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Advice sought on learning to identify species


Ossicle

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Hello :)

 

I found a very distinctive belemnite while fossiling on Friday, and want to learn to identify the species myself, and hopefully identify all of the more complete ones I have collected. I used this resource http://www.bgs.ac.uk/discoveringGeology/time/fossilfocus/Belemnite.html to classify its features, and looked at Fossils of the Oxford Clay by Martill and Hutson to try and find it. Unfortunately only six species are identified and this isn't one of them. I looked in British Mesozoic Fossils from the Natural History Museum, and while this has Jurassic Belemnites, they are too early. Trundling around online hasn't gotten me any further.  

 

I'm trying to be more systematic in learning about my fossils, and was wondering how others approached first learning about specific species, and if there are any resources you would recommend?

 

And if anyone knows of a monograph on Oxford Clay belemnites, please let me know :D

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Rather than refer to a few, single images of the six species in your area, possibly research further into each of those species individually; search for different stages of development and abnormalities present in each of the species. Your belemite may be one of the six species, just in a different stage of development or it may be pathological; both of these could potentially lead you to not classify it as one of the species. Becoming familiar with each of the six species would be step one for me if I were to regularly find belemites. Discerning particulars for each species could come in handy when one is potentially difficult to identity and when one, on an initial glance, does not seem to belong to the appropriate time period. There is a lot of variation in fossils.

: )

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There is a member here, Tarquin, but I can't find him the search, my apologies Tarquin if I've misspelled your name. He'll will be able to help. You need to post quality images with a ruler from all angles. 

 

Good luck!

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16 minutes ago, JohnBrewer said:

There is a member here, Tarquin, but I can't find him the search, my apologies Tarquin if I've misspelled your name. He'll will be able to help. You need to post quality images with a ruler from all angles. 

 

Good luck!

 

@TqB ;) 

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Thank you! Learning about those six species in-depth is an excellent idea, so I will work on that. Hopefully I have picked up many examples of them. And I will take some photos and post this specific one in the ID forum tonight, it would be great to know what it is :)

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i have good belemnite literature(I think),and so has Fruitbat(his Library on this forum,and undoubtedly many others(Abyssunder,Coco).

Just let me know what you want,Pm or otherwise

 

 

 

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Sadly, there isn't a monograph on UK Oxford Clay belemnites. Bits and pieces of information are scattered around and the Martill and Hudson book is the best convenient resource. If your specimen isn't like anything in there it sounds interesting - ID to genus level isn't usually a problem for that formation. I look forward to seeing it. :) 

Tarquin

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5 hours ago, Ossicle said:

Thank you! Learning about those six species in-depth is an excellent idea, so I will work on that. Hopefully I have picked up many examples of them. And I will take some photos and post this specific one in the ID forum tonight, it would be great to know what it is :)

 

:popcorn:

Regards.....D&E&i

The only certainty with fossil hunting is the uncertainty.

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Hi,

 

5 hours ago, doushantuo said:

j'ai une bonne littérature belemnite (je crois), et a donc Fruitbat (sa bibliothèque sur ce forum, et sans doute beaucoup d'autres (Abyssunder, Coco).

Laissez-moi savoir ce que vous voulez, ou autre Pm

Unfortunatly I don't have a lot of publications on belemnites... :blush:

 

Coco

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1 hour ago, Coco said:

Hi,

 

Unfortunatly I don't have a lot of publications on belemnites... :blush:

 

Coco

 

I think I've got most of them, all the English ones and quite a lot of Russian, French and German. :)

Tarquin

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Tarq:that being so,would you have Lemanis/Immenhauser/Jons/ Linzmeier for me?

I am not kidding or pulling your leg in any way.

it's one of the few belemnite paper which i regret NOT having

 

 

 

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Thank you everyone, I have posted on the ID forum. The photos were tricky, as the belemnite won't stay in whichever position I'm trying to pose it, so might need do more.

 

And yes, it is an Oxford Clay ossicle :). Crinoid ossicles are one of my favourite things to collect from Yaxley, but I need to use a better photo. They're one of the things I allow myself to collect as many as I see, unlike gryphaea. I'd end up with a house full of gryphaea.

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check out the references at the end of articles/papers you've accessed through the web. Keep in mind that not every reference is on line and perhaps not even googleable. For instance the Geology of the Carolinas 50th Anniversary volume from CGS shows up in a google search but no content is available on the web (unless someone scanned and shared it). There are entire publications with very valuable references that are still only on paper. Southeastern Geology and Tulane Studies come to mind. Neither of these are useful in determining the identity of your belemnite just giving some info regarding reference searches.

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On 4/19/2017 at 0:58 PM, doushantuo said:

Tarq:that being so,would you have Lemanis/Immenhauser/Jons/ Linzmeier for me?

I am not kidding or pulling your leg in any way.

it's one of the few belemnite paper which i regret NOT having

 

Sorry, no - I'm not quite up to date and no longer have access to most journals. :( Looks interesting.

Tarquin

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