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First Official Finds


Limestone

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Hello, want to share a picture of some of my finds from my first official fossil hunting trip. 

We explored a the gravel bed of a river which I knew had formed caverns up the stream in the limestone formations.  Tertiary

Although reaching the actual limestone formations is (probably) impossible, since it's in the middle of the rain forest, as soon as we got there we saw limestone pieces the river had carried down.

We started looking and found some really neat ones (picture), in my opinion

 

Top left is a trace fossil, top right is a bivalve with both pieces on! with lots of sediment in the middle.

I'm pretty excited to do some more exploring when I get the time! 

 

I haven't cleaned them yet, i want to take some of the excess sediment off the fossil but I have to do some more researcher to figure out the best way to do so. 

 

FullSizeRender (17).jpg

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Nice finds. In terms of preparation, there doesn't seem too much to do. The best candidate of the three would be the one pictured at the bottom, and you might be able to do that with a pin vise and some patience ;)

 

As these are limestone, it might be tempting to use vinegar, but I would advise caution as leaving that on too long could also dissolve the fossil. 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Thank you, I have some dissection tools from an old kit that will probably work for that. 

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I'm actually a huge fan of limestone.  Even when I'm not finding much vertebrate stuff, I can always start cracking open limestone.  Sometimes you find beautiful recrystallized fossils.  Always bring a rock hammer its you, and smack that limestone open.  

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14 minutes ago, joshuajbelanger said:

I'm actually a huge fan of limestone.  Even when I'm not finding much vertebrate stuff, I can always start cracking open limestone.  Sometimes you find beautiful recrystallized fossils.  Always bring a rock hammer its you, and smack that limestone open.  

There are always some challenges with limestone as, given its density, it doesn't alway split neatly along bedding planes :( . But, that being said, the stuff you can find in it will generally be more inflated and 3D than what one can find in shales ;) (and, I certainly agree that limestone can present some pretty neat encrusted calcite crystallization, too!).

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Joshua thanks for the advise, we took a hammer to break some rocks but most are in the form of very hard and compact limestone, very tough to break. 
We did find one big rock with lots of mollusk fossils on it and took it home. 

I was able to dislodge a few small bivalves from it, leaving behind the trace fossil, very interesting. 

 

I am tempted to take a hammer and open it up, but i dont know.. 

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Gotta crack those bad boys open somehow!  I get some really tough Ocala and Tampa limestone, luckily even with serious hammering, it usually breaks around the fossils.  I personally prefer fossils still in the matrix, but that's just a personal preference.

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Also, if you have really huge boulders of limestone, you need to hit it at the edges and start breaking it down.  Little sweat, but works like a charm.

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