Jalama Beach, Santa Barbara, First Fish

[cltschirhart]

I had a free morning last weekend, so I drove out to Jalama beach.  A while ago while searching for good places to fossil hunt near Santa Barbara I saw this post and since then have stopped by twice for a few hours each to crack rocks without any luck.  This time I finally found myself a Jalama beach fish.  It's not in good enough shape to identify (for me, anyway), but it's nice to finally get something.  I had read that the south side of the beach is more fossil rich, so I walked south until I didn't see any people and then started working my way back.  The fossil-rich layer is a beige layered rock.  This link, referenced in the post that got me interested in Jalama beach, refers to this formation as "the diatom beds of Lompoc."  The cleavage is extremely nice and it reminds me of the green river formation fossils you see around (although it seems the fish are usually smaller).  Most of the rock in the cliffs is a reddish brown crumbly rock without many fossils, and the first time I came I wasted a bunch of time messing around with that.  You definitely have to poke around a bit to find the fossil rich rocks.  Anyway, I found the fish almost immediately, and didn't find anything else as I worked my way back for the rest of the morning.  I think next time I'll try to go even further south.  

 

There are a lot of fragments of algae fossils around and I only picked one up because it looked kind of interesting- I haven't really put any effort into identifying it yet.  

 

If anyone else is thinking about going to Jalama beach, I highly recommend bringing along a sharp flat chisel (see picture).  I bought rectangular knife stock on Amazon and then sharpened it.  It definitely helps in getting the rock to break along a plane instead of shattering, which is usually what happens with a regular geology hammer.  Also, if you'd like some company I'd be happy to hunt with someone else, I don't really know anyone else in the area that does this.  

[cltschirhart]

View towards the south (direction of fossils).  

[cltschirhart]

[cltschirhart]

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great find! 

Love the photos, too. 

[thebluecatapilla]

Nice find! Great to hear you are able to find stuff. 

 

I am hoping to make it out to Jalama for the first time soon. Thank you for the advice in finding the fossil bearing rocks and equipment. I will definitely join you if you are free and in need of a fossil hunting buddy 

[caldigger]

8 hours ago, thebluecatapilla said:

Nice find! Great to hear you are able to find stuff. 

 

I am hoping to make it out to Jalama for the first time soon. Thank you for the advice in finding the fossil bearing rocks and equipment. I will definitely join you if you are free and in need of a fossil hunting buddy 

I would like joining in on a group hunt if you don't mind this young kid coming along.

[thebluecatapilla]

1 hour ago, caldigger said:

I would like joining in on a group hunt if you don't mind this young kid coming along.

As I always like to say, the more the merrier!  

[Jeffrey P]

Congratulations on the excellent find. Jamala Beach has been on my bucket list of sites I hope to visit someday. Glad to see that it is still producing. If I do make it that far I'll be sure to give you a ring.

[siteseer]

That fish specimen reminds me of what I find in the Carmel area, Monterey County, CA.  I've collected only a few strings of vertebrae like that and one essentially complete fish over the past 25-30 years.  It might be the same formation, the Monterey, but a different layer.

[caldigger]

So promoted by this post, a fellow member ( Mr.R ) and I decided to give Jalama a try. He was coming from LA area and I from Paso Robles so it seemed a mid way site between us.

We met up in the parking lot and proceeded south for some exploratory shale splitting. 

All the cliffs are of a very fractured crumbly Miocene Monterey Shale.

After about an hour of splitting bigger slabs of shale into much smaller pieces and not finding even the slightest sign of fish parts, he and I decided to give the cliffs north of the main beach a look-see.

As we were making our way over the cobble strewn beach we picked up the undeniable scent of rotting carcass. PEW!

We did some more breaking of shale that had come down from the cliffs and I got my one and only fossil for the day.

 

I'm pretty sure you are all going to to obviously recognize it as a the very rare pigmy Miocene Tyranosaur and that it belongs in a major museum for study,  but I am going to be selfish and keep this one in my private collection for nobody but me to see. 

The tide was coming in and dangerously threatening to soak us if we stayed any longer so we both decided to call it a day on the shale shenanigans and to indulge on a couple of those world famous Jalama burgers. They were good! My only complaint was the lettuce was shredded the size for cole slaw and fell out of the bun all the time.

On our way back to the parking lot we came upon that wonderful dead stink again but never found the source.  So if you go north of the campground on the beach, be on the lookout for a half buried pinniped.

[ynot]

Well, at least You found something (other than a dead critter).

Looks like the whole fish is there, it just exploded.

[caldigger]

7 hours ago, ynot said:

Well, at least You found something (other than a dead critter).

Looks like the whole fish is there, it just exploded.

A bit of paleo dynamite fishing?  

[ynot]

6 hours ago, caldigger said:

A bit of paleo dynamite fishing?  

Ever hear of "killer farts"!!!!

[caldigger]

Just now, ynot said:

Ever hear of "killer farts"!!!!

This is what happens when you hold them in. Let this be a lessen kids!

[ynot]

Oh, now I got it!

It is not exploded, it is a Picasso fish.

[thebluecatapilla]

@caldigger Very nice find! Glad that you had some success at Jalama.

[caldigger]

I'm thinking it might be an extremely rare boney octopus. 

[RandyB]

I think you are missing the obvious @caldigger, its a skeksis from the dark crystal,

 

  

[ynot]

2 hours ago, caldigger said:

an extremely rare boney octopus.

1 hour ago, RandyB said:

, its a skeksis from the dark crystal, 

[Monica]

Congrats on finding something fishy, Doren! 

[Kroy]

Thank you for your posting! I went with my 15 year old son on our first attempt at Jalama Beach. We went south as indicated. It took a bit before we started having success. Such an enjoyable day for us to have!!

 

Great fish head!

Too bad this one broke; didn't have a head.

Like how long some were...

Not quite sure what this one is...

Didn't mind a small one.

Liked finding similar pattern; but where is the head?

Great one; was only a bit more than an inch.

Photo didn't do this justice. There was a lot of texture on this one.

Close up, in the sun it sparkled some.

No head once again...about 2 inches long...

Some of the formations were wonderful to see.

 

The next day we went to Gaviota Beach. What we found was all as is in various piles. Splitting wasn't as easy. We hoped to find bone fossils and spent hours looking with no luck.

 

Very few finds but were happy to find this leaf print. My son has an eagle eye.

Great find with some distinct verts.

My son found something interesting which we couldn't quite figure out where the bones started/stopped. Bird? Seems like a wing...

Different angle...flipped

 

  We went to El Capitan beach and found nothing at all. More like a tourist location than a place to hunt for fossils. Not a bad overall few day trip. We stayed in Goleta near Santa Barbara. Went for a day to Solvang as we ran out of new locations to go to.

 

 

[ynot]

Nice finds!

Congratulations on the successful hunt.

[jpc]

15 hours ago, Kroy said:

My son found something interesting which we couldn't quite figure out where the bones started/stopped. Bird? Seems like a wing...

 

Different angle...flipped

 

  We went to El Capitan beach and found nothing at all. More like a tourist location than a place to hunt for fossils. Not a bad overall few day trip. We stayed in Goleta near Santa Barbara. Went for a day to Solvang as we ran out of new locations to go to.

Wow... that is cool.  Yes, it looks like a bird.  

 

[caldigger]

I got kicked out of Gaviota Beach by a ranger, because you are not allowed to mess with the tallus piles.

  I was just searching through the pile of stuff on the beach that had already fallen from the cliff.    Never had the chance to find anything.