Sometimes You Have To Whack It !!

[Nimravis]

2 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very nice Sedgwickia

When I was collecting 25 years ago, I don’t even recall that name, everyone called those type Edmondia , now the changed the name to Mazonomya . I get so confused- lol.

[Nimravis]

3 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

They are gorgeous, and some of them quite rare,

You know Adam, I do not know if they classify them as rare, but I can tell you that I only have one Acharax radiata and I have found a lot of bi-valves and I always look for the tell tell lines, but have not found another yet.

[Nimravis]

Today I continued to open concretions that I collected back in 1996 from the Braceville Shaft Mine (Essex Biota)-

 

I will start out with my two favorite finds from this session, first up is the smallest Palaeoxyris Shark Egg Case. Since I started this post, I believe that this third one that I have found.

 

 

My second favorite find was a beautiful large Bi-Valve, I believe that this also may be an example of Sedgwickia.

 

 

While I am on Bi-Valves, here are others from today. Most were large and a lot had bad preservation.

 

 

Here are a couple Myalinella meeki.

 

 

 

Here is a very nice Essexella asherae Jellyfish, the other is not the greatest, but since it is soft bodied preservation, I say it is pretty good.

 

 

Again today, I did not have the greatest luck with polychaete worms, but one was not too bad.

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

 

I only had two concretions that had flora inside.

 

 

 

This piece I have to take a closer look at because I cannot tell what it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Very nice! 

You're doing well for the egg cases and, once again, the Sedgewickia is tremendous. 

Could the last one be a Pecopteris leaflet ? 

[ynot]

Looks good all around, but gotta love the shark egg.

[Miocene_Mason]

Nice shark eggcase! 

I have a question, maybe a bad one, because I’m to curious for my own good. You have found a good amount of fish remains (albeit you have cracked a ton of concs), which I would expect to be quite rare, at least based on their prices online. However, a quick peek at our favorite auction site shows partial tullies going for a third of the price of fish. You haven’t found one yet on this thread, is this luck or are fish more common? Or have you just been searching in the wrong material for tullies (I know there are two different biotas)?

[Nimravis]

32 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Very nice! 

You're doing well for the egg cases and, once again, the Sedgewickia is tremendous. 

Could the last one be a Pecopteris leaflet ? 

When I looked at it with a loop, it does not appear to be.

[Nimravis]

36 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

You haven’t found one yet on this thread, is this luck or are fish more common?

I have only found Tully Monsters at Pit 11. I believe I have only gone through possibly 1 bucket from Pit 11. I use to open all of my Pit 11 stuff when I first started collecting and as time went on, the amount of concretions that I found out there was limited. I am not positive how many, if any buckets that I have from Pit 11- as I go through the layers of buckets I will find out. A friend of mine who has concretions from Pit 11's "Tipple Area" has unopened concretions and he advised me that he found a nice Tully in some of the concretions that he was freezing. I would rather find a fish rather than a Tully, I feel that fish are much rarer than Tully's. Lastly, the above concretions that I found at Braceville are from the Essex Biota, which is the same Boita as Pit 11 where I found Tully's. Though I have never found any Tully parts from the hundreds if not thousands of concretions that I collected at Braceville and I do not know of anyone that has, I would not rule out that they might be present.

[Wolf89]

Nice finds! I like the egg case

[Miocene_Mason]

Thanks @Nimravis! I’d rather find a fish as well, I’m a vertebrate kinda guy

 

[Innocentx]

Shark egg case!

[stats]

4 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

I will start out with my two favorite finds from this session, first up is the smallest Palaeoxyris Shark Egg Case. Since I started this post, I believe that this third one that I have found.

 

 

 

Very nice!  Can you show a picture that shows the overall shape of the concretion?  It might provide hints for what to look for...  Thanks!

 

4 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

 

 

Again today, I did not have the greatest luck with polychaete worms, but one was not too bad.

 

 

 

I have similar luck with Braceville worms.  They blow up when you freeze thaw them because the worm seems to be folded over few times in the concretion.  It would be interesting to see what you get if you freeze a few of these already opened worms.  I bet you might see things like this:

 

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Nimravis]

10 minutes ago, stats said:

Very nice!  Can you show a picture that shows the overall shape of the concretion?  It might provide hints for what to look for...  Thanks!

Here you go Rich.

 

[stats]

46 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

Here you go Rich.

 

Thanks!  Smallish roundy... hopefully, I picked up a few this past weekend!

