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3 days in the cretaceous of Normandy - april 2018


elcoincoin

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During april i and a friend had the oportunity to spend a few days hunting in cretaceous of Normandy, hunting for echinoids.

 

Day one :

 

We drove from brittany through Le Havre to Saint Jouin de Bruneval and Antifer Cape. (3 hours and a half)
We let the car on the beach parking lot and hiked south on the peeble shore looking for fossils in the boulders on the beach.
 
The cliff is cenomanian with a bit of albian at the  bottom. You have to look carefully on rocks surface for the familliar spherical shape.

I found about 20 urchins but thats about it. No shark tooth, just a poorly preserved ammonite (mantelliceras) and a few rhynchonellas

 

At some point we noticed tide was coming back faster than expected, most likely because of the wind pushing the water back.
We had to  quicken the pace, and made our way through the slippery covered with algae rocks.

We finally managed our way back to the car and took the road to Fécamp where we had booked an hotel for the next 2 nights.

 

some finds of the day :

 

Crassiholaster subglobosus  :

 

large.crassiholaster-subglobosus-1.jpg.8

 

Crassiholaster subglobosus :

 

large.crassiholaster-subglobosus-2.jpg.7

 

Cyclothyris difformis :

 

large.cyclothyris-difformis.jpg.798deb42

 

See the all hunt gallery here http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/gallery/album/2849-haute-normandie-april-2018/

 

or on my flickr : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmiwWft6

 

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Love the Cyclothyris! :wub:

The echinoids are pretty nice as well. 

Looking forward to Day Two.

:popcorn:

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

MOTM.png.61350469b02f439fd4d5d77c2c69da85.png.a47e14d65deb3f8b242019b3a81d8160-1.png.60b8b8c07f6fa194511f8b7cfb7cc190.png

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Ah ha Saint Jouin ! What a lovely place .. when the weather is good .. Nice pics What about the parts of the cliffs that have fallen down these last years ? Local hunter must have cleared them of anything of value ...

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I think that most of them i ve been washed away by the sea, didnt notice anything particular

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Day 2

 

As stated above, we spent the night in Fecamp. We drove to the small village on top of the cliff above Fecamp called Senneville.
We took the valley to reach the stairs (260 stairs) to the sea. Once at the shore, the plan was to head back toward fecamp  up to some peninsula i have been already.
Then, hunt there while the tide go up and down, preventing us to go back as long the water was high.

I knew that the schedule was tight. With the tide coming up, i knew it would be a close call.
Actually, we didnt made it to the main peninsula and decided to set camp on a smaller one.

The spot appeared to be not so productive, but we still managed to get busy till the sea let us move back.
On our way back  i spotted a few big rock with a fair amount of good condition urchins : micraster decipiens and echinocorys gravesii.

All in all,  at the end of the day my tool box was filled : yet another good haul.

 

here's a few from that day :

 

micraster decipiens

 

large.micraster-decipiens-4.jpg.53f77e3c

 

large.micraster-decipiens-2.jpg.4bd247c5

 

large.micraster-decipiens-3.jpg.94e7b79f

 

and a few  terebratulas : Kingena elegans

 

large.kingena-elegans-group.jpg.74d55601

 

soon to come day 3

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Day 3 :

 

The tide schedule, was once again, something to take in account. I wanted to prospect a "new"spot. Twenty years ago, I managed to find a locality with my first cretaceous echinoids, as a rookie fossile hunter, but we didnt write the name of the village then. Guess what?  Never been able to find it again since. So this was an attempt to find that spot. So our destination was Saint Pierre en Port where the cliffs are turonian and coniacian.


When we reached Saint Pierre en Port, We had hardly 2 hours before high tide, anyhow, enough to prospect. Once at the sea access, we went down the beach and noticed a semi recent boulder.We decided to give it a closer look, with the conformation of  the shore and cliffs we had no time to venture further anyway.


Climbing through the boulders, i noticed my first echies remains of the day. I went back down and told my friend : well it s "so so", there are some, but nothing worth mentionning.
With nothing better to do, we kept looking. It appeared to be much much better than at first glance ( like often, no?). The echinocorys and micraster were equally abundant, and in very very good condition. Actually the inside was made of flint, so they had a little bluish color behind the white calcite.This also explains why they were in such a good condition.


With the waves starting tickling our leggings, we decided we had to leave. Sometimes prospection can be rewarding. Few years ago, moving from Sennevile but to the opposite direction than this year, i noticed huge stairs in the distance and wondered if it could grant us another access to the bottom of the cliffs.

After some google map action, i spotted a road that could lead there, a place called "la valleuse d'eletot". With plenty of time ahead us and nothing better to do, we decided to go and see at the end of that road. The road itself was not much more than a trail, very very narrow. It leaded to some abandonned parking lot with stairs going down the cliff to the beach.
The stairs were unfortunately to damaged to be safe. But atleast now we know. We took the car again and headed to Veulette  sur Mer a bit more east.


We made a 10 minutes walk through the part of the beach still accessible. Friend found a very  big echinocorys but alas very worn out also.
We made our way back to the car and talked about the rest of the day. Friend didnt get much the first  two days beside bruises and had been more lucky in Saint Pierre.
So we decided to drive back to Saint Pierre and to wait till the tide was low enough. A couple of hours later, we had gathered some more urchins.

 

But the funny part of the story is that i am unable to say if it's the spot of my younger days... Just unsure, maybe it is, maybe not...

 

Some finds of the days :

 

bluish micraster :

 

large.micraster-decipiens-1.jpg.ee2f2d03

 

bluish echinocorys :

 

large.echinocorys-gravesii-1-1.jpg.2ad9e

 

and a small shark tooth as a bonus :

 

large_dent.jpg.8f4f87aefec007571ba3b0253

 

And to close my report : 2 pictures  of the whole loot :

 

the whole thing :

 

large.groupe.jpg.f4eff7b2c62f73fb7f3459f

 

Best of :

 

large.groupe-oursin1.jpg.cb5c43cfafabd21

 

See the whole hunt gallery here http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/gallery/album/2849-haute-normandie-april-2018/

 

or on my flickr : https://flic.kr/s/aHsmiwWft6

 

regards , hope you enjoyed the trip

 

 

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