Sometimes You Have To Whack It !!

[Tidgy's Dad]

On 10/22/2018 at 2:04 AM, Nimravis said:

 

Here is a larger concretion and as you can see from the first picture, the stem is right in the center and had inclusions of crystals. @ynot Tony what do you think the crystals are on this one? 

 

 

I think these are siderite crystals. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Caught up again.

Some nice pieces, some intriguing and mysterious pieces too! 

This is one of my favourite threads on the forum. 

[Nimravis]

4 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Caught up again.

Some nice pieces, some intriguing and mysterious pieces too! 

This is one of my favourite threads on the forum. 

Thanks Adam.

[Nimravis]

Today was another day of going through a lot of concretions and not finding much of anything, here are a couple pics of some of my finds.

 

Lepidostrobophyllum lanceolatus-

 

 

Pecopteris-

 

 

Subsurface of the non-vascular plant Taeniophyllum latifolium.

 

 

Myalinella meeki Bivalves-

 

[Plantguy]

I could live with finding just those!! but I suppose its all relative...

I havent been out in awhile but I did manage to find part of an Ecphora gastropod in the garage piles today that I actually thought I had never found around here...so much for my keen hunting abilities ...uggh....its all good...I can now check that genus off my todo list and I simply have to find a complete one...lol.. 

 

Keep popping open those nodules...looking forward to your next spectacular find. 

Regards, Chris 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, Plantguy said:

Keep popping open those nodules...looking forward to your next spectacular find. 

Regards, Chris 

Thanks for the comments Chris. Today I really went through a lot of concretions and was just hoping for more fossils- the good thing is that I am getting through the buckets. Hopefully Sunday the weather will he ok and I can continue to crack some open. So far nothing has opened from the numerous Freeze / Thaws that I have been doing, maybe some will pop soon- fingers crossed.

[stats]

12 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Thanks for the comments Chris. Today I really went through a lot of concretions and was just hoping for more fossils- the good thing is that I am getting through the buckets. Hopefully Sunday the weather will he ok and I can continue to crack some open. So far nothing has opened from the numerous Freeze / Thaws that I have been doing, maybe some will pop soon- fingers crossed.

Freeze/Thaw can be very slow.  I tend to go though quiet periods where nothing opens and then all of a sudden a bunch of good ones.

 

What type of hammer are you using?  I have a couple large ones I might take a whack at.  They have been weathering in my yard for a few years.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, stats said:

Freeze/Thaw can be very slow.  I tend to go though quiet periods where nothing opens and then all of a sudden a bunch of good ones.

 

What type of hammer are you using?  I have a couple large ones I might take a whack at.  They have been weathering in my yard for a few years.

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

I use a regular Estwing Rock hammer, the smaller size one, I get more of a precise hit on the concretion or my thumb with that one- lol. For super large concretions I have had success with a 3 lb mini sledge, thank god that I have never hit my thumb with that one.

[jdp]

Nimravis, every time you post an update, I open this thread with such anticipation that this time, you'll have found some sort of fantastic early tetrapod no one has ever seen before, which is kind of like a microcosm of your own effort in popping all these concretions.

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, jdp said:

Nimravis, every time you post an update, I open this thread with such anticipation that this time, you'll have found some sort of fantastic early tetrapod no one has ever seen before, which is kind of like a microcosm of your own effort in popping all these concretions.

Thanks, let’s hope that it happens, lately it has been ho-hum. 

[Nimravis]

It was a rainy day today, but I still went outside and cracked open some concretions. Here are pics of some of my finds, I will start off with my favorite.

 

Macroneuropteris

 

 

Here are come of my other finds-

 

Cyclus americanus-

 

 

Some Myalinella meeki  Bivalves

 

 

A weathered and poorly preserved Euproops danae Horseshoe Crab.

 

A possible shrimp portion-

 

 

Coprolite-

 

 

Misc Flora hash plates-

 

 

 

[stats]

5 hours ago, Nimravis said:

I use a regular Estwing Rock hammer, the smaller size one, I get more of a precise hit on the concretion or my thumb with that one- lol. For super large concretions I have had success with a 3 lb mini sledge, thank god that I have never hit my thumb with that one.