 

Cheers,

Rich

[Nimravis]

11 minutes ago, stats said:

 

Thanks!  Smallish roundy... hopefully, I picked up a few this past weekend!

 

Cheers,

Rich

Good Luck

[deutscheben]

19 hours ago, stats said:

 

Very nice!  Can you show a picture that shows the overall shape of the concretion?  It might provide hints for what to look for...  Thanks!

 

 

I have similar luck with Braceville worms.  They blow up when you freeze thaw them because the worm seems to be folded over few times in the concretion.  It would be interesting to see what you get if you freeze a few of these already opened worms.  I bet you might see things like this:

 

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

I've found the same thing in a few nodules from Braceville too- worm/worms running through and across multiple planes. Here are a few of mine:

 

[Nimravis]

7 hours ago, deutscheben said:

I've found the same thing in a few nodules from Braceville too- worm/worms running through and across multiple planes. Here are a few of mine:

 

Ben, yours came out a lot better than mine.

[Nimravis]

Well I was on vacation for a week visiting family, but at the same time I was able to collect from 3 different time periods in 3 different states. So after arriving home, I had to get back to cracking open Mazon Creek concretions. I am running out of time this year since winter and the time change is coming, both of which will reduce my ability to get through a lot of buckets.

 

Here are my finds from a couple hours of breaking open concretions from the Braceville Shaft Mine (Essex Biota).

 

Here are my favorite finds from today and they both are not fossils- they a concretions that contained Chalcopyrite. The picture does not do the first piece justice, but believe me, the colors are stunning. I can't believed that I used the word stunning . 

 

 

 

Many times you can crack ope concretions and they just shatter, this can happen with the lightest touch of the hammer. I will take a quick look at the pieces and even if there is a fossil present, I will toss them rather that trying to re-assemble. That of course would not be an option if it is something uncommon or rare.

 

 

 

Here are my fossil finds-

 

Myalinella meeki Bivalves-

 

 

Myalinella meeki attached to bark-

 

 

 

Sedgwickia Bivalve-

 

 

Here is one with crystal inclusions.

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

Essexella asherae Jellyfish-

 

 

And lastly, a poorly preserved worm-

 

[Innocentx]

Is it okay if I say stunning?

 

[Nimravis]

Today was probably my least productive day at opening concretions and none of them were keepers, but I still wanted to show what I found. 

 

Myalinella meeki bivalve-

 

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

Neuropteris portion-

 

 

Bark-

 

 

Annularia-

 

 

Essexella asherae Jellyfish-

 

 

Lasty, a Little concretion that has a pyrite inclusion with the shape of Australia.

 

[KimTexan]

10 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

Today was probably my least productive day at opening concretions and none of them were keepers, but I still wanted to show what I found. 

 

I for one love the ferns. The colors in the first one are really nice.

10 minutes ago, Nimravis said:

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

 

 

 

[ynot]

Got some neat looking pieces.

[Nimravis]

I decided to take today off from work and I spent about 6 hours opening concretions from 3 different locations. I will start with my finds from the area that I call "Across From Pit 4".

 

Myalinella meeki Bivalve-

 

 

I am not positive what this little guy is.

 

 

Ploychaete Worm-

 

 

Cyclus americanus-

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

Macroneuropteris-

 

 

Annularia-

 

 

Cyclopteris-

 

 

Lycopod Leaves-

 

 

Bark-

 

 

Next up will be my finds from Pit 11.

 

 

[Nimravis]

Here are my finds from Pit 11 (Essex Biota)-

 

A classic Mazonomya mazonensis , open in the Death Position.

 

 

Here is another (2).

 

 

A couple Polycheate Worms- one preserved with pyrite. All either not with the greatest preservation or did open well.

 

 

Essexella asherae Jellyfish-

 

 

 

Achistrum sp. (Sea Cucumber) with mouth-

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

 

Fertile Pecopteris-

 

 

Bark-

 

 

Lepidostrobophyllum majus- Portion-

 

 

A lot of the concretions from Pit 11 contained nothing but pyrite inclusion like this.

 

 

 

Next up will be my finds from Pit 4 (Brainwood Biota)-

 

 

 

 

 

[Nimravis]

Here are my finds from Pit 4 (Braidwood Biota), and some of my favorites.

 

A large Annularia stellata-

 

 

Larger concretions with Lycopod Leaves-

 

 

 

Alethopteris-

 

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

Poorly preserved Triple Annularia-

 

 

Neuropteris-

 

 

Bark-

 

 

Coprolite-