Nautilus hunting on the Isle of Sheppey

[gremlinshow]

Yesterday I spent a lovely spring morning walking along the Sheppey coast to a place known as Eastchurch gap. I have known of this place for many years and never made the couple mile hike along the beach from Minster before. Normally I would stay much closer to the Minster end of the cliffs but as the weather was fine and the tide was in my favour I decided to take a punt on searching new grounds.

After a fairly fruitless trek I finally rounded an outcrop of the London clay and recognised the landscape and features I had only seen in pictures of the famous Eastchurch gap. Within seconds of entering the gap I spotted my first find... an almost 1 foot long partial nautilus sticking out of the clay and half covered by shingle. After digging it out from the clay I was saddened to see that the centre had crumbled into a sticky mush of shell and clay.

My hopes were raised again only moments later when I spied my second nautilus shell! Almost unbelievable I thought someone was playing an April fool on me! Again though my joy was slightly deminished upon finding the centre missing.

After searching for almost an hour more and finding almost.nothing else I started to think about heading back as I was getting rather hot in the lunchtime sun and had run out of drinking water so made a decision to check one last clay slump and caught a glimpse of that familiar shine laying on its side before me... a THIRD nautilus! This time though it was almost a whole specimen, with the centre intact!

With the fatigue of the long walk through clay, mud and shingle and a backpack well weighted by nautili specimens I headed back towards home feeling rather happy with my days hunting and planning to return with the hope of finding a variety of specimens on my next adventure!

I will upload pictures as soon as I am able to. :-) happy hunting!

[Darktooth]

Sounds like a fun trip. I can't wait for the pics!

[gremlinshow]

It was indeed a fun trip! I had been to my usual spot a few time recently and found very little indeed so thought id try somewhere new to spice it up a bit and boy did it do that! Haha!

[joel77520]

Wishi could have come along. Id love to do things like that.

[Terry Dactyll]

3rd time lucky.... You cant beat a good nautilus fossil.... Congratulations....

[fossisle]

Sounds like a good walk and some serious finds!!

[JohnBrewer]

Pictures!

[gremlinshow]

This was the first one...

[gremlinshow]

Underside of 1st one...

[gremlinshow]

Second one...

Edited April 2, 2016 by gremlinshow

[JohnBrewer]

Cool. They look pretty big?

[gremlinshow]

The best of the day...

[gremlinshow]

Unfortunately it broke into 2 pieces but still the best I have so far...

[JohnBrewer]

Really nice! Envious!

[gremlinshow]

Cool. They look pretty big?

The first one is about a foot long, the second is about 6inches andthe third is about 9inches roughly. So fairly large all of them. :-)

[jpc]

do these things have any Sheppey pyrite to them?

[gremlinshow]

I'm not 100% sure but I expect the first two do not sure about the third one.

do these things have any Sheppey pyrite to them?

I'm not 100% sure but I expect the first two do not sure about the third one.

[Terry Dactyll]

Very nice... You could always glue the last one back together... and then it be whole....

[gremlinshow]

Very nice... You could always glue the last one back together... and then it be whole....

I might end up doing that but im going to see if I can find some better specimens next time I go hunting and might end up removing the centre from this one and polishing it up because they look fantastic in that form.

[Terry Dactyll]

I know what you mean.... I'm a bit of a liassic nautilus nut.....

[gremlinshow]

Ive always been more of a shark and crab collector but recently started trying to expand my collection of Sheppey fossils!

Edited April 3, 2016 by gremlinshow

[vonfatman]

Man, you must have a good eye. You did great. I'd have been thrilled with one but I'm not so sure the plane trip to get there would have made me happy!

Congrats.

Bob

[gremlinshow]

Thanks, Ive always had a good eye for finding things, its all about finding the first one and then I can normally spot things much easier. Id love to get to America and go dino hunting but alas its out of my reach at the moment sadly.