where the prep bill of what we find becomes quite serious and restricting.... Its time to invest in equipment... I'm sure you will of heard of Ken Mannion...90% of the people I know go to Ken for advice and equipment and consumables....