 

I've got both.  I might give it a try soon.  For the big ones, I have no real way to freeze them.  I have left them out in the mulch to weather.

 

Thanks!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

[stats]

3 hours ago, Nimravis said:

It was a rainy day today, but I still went outside and cracked open some concretions. Here are pics of some of my finds, I will start off with my favorite.

 

Macroneuropteris

 

 

Here are come of my other finds-

 

Cyclus americanus-

 

 

 

 

 

A weathered and poorly preserved Euproops danae Horseshoe Crab.

 

 

3 of my favorites!  Always excited to see a Horseshoe Crab!  I have 4 from the Fossil Rock area.  Do you have the other half?

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

 

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, stats said:

Do you have the other half?

No, that was in the bucket and it looks like it had been outside for a long time weathering- as you can see, it is not in great condition.

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, stats said:

 

I've got both.  I might give it a try soon.  For the big ones, I have no real way to freeze them.  I have left them out in the mulch to weather.

 

Thanks!

 

Cheers,

Rich

 

I have left some real big ones outside for years and nothing ever happened.

[Nimravis]

Well it has been a few days since I was able to open some concretions, this time change is really cramping my style, but today, prior to heading downtown I was able to open about 20 concretions from Pit 4 and the area I call “ Across from Pit 4”.

 

Here are my three favorite finds from my quick session today, but before I post those, here is a pic of two concretions (Pit 4) that I came across today and was planning on freezing.

 

 

Now those two concretions have a great shape and from experience I can tell that there is a 90% chance that they will have a piece of Flora in them and by the shape of the smaller one on the right, I would say had a 95% chance of having a Neuropteris  leaf inside. But before putting them back into another bucket that contains concretions to freeze, I always like to tap them and see what happens.

 

Tapping the larger one caused the “shell” to break off and nothing else.

 

 

I did the same thing to the smaller one and this is what popped out, a beautiful Macroneuropteris leaf. 

 

 

Here is another nice find from Pit 4, I need to clean it up, but it looks like a nice round cross section of Calamites cisti, right at the internode. 

 

 

 

And last but not least, my third favorite find of the day, this one from “Across from Pit 4”, a very nice Palaeoxyris. I believe that this may be my fourth one that I have found since I started this post.

 

 

Here are a couple other finds from today.

 

Bark-

 

 

Neuropteris leaf-

 

 

 

Concretions with miscellaneous plant material, I always check these for insects.

 

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Well preserved your shark egg !

 

Coco

[Tidgy's Dad]

Love the egg case, you're finding a few of those at the moment. 

The Calamites cross section is very pretty and I like the last couple of Macroneuropteris you've found. 

And the weathered Euproops was rather nice, i thought. 

Some nice pieces, Ralph! 

[Innocentx]

Pretty interesting how that calamites cross section has ended up in a nodule.

[Nimravis]

52 minutes ago, Innocentx said:

Pretty interesting how that calamites cross section has ended up in a nodule.

I agree, and if I did not know better, I would think that it was a part of a gear, the points are very sharp and evenly placed.

[Nimravis]

1 hour ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

Love the egg case, you're finding a few of those at the moment. 

The Calamites cross section is very pretty and I like the last couple of Macroneuropteris you've found. 

And the weathered Euproops was rather nice, i thought. 

Some nice pieces, Ralph! 

Thanks Adam.

[Packy]

I borrowed a rock splitting tool  when I built my fireplace, it was called a little joey, Had a lever and a sharp edge that you adjusted to the rock, The lever was spring loaded, broke nice corners on the lexinton limestone I was using. it should work on nodules, may be too strong though. Packy

[Nimravis]

26 minutes ago, Packy said:

I borrowed a rock splitting tool  when I built my fireplace, it was called a little joey, Had a lever and a sharp edge that you adjusted to the rock, The lever was spring loaded, broke nice corners on the lexinton limestone I was using. it should work on nodules, may be too strong though. Packy

Thanks- Sounds real cool, but I really do not think that anything opens concretions properly except freezing and lucky hammer strikes. Some of these open with a tap of a hammer and others I can rain down Thor’s fury on them and nothing happens. Lol

[Fossildude19]

Awesome new finds, Ralph!   

[Nimravis]

2 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

Awesome new finds, Ralph!   

Thanks, I was happy with those three.