Some bones from Mistelgau

[belemniten]

Recently I visited a clay pit near Mistelgau in Bavaria. It's a kinda famous quarry because of the "belemnite battle field". Huge plates with hundreds/thousands belemnites come from there. But you can also findother fossils like ammonites and also bones. I already was there a few times and I mainly found ammonites and of course belemnites. 

But this time I also found some bones in the area of the Belemnite battle field. They were just laying therebut it was kinda difficult to find them because they are round, Belemnites are round etc. so I more or less crawled through the quarry  

 

So here are two picture of the quarry: 

 

 

The typical ground there:

 

 

Lots of belemnites, some ammonites and very rare other fossils like bones.

 

I found two types of bones. 

Firstly Ichthyosaur paddle bones:

Here is a picture of all the paddle bones I found (unprepped):
 

 

Mostly they were kinda small but I was able to find a nice one with a length of 3 cm:

 

 

And here is another detailed picture of a small one (1cm)

 

 

 

[belemniten]

And the other type of bones I found were vertebrae. They were also quite small and often the preservation wasn't good but nonetheless I found some:

 

All the vertebrae I found (unprepped).

 

The biggest one I didn't prepped until now but I will show pictures of it when I prepped it. 

 

A nice caudal vert in situ:

 

 

This one didnt need any preparation.

 

 

Some more very small ones:

 

 

 

[FossilDAWG]

Your photos seem to have stopped uploading.

 

Don

[belemniten]

This was another nice vertebra with a length of 2 cm and a good preservation:

 

 

 

Another small one:

 

 

And last but not least I also found some more bone fragments like rib fragments and even one partial Ichthyosaur tooth and a very rare partial shark tooth (Hybodus):

 

 

I prepped them with my sandblasting machine which was a not very difficult work. I am very satisfied with the result and I did never expected to find that many bones there  So hopefully I can visit this quarry again soon!

Thanks for viewing! And sorry for the bad pictures but the objects are very small

 

 

[belemniten]

6 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Your photos seem to have stopped uploading.

 

Don

Better now? I wasnt finished but thanks for the hint 

[FossilDAWG]

All the photos are showing now, thanks.

 

What do you mean by "I wasn't finished..."?  People can't see your post until you click on "submit".  If I could see your first post (with about half the photos) and the second (with no photos, just the word "continued") how was that possible if you didn't click "submit"?  Or, do you usually enter the text first, submit, then go back and edit to add the photos later?  That seems an odd way to do things.

 

Don

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I love your finds!  Wish I could return to hunt there again.

[Miocene_Mason]

Awesome! Love the bones!

[Auspex]

Such a fun-looking site to collect!

[FossilDAWG]

So cool to be able to find ichthyosaur bones.  That is one taxon I've never found even a hint of.

 

Don

[Darktooth]

Nice finds! Seems like you have been doing a lot of hunting lately.

[FossilsAnonymous]

Those are awesome! I really think those bones are cool.

[Innocentx]

Great finds! That old quarry seems rather carpeted with fossils. I could spend hours/days looking.

[ynot]

Looks like you cleaned the site.

Nice find.

[Max-fossils]

Impressive haul Sebastian!!! 

[belemniten]

19 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

All the photos are showing now, thanks.

 

What do you mean by "I wasn't finished..."?  People can't see your post until you click on "submit".  If I could see your first post (with about half the photos) and the second (with no photos, just the word "continued") how was that possible if you didn't click "submit"?  Or, do you usually enter the text first, submit, then go back and edit to add the photos later?  That seems an odd way to do things.

 

Don

Normally I am writing the text first, then I try to add so many pictures as possible (I have some problems with resizing my pictures at the moment) then I delete the part of the text which belongs to pictures I couldn't add in the first post and submit the topic (this time I indeed forgot to delete the text at first). And the same thing I do for the second post etc.

 

21 hours ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

I love your finds!  Wish I could return to hunt there again.

Thanks  Do you also have some bones from there? 

 

20 hours ago, WhodamanHD said:

Awesome! Love the bones!

