elcoincoin Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 As stated in my previous topic. Here s the last part of my autumn trip to Champagne. After 2 days we were done with our albian spots. So we decided to take the car and drive 2 hours from there, to totally different layer / fossils The area of Epernay if reknown for the quality of its eocene shells, and specially its giant gastropod : campanile giganteum. Those, can only be found by digging which is forbidden in most place. (those measure had to be taken after random badly educated people dug huge pits everywhere without even carrying to fill them back once they were done) For some time we traveled the area looking for either work sites, road cuts or even sand piles. We managed to actually find a sand pile and forest roads freshly covered with fossiliferous sand. So we started to investigate. I wasn't looking for more than 10 minutes that i spotted an unusual shape in the sand. It was a (very) partial campanile giganteum (1 third of the beast maybe a bit more ), but still my best so far. Then after 5 more minutes, the other catch of the day for me : A croc tooth. I had never heard of croc in those layer / area. I knew it was a tooth, but took me quite some feed back tor realize who it belongs too! After some reading (the complete listing of eocene fauna), there are 3 mentions of crocodile in the lutetian. So here it is : (size between 1,5 and 2 cm) My girl friend catch of the day was a very nice conch : lapparia musicalis No picture of this year specimen but here s one i found in 2011 Friend that came with us found a partial Hypocrenes, but still a cool find. To finish for today another cool find for the day : Xenophora schroeteri, a fascinating gastropod which agglomerate random stuff around to protect itself (other shells, gravel or even shark teeth or coral) Edit : "Carrier shells" is the english expression apparently You can see more of that stuff either in TFF here : 2016 lutetian TFF galery or on my flickr : 2016 lutetian flickr galery Next post i ll present you some of the emblematic species ! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gavialboy Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 wow that's some impressive finds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossilDAWG Posted December 12, 2016 Share Posted December 12, 2016 Beautiful, beautiful shells! Just glorious. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vieira Posted December 13, 2016 Share Posted December 13, 2016 Beautiful finds. Congratulations Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plantguy Posted December 16, 2016 Share Posted December 16, 2016 Very nice finds. That croc tooth is especially well preserved! And that Campanile giganteum is really a monster sized gastropod isnt it-nice partial. Not sure if we have that particular genus/species here but I could be wrong--I see mention of a Jamaican species. That barracuda tooth looks like an interesting find as well. congrats! Regards, Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elcoincoin Posted December 20, 2016 Author Share Posted December 20, 2016 Finishing this report by a few shots of some of the emblematic species of the area The first 4 are very very very common. One of the very fine conch : Athleta spinosa The most common of them all next, you literally find them by dozens Sycum bulbus Another common gastropod (actually 2 of the clavilithes are very common : noae and parisiensis) : Clavilithes noae then Amaurellina acuta : then 2 of my favorites species The beautiful Cryptochorda stromboides (hard to find complete) and Pterynotus crenulatus And to finish with this trip : 2 boxes with the species' specimens found during this trip. Once again you can see the whole pictures set on my TFF galery : here or on my flickr here ( the last 2 pictures there are the same as the last of this post but with the IDs) Hope you enjoyed 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Sweet collection!! Thanks for sharing it. Tony Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ludwigia Posted December 20, 2016 Share Posted December 20, 2016 Very nice finds. That carrier shell certainly is fascinating. Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger http://www.steinkern.de/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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