MikeR Posted September 22, 2016 Share Posted September 22, 2016 On a business trip to Tampa this week, I came across a shell pile containing typical Upper Pliocene fossil mollusks which probably originated from SMR. Since SMR is no longer in production it might be a good opportunity for someone to start a nice little collection if you never had the opportunity to collect in the Sarasota quarries. Since it is slated for road fill it won't be there long so if you are interested PM me and I will give you locality details. Mike 3 "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldigger Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 Whow, that's a lot of shell material! Very nice looking specimens at that. I live in the wrong state!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coco Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 Arrrrgggggggg ! That I would like to find big heaps of shells near me ! They are magnificent and I love the Pliocene ! I would like to see a truck emptying in my garden ! That's it, I feel the electricity in my fingers so much my keyboard is wet by slaver ! Coco ---------------------- OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici Otolithes de poissons récents ! ici Un Greg... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phevo Posted September 23, 2016 Share Posted September 23, 2016 This is what dreams are made of.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdsnl Posted September 24, 2016 Share Posted September 24, 2016 That Architectonica is beautiful!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossiling Posted September 24, 2016 Share Posted September 24, 2016 If i were you, i'd shovel all that stuff into my back yard...... paleoCOOL!. paleoLIKE! Keep looking! They're everywhere! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coco Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 Hi, I would dream to have a collection of all the species found there ! They are magnificent and never of my life I would (have the opportunity to find heaps so interesting as those ! Coco ---------------------- OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici Otolithes de poissons récents ! ici Un Greg... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smt126 Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 I want to be like Scrooge McDuck and just go jump in it and start swimming around in it lol. Although that might be a little painful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 Local people call these piles "fill dirt". It would be nice to have delivery of this fill dirt to my back yard. ;) It's often hard to find out exactly where these piles came from. I call this type of fossil hunting "Road Kill". You can find everything from Eocene to late Pleistocene in these piles on the side of the road. I've almost gotten into accidents on the road when I see piles and slam on the brakes. On the down side, you don't know exactly the formation these came from, but on the up side you have an interesting mystery. You make a collection and analyze these shells, and try to use the collective assemblage as a diagnostic for figuring out the age and formation. So it's a guessing game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted September 25, 2016 Author Share Posted September 25, 2016 2 hours ago, tmaier said: Local people call these piles "fill dirt". It would be nice to have delivery of this fill dirt to my back yard. It's often hard to find out exactly where these piles came from. I call this type of fossil hunting "Road Kill". You can find everything from Eocene to late Pleistocene in these piles on the side of the road. I've almost gotten into accidents on the road when I see piles and slam on the brakes. On the down side, you don't know exactly the formation these came from, but on the up side you have an interesting mystery. You make a collection and analyze these shells, and try to use the collective assemblage as a diagnostic for figuring out the age and formation. So it's a guessing game. There were five piles in total. The two that I first pictured I am confident are from SMR as they contained the distinctive Upper Pliocene Pinecrest fauna and SMR is/was the only quarry that mined that unit and sold size sorted material. The other three piles are not size sorted and have quite a bit of associated sand. They contain many Chione bivalves, a lot of Strombus and some Sinistrofulgur. These could be Bermont but I have no idea which quarry that material would have come from. "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmaier Posted September 25, 2016 Share Posted September 25, 2016 This is a bit far for me to drive over, but if people do collect from these piles, they might want to keep the specimens separated for better analysis. So... you make specimen designations like "P1", "P2", etc. Treat these piles as separate sites! There might be a million years separating these piles, so you can extract more information by considering them according to their associated shells... don't mix them up! Canal dredgings in that area commonly come up with rich seashell mixtures like that. It is difficult to figure out the age from just one species specimen, but the set can say something to you, as you have mentioned about the Pinecrest. Many of these species you see are still extant, and a single specimen is difficult to use as a single "index fossil", it is the set of species that becomes the index. Also, you might find some piles that seem to come from more of a lagoonal environment, or more of a shallow or deep water environment. Be observant of what is collected in what pile helps to determine all that information that a singe specimen can't tell you. So if 20% of the shells are extant, it is quite old (Pliocene), and if 80% are extant it is much younger (Pleistocene), you get the idea... Species tend to exist for about 2 million years, on average, but that is an average with a very broad standard deviation (a fuzzy number). And then you end up with an amazing collection of associated species, but still don't know where they come from! very gratifying and frustrating at the same time! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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