Thank you 

 

20 hours ago, Auspex said:

Such a fun-looking site to collect!

Thanks @Auspex ! It's indeed a great site! Did you ever was there?

 

20 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

So cool to be able to find ichthyosaur bones.  That is one taxon I've never found even a hint of.

 

Don

It's not too late Don  Just come over! Here in southern Germany Ichthyosaur material isn't common but also not very rare. 

 

20 hours ago, Darktooth said:

Nice finds! Seems like you have been doing a lot of hunting lately.

Thanks!! 

 

19 hours ago, FossilsAnonymous said:

Those are awesome! I really think those bones are cool.

Thank you!

 

17 hours ago, Innocentx said:

Great finds! That old quarry seems rather carpeted with fossils. I could spend hours/days looking.

Same here

Can't wait to hunt there again. Sadly I have to drive 2-3 hours to Mistelgau from my place...

 

16 hours ago, ynot said:

Looks like you cleaned the site.

Nice find.

Thanks Tony

I think I overlook many bones and because of wind and erosion new bones appear the the surface. So there is still potential

 

3 hours ago, Max-fossils said:

Impressive haul Sebastian!!! 

Thanks Max!!

[JimB88]

are all the bones ichthyosaur? Is it early Jurassic? Awesome finds!

[Ludwigia]

Good job, Sebastian!

[belemniten]

2 hours ago, JimB88 said:

are all the bones ichthyosaur? Is it early Jurassic? Awesome finds!

Thanks Jim! Yes all are Ichthiosaur bones from the lower Jurassic. 

 

24 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Good job, Sebastian!

Thanks Roger

 

I also found a rare invertebrate fossil:

A 13 cm long rest of a vampyromorph:

 

 

Mistelgau is a clay pit and this is obviously shale so it must come from another location. There is often foreign material in the quarry.

@TqB can you help me to Id this one? Maybe Loligosepia aalensis? Do you need better pictures?

[Pemphix]

Good haul for this old fossil pit !

Congrats !

 

[TqB]

11 hours ago, belemniten said:

I also found a rare invertebrate fossil:

A 13 cm long rest of a vampyromorph:

 

 

 

Mistelgau is a clay pit and this is obviously shale so it must come from another location. There is often foreign material in the quarry.

@TqB can you help me to Id this one? Maybe Loligosepia aalensis? Do you need better pictures?

That's the most likely ID but going from first principles I'm not certain - looks rather wide for a 13cm long piece?

Maybe it's just part of a big one! Yes, a couple more photos might help.

 

[KimTexan]

Very cool finds. I’m amazed by how many belemnites there are!!

 

Since everything is so small have you considered sifting and screening?  That is what a lot of people do for small stuff here.

[JimB88]

that last one is perfect for this time of year! 

[belemniten]

On 27.10.2018 at 10:24 AM, Pemphix said:

Good haul for this old fossil pit !

Congrats !

 

Thanks @Pemphix

 

On 27.10.2018 at 11:50 AM, TqB said:

That's the most likely ID but going from first principles I'm not certain - looks rather wide for a 13cm long piece?

Maybe it's just part of a big one! Yes, a couple more photos might help.

 

Thanks Tarquin!! Yeah its indeed relatively wide and its for sure a part of a big one. Too bad I couldnt find the other half

Some more photos:
 

 

 

On 27.10.2018 at 12:15 PM, KimTexan said:

Very cool finds. I’m amazed by how many belemnites there are!!

 

Since everything is so small have you considered sifting and screening?  That is what a lot of people do for small stuff here.

Thanks

Sifting is a good idea but I think it will not work here. The bones are still very rare so I think that its better to search on the surface and I think its too dry to sift the material there ...

 

17 hours ago, JimB88 said:

that last one is perfect for this time of year! 

Haha 

[TqB]

Nice new photos but I can't really see enough to tell which loligosepiid it is - you really need to be able to see a good area of the growth lines. So it could also perhaps be Geopeltis or Parabelopeltis. Parabelopeltis has a pronounced median keel which you might have there, not sure though. Great find whichever it is!