Fossil Hunt at Murdock Beach

[OwlEyes]

It is my first time hunting at Murdock beach.  I am also new to fossil hunting.  I found many concretion and brought them home but most of them doesn't have anything inside.  Here are some photos.

 

I really want a crab.  I would like to ask how do you tell if a concretion has fossil inside before open it.  Thanks.

[goatinformationist]

Hello OwlEyes and welcome to the forum.

Concretions that show nothing at all make great rainy weekend afternoon openings.

There are certain persons that will see your query soon and tell you everything that you could wish to know.

Signing off from sunny Atlanta.

[Macrophyseter]

@RJB Is the expert when it comes to crabs inside concretions. He might be the most helpful in this case.

[DLB]

you wont find many crab on murdock beach most con creations have a hard orange crystal core like the one you have split that you can see the center of. As for telling if they have fossils inside before you open it most concretions are generated by a fossil of some sort. That being said not all fossils are actually preserved and concretions. Typically crab concretions or oval some of the snarge concretions from that area will be round and there's no real good way to tell unless you break them if they have a crab in them. So in long-term there's no way from that area to tell if there's a fossil inside without breaking them or unless you see crab tips or legs on the side of the concretion. You can find quite a few mollusk, clam shells in that area as well

[Innocentx]

One place that's famous for having fossils in concretions is Mazon Creek in Illinois. Check out this page to see what's found there, but don't expect yours to be like these.

 

 

[OwlEyes]

Thanks DLB, I read about lincoln creek formation in Gray Harbor and they say almost all concretions there has crab fossil inside.  Is that true?  Has you been in that area?  Thanks.

[The Mushroom Whisperer]

[RJB]

Ditto to what DLB said.  99.9% of the concs at Murdoc are what I call BFN's.  Stands for Big Fat Nothings.  I did find a crab pincer there one time, but that was it.  and its sad to say, but all the best sites for finding good crab concretions are posted, gated and closed off for collecting.  Was purty good back about 20 years ago.   you can try the twin rivers area for shrimp though.  I even found an Aturia one day there many years ago.  Ive also heard of a guy who found a Mursa crab one time there, but weather or not it was complete, I do not know.  Good luck

 

RB

[DLB]

19 hours ago, OwlEyes said:

Thanks DLB, I read about lincoln creek formation in Gray Harbor and they say almost all concretions there has crab fossil inside.  Is that true?  Has you been in that area?  Thanks.

even when you could find places to hunt the lincoln creek you still didnt get a crab every time. but you did come across them more.

[OwlEyes]

On 8/28/2018 at 5:20 AM, RJB said:

Ditto to what DLB said.  99.9% of the concs at Murdoc are what I call BFN's.  Stands for Big Fat Nothings.  I did find a crab pincer there one time, but that was it.  and its sad to say, but all the best sites for finding good crab concretions are posted, gated and closed off for collecting.  Was purty good back about 20 years ago.   you can try the twin rivers area for shrimp though.  I even found an Aturia one day there many years ago.  Ive also heard of a guy who found a Mursa crab one time there, but weather or not it was complete, I do not know.  Good luck

 

RB

Hi RB,

 

I do a research about twin rivers and it seems to me they are close to publish.  I found a document talking about a project to rebuild the shoreline but no public access.  Do you know anything about that or the area I look at is wrong?

 

Thanks,

OwlEyes

[jpc]

Twin Rivers is on the north coast of the Olympic Penninsula if that helps at all.  I was there decades ago.  

[RJB]

11 hours ago, OwlEyes said:

I do a research about twin rivers and it seems to me they are close to publish.  I found a document talking about a project to rebuild the shoreline but no public access.  Do you know anything about that or the area I look at is wrong?

I havent been there in years.  I did hear that that huge berm has been removed.  I also saw how it was posted 'no tresspassing' but I stayed on the beach and didnt limb up onto any dry land parts and hunted anyways many years ago. Heck, believe it or not, I will be there this Monday. 

 

RB

[OwlEyes]

On 8/31/2018 at 7:53 AM, RJB said:

I havent been there in years.  I did hear that that huge berm has been removed.  I also saw how it was posted 'no tresspassing' but I stayed on the beach and didnt limb up onto any dry land parts and hunted anyways many years ago. Heck, believe it or not, I will be there this Monday. 

 

RB

Did you go there?  Do you find anything?

[RJB]

16 minutes ago, OwlEyes said:

Did you go there?  Do you find anything?

Tides were terrible so did not go.   My buddy just happened to have a bucket full of those little concretions and just gave them to me.  So I still ended up with some more concs.  Most will have nothing, but there will be some with shrimp, clams, gastro's and the occasional crab parts.

 

RB

[Tidgy's Dad]

Hello, Owl Eyes, and a very warm welcome to TFF from Morocco! 

[OwlEyes]

That is cool RJB, Twin river is quite away so I will have to save it for later.  However, Lincoln Creek Formation at Porter is closer and we usually go to Westport so I can stop on the way.  I have a question, do we still allow to collect fossil along highway 12 porter?