Tips on a few finds

[Alex E]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a bit of help with 3 finds from this weekend that I have 0 idea where to start with (bear in mind short of crinoids, trilobites, ammonites and belemnites I've not seen very much). 

All of these come from Warden Point on the Isle of Sheppey, UK. Lower eocene, London Clay formation. The first was recovered from the shorefront, the last two were found in-situ in the cliff face (loose, no hammering was required to remove them).

 

This first one looks really exciting to me and for some reasons when I saw it I thought "turtle" but truth is I have no idea where to place this.

 

 

The second one looked like a tooth to me, just an irregular shape I guess. As a piece broke off I can now see the interior structure and there is a clear layer of mineral/crystalline deposit on the surface, but beyond that I can't distinguish anything. This is likely to be nothing, but still I'd prefer to hear it from someone that has a better idea.

 

The last one is probably the most exciting and puzzling of all as it is quite large. The curved shape and striated structure of this drew my attention to it and I decided to remove it from the clay and take it home for a closer look. Turns out I was right as there is definitely a hollow structure that I was able to reveal. As to what this may be, I could only guess as a large gastropod perhaps? Your mind races to stuff like dinosaur claws/horns/etc with some of these (very mature of me, I know), but it would be really interesting to hear any guesses that might fit the location.

 

More importantly I would really like some advice on how I could extract the fossil from its matrix as it still has quite a lot of hardened clay around it and after going at it for an hour with a toothbrush and very tentatively with a small knife trying to pry off the clay, I decided to leave it alone for fear of damaging it.

 

 

Thank you in advance for your patience and any questions that might help with suggestions I will try to answer as quickly as I can (if I can :))

Edited October 16, 2017 by Alex E

[GeschWhat]

Can I see a larger/higher resolution images of the last one?

[Harry Pristis]

 

Hmmm.  If the fossil is composed of a durable material, different than the clay -- say silicified or calcified -- you may be able to dissolve the clay.  That is, you may be able to break down the clay with a detergent.  Let the clay thoroughly air-dry or dry it in the oven at lowest heat setting.  Submerge the dried clay into a solution of laundry detergent (low suds) and water.  (The key here is DRY clay.)  The clay may just fall away from the fossil.  Finish cleaning with a tooth brush.  I would never do this with a vertebrate fossil, but I don't see any vertebrate clues in your images.  Hazards are present, but it's like magic when you have a durable fossil in clay.  Let us know the identify of this fossil. 

 

 

[Taogan]

The first one is mineral probably selenite. The second is wood, it takes all sorts of shapes at Sheppey, so it can look like teeth, bones, almost anything. The fact it is already flaking tells me it is not tooth, the wood on Sheppey is not all that stable and you have to be careful, it will rot with pyrite disease very quickly. The third I can see structure but can't decide if it is geological or if it is from some sort of plant fossil. It isn't a large shell and vertebrate fossils from there tend to come in hard nodules not balls of mud, . Better pictures are needed.

[JohnBrewer]

An idea of scale greatly improves your chances of identification 

[Alex E]

Hello everyone,

 

Thank you kindly for all the suggestions so far. @Taogan I have to say I thought wood as well when I first saw that piece, mainly because of the pattern of the cracks in it and the color, good to know at least my instincts were right  Interesting about the selenite, lesson learned there.

 

So, coming back to the last one, I did try drying it out completely and then submerging it in water + detergent solution, however this did not do much. I did my best to as gently as possible pry away some of the clay and have managed to reveal more of the structure, but also do a bit of damage in the process, specifically when trying to clean out some of the clay at the narrower end. This turned out to be somewhat interesting in itself as it revealed that there are multiple layers of the striated structure that I suspected might be fossil remains of some sort, with hardened (non-clay) material in between. I'm even more stumped as to whether this could be a naturally occurring mineral/rock formation of some kind - I know there are a lot of pseudofossil forms but unfortunately my experience is much too limited to say. 

I've added more photos, hopefully that actually show the detail and the layer. The striation patterns are only clearly visible on the piece when wet. Appreciate any further suggestions with this, I think I'll stop any attempts to clean it further as I don't have proper tools and chances are I'll destroy it, if it is indeed anything worth keeping.

 

@JohnBrewer absolutely fair point about size, apologies for omitting that information. The last one and the only one clearly still a question mark at this point is 11cm tall, 8cm diameter at the base, about 4cm at the top.

Edited October 17, 2017 by Alex E

[Brittle Star]

That last photo is a mystery, have you considered looking into whether it could be a mud clast. Just a thought.

[Alex E]

For those interested I have had suggestions from another forum that this last item is likely to be a crustacean burrow, a trace fossil, and the striations are from the lamination/compaction in the clay. 

[ynot]

1 hour ago, Alex E said:

For those interested I have had suggestions from another forum that this last item is likely to be a crustacean burrow, a trace fossil, and the striations are from the lamination/compaction in the clay. 

Sounds like a possible id for that piece.

[gremlinshow]

Hi Alex, 

I have been collecting on Sheppey for most of my life and have come across many different types of fossils there. I am still learning about what many of them are myself.

 

In my opinion the items you have found are as follows,

 

The first picture appears to be part of a calcite vein from a broken septarian nodule.

 

The second appears to be a piece of pyritised wood as you suspected.

 

The last one is indeed a burrow. These are found scattered all over the beach at warden. In all different shapes and sizes most of the time they are empty (otherwise called 'no one at home') and occasionally the lobster is still present. 

 

If you have a look through some of my pictures you can see some of the specimen fossils that can occasionally turn up on Sheppey.

 

Hope this helps!