From Bathon to Callov

[Ludwigia]

Thanks Tony. The matrix itself gave me the idea. Just had to round it off a bit.

[digit]

Great use of the available matrix. I agree with Tony--the presentation is superb!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Ludwigia]

7 hours ago, digit said:

Great use of the available matrix. I agree with Tony--the presentation is superb!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Ludwigia]

Even though it's Christmas Eve with the accompanying activities, etc. for the coming day, I still found myself twiddling my thumbs this afternoon. I was having a smoke in the workshop when my eyes fell upon the large ammonte in its matrix which I had sorted out a couple of weeks ago and chucked into the waste bin. I figured, what the heck. I've got some time on my hands. Let's give it a go. Maybe something will show itself after all. And it did. I threw it away since it was obviously missing part of the outer whorls, but the rest of it turned out to be quite alright.

 

Homeoplanulites (Parachoffatia) subbakeriae. 18cm.

 

I wish you all a very merry Chrstmas!

 

 

[JimB88]

Love the color of that triple. And the presentation of the one with the pedestal. Great job prepping as usual!

[Ludwigia]

Thanks Jim. Glad you're liking this.

I've just made a correction to my post from Dec. 14 on the last page. What I first thought was a Choffatia sp. turned out to be a Proplanulites koenigi, the index fossil for the zone.

[dre464]

Awesome finds and fantastic preps, as usual!  Well done...

[Ludwigia]

Thanks dre.

I've got a few more to show from my last trip there yesterday. Mostly small stuff again, but interesting at any rate. There's still a bit more on the back burner which I'll show later.

 

Another Choffatia sp.

 

I found this and the next one in a scree pile on the slope under a heap of leaves a few hundred meters farther along. The ammonite has a diameter of 22mm., a juvenile something or other. Don't know what species yet. ID is sometimes difficult when you can't pin the stratigraphy down exactly. I do however know that the echinoid is a Holectypus depressus, which occurs right up into the late Jurrasic.

 

Dunno what this one is either, but it sure is cute at just 17mm.

 

 

[JimB88]

wow..was the echinoid attached to the shell in life?

Love the sutures on the green one too.

[ynot]

Those are some amazing pieces!!

I think the site is worth the effort You have put into finding it, and well worth pursuing!

Congratulations!!

Tony

[Ludwigia]

You're quite right Tony. I'll be heading back there for quite a while, I think, until I've really exhausted the area, not to mention myself

I've managed to narrow down the IDs on the above ammonites now with the help of a colleague. The first is probably a Prohecticoceras and the second either a Lissoceras or a Hecticoceras, although I'm going with the first name.

[Fossildude19]

Wow.   

Exceptional finds, Roger.   (And, of course, exceptional prepping!)

Cool associations, too. 

Can't wait to see what else this site yields up.

 

[Ludwigia]

11 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Wow.   

Exceptional finds, Roger.   (And, of course, exceptional prepping!)

Cool associations, too. 

Can't wait to see what else this site yields up.

 

 

Thanks Tim . Well for one thing, it sure is yielding up a lot of Macrocephalites ammonites. The finds are mostly phragmocones, but that's just fine, since they are perfect for exposing the septal walls, which I've just done this afternoon along with a gastropod mold and another brachiopod, this time a Cererithyris fleischeri from the Bathonian which I picked up on the way to the exposure.

 

5cm.

 

5cm.

 

2cm.

 

 

 

 

[Ludwigia]

One more thing to add and then I'm down to the bottom of the barrel again for the time being. There's the talk of snow coming up early next week, so I may have to be patient for a while.

 

Laevigaterhynchia furcillata

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

 

[Ludwigia]

Well, I just beat the snow to it. The fact that I was pretty sure that if I excavated at a certain spot just wouldn't leave me in peace, so I took off for the Wutach again early yesterday morning. It was worth the dig, finding some nice stuff, including a rare Cadomites which I knew had to be in there somewhere. Just as I was ready to call it a day it started snowing. Talk about good timing!

Here are the ones I managed to prep today. More to follow later. Sure is nice to be on holiday.

 

Cadomites sp. 6cm.

 

Choffatia sp. 3cm.

 

Lissoceras sp. The largest is 2cm.

 

Macrocephalites jacquoti. 6cm.

 

Choffatia sp. 6cm.

 

The terebratulate brachiopod Ornithella ornithocephala. 16mm.

 

The echinoid Pygomalus ovalis. 16mm.

 

 

[digit]

Spectacular timing! The first time I collected fish plates at the Green River Formation in Kemmerer it was already too late in the season. I found a guy who said that we could go out as long as it wasn't frozen or snowing. We got in two days of collecting and he emailed me the following day (we had driven up to Jackson, WY to see Grand Teton N.P.) to tell me that we'd been out on the last day of the season and a winter storm had blanketed the quarry in several feet of snow. This is what Grand Teton looked like when we awoke the next morning.

 

       

 

I'm shivering just remembering it. This Chicago boy has been in Florida too long now...

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

P.S.: Roger, your prepped finds leave me drooling on my keyboard every time you post new treasures. You might be through working all of the specimens from this new locality but I for one would be really interested in seeing a "before" photo to see how far these have progressed from the state in which you find them.

[Ludwigia]

1 hour ago, digit said:

 P.S.: Roger, your prepped finds leave me drooling on my keyboard every time you post new treasures. You might be through working all of the specimens from this new locality but I for one would be really interested in seeing a "before" photo to see how far these have progressed from the state in which you find them.

 

No problem, Ken. I've still got a few from the trip on Monday to prep, so I can make some before and after photos for you.

 

[digit]

Sweet. It would be great to see what these little treasures look like when they are still diamonds in the rough.

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Ludwigia]

Ok. Here we go. These diamonds in the rough still look a little rough when done, but that's just the luck of the draw sometimes. I was sure that the ones in the first batch would turn out well, but I wasn't quite certain with these ones. I probably would normally have chucked away a couple of them before I finished them off, but I figured I'd go the whole way on all of them to give you an idea of what can be hidden under the matrix. I anyway find it often interesting to see how damaged and distorted fossils look. It's sometimes amazing how they hold together. Here are the before, the after air pen work, and the after abrading pics of the 4 that I completed today.

 

Looks ok, doesn't it?

Now I'm not so sure with the area between 7 and 9 o'clock.

Done. The inner whorls are also somewhat battered. Choffatia sp.

 

You can see on this one that I glued 2 pieces together.

At this point it looked a bit fishy to me up top.

Sure enough. A chip's been taken out of the outer whorls. Still doesn't look all that bad, though. Macrocephalites sp.

 

This small Macrocephalites looks like it could turn out ok.

So far, so good.

Not bad on both sides.

 

There's only a mystery under this matrix. Judging by the shape, it's probably another Choffatia.

The matrix here was strongly fixed to the shell, so I decided to spend more time abrading to avoid damage.

This one didn't turn out so hot. It wasn't worth abrading the back and I ended up chucking it in the bin afterwards.

I'll be getting down to some more tomorrow and am hoping for better results.

 

[digit]

It's like watching The Wizard of Oz and seeing the black & white turn to Technicolor. Amazing!

 

Even your cast-offs would be envious finds for those without the extensive collection of ammonites that you possess. The same could probably be said for anybody who collects some type of fossil over many years--you have to get choosy or you will be buried under mounds of material (and become fossilized yourself). Thanks for the before and after--much more interesting than seeing the before and after photos for some supposed miracle diet pill.

 

Fascinating.

 

-Ken

[Ludwigia]

Ken, I sure appreciate that you appreciate this.

[ynot]

4 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Ken, I sure appreciate that you appreciate this.

He is not the only one that appreciates Your post and prepping!

Tony

[Ludwigia]

Thanks, Tony

[Ludwigia]

I spent most of the afternoon today working on this one.

 

I wanted to glue it together first, but it didn't fit together properly, probably since I found it lying loose in these 3 pieces in the horizon. Matrix and mineral deposits had therefore had the time to build at the contact points. So I penned and abraded each piece separately and then they fit snug like a bug in a rug. There were a few holes and cracks to fill with stonemeal, but it turned out to my satisfaction. It has a diameter of 9cm. and I believe it's a Homeoplanulites sp., although I'm having a hard time differentiating between this genus and Choffatia sp. There's an interesting tube worm colony residing on it as well.

 

I still had a bit of time afterwards, so I also finished off this 4cm. Homeoplanulites sp. You can see it in the before photos peeking out of both sides of the matrix.

 

[PFOOLEY]

Awesome colors on these! Very nice specimens.