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Ricky’s Lyme Regis fossil hunt!


gieserguy

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Hi!

I’m currently in Lyme Regis, UK and will be here for a few more (I’ll hopefully be adding to this thread as it goes on!) 

My parents and I arrived into town yesterday, but before we even could do that, we missed the bus due to a slightly delayed train ride. So we decided to take a short stop in the cafe at the station and was met by this massive beauty. 

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It was great to be greeted by Mary Anning before we even made it to Lyme Regis!

 

Our bus finally came (after a great lunch!) and we were on our merry way! 

 

Once we got into town, it was lovely weather - sunny and windy - even though it’s been quite stormy here the past week or so apparently! Makes for good fossil hunting!

Unfortunately it was high tide when we arrived so we couldn’t go hunting, but we walked along the Marine Parade along the people beach and ate the best scallops I’ve ever had. 

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In the background, you can see the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, where Mary Anning found the first Ichthyosaur. 

 

The whole town is peppered with fossil shops and paraphernalia, even the light posts are ammonites!

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And today we went out on our first fossil hunt of the trip!

We took a tour with Brandon Lennon, a local fossil hunter (@lymeregisfossils & @brandonlennon on Instagram, his website Here) to really get the tips and tricks of how and where to look for fossils along the coast. His knowledge really is indispensable, and now we’re fully prepared for the next couple days!

 

We were out hunting with him for several hours during low tide, doing normal visual searches, cracking some stones, and sieving for pyrite ammonites and various other marine fossils. The great thing about the Jurassic Coast is that every day there is a fresh supply of fossils as the sea and weather erode away at the cliffs. 

 

There are so many beautiful fossils sitting out that are just too big to collect, but it kills you because you know they’ll be destroyed with the coming tides. 

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(I’ll get to our finds in a minute!)

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After our hunt, Brandon took us on a short tour of the town as well. He took us up to visit Mary Anning’s grave behind the old church. 

 

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The grave was actually cleaned up recently for the Ammonite film about Mary Anning, filmed in Lyme Regis. People have paid their respects to her by leaving fossils for her. 

 

Afterwards we had a lovely lunch down the street, then crossed right over into the Lyme Regis Museum. The museum is actually built right on the site where Mary Anning’s house once stood. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get any very good pictures inside, but it’s a fantastic little museum! I had a great time in there. 

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Now it’s time to reveal our finds of Day 1 :P

(my mom and I actually went out tonight as the tide went out to pick up a few bits before the sun went down)

 

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Bottom left- pyrite ammonites 

Top left- ammonites in matrix

Bottom center (moving upwards)- crinoids, sponges, belemnites

Top right- assorted pyrite pieces and pyrite bubbles

Bottom right- manmade (I found 50p! Who knew fossil hunting would pay me back?)

 

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Some of my favorite little pyrite ammonites

 

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Left- ammonites

Right- manmade, glass and ceramic(?)

The glass and ceramic pieces are from a recent landslide that brought down massive amounts of mud from quite an old dump. 

 

But here’s the find of the day, and all credit is given to my mom for this one. About 30 minutes into our hunt (the first time EVER hunting on the Jurassic Coast) she finds...

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an Ichthyosaur vertebra!!!

 

Oh man are we all ecstatic. We had no idea what to expect on this trip, but wow it has provided so far. I’m excited to get out there bright and early tomorrow morning, and I’ll update this as things progress!

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Oh my gosh!  What a great trip report.  I feel like I was there with you.  Can't wait to see what tomorrow and coming days bring.  Soak this all in and really enjoy it.  It's quite a wonderful trip.

 

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Thanks for your report from this historical fossil mecca! It looks like you have already had some really nice finds. 

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Nice report and finds! Good luck tomorrow and keep us posted! :) 

The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.  -Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't. -Bill Nye (The Science Guy)

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Great report and finds,

we were there a couple of weeks ago, but we did'nt find a lot ( mostly belemnites ), the beaches near Charmouth were crowded with people looking for fossils.

 

growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional.

 

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Interesting report and finds for first day.

Now that you all have your eye in the finds will only get better.

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Thanks guys! It’s been great so far, and I’m glad you’ve liked my report so far!

This morning we set out bright and early before anyone else got down to the beach, and the goal today was to make it to Black Ven, down the shore towards Charmouth. It took a while to get there, but we sure have the belemnites to prove it! On top of that, some of my favorite finds of the day are some nice sea urchins and ammonite-filled coprolites!

I’ll hopefully be able to post some pictures later in the day. 

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Good report so far, I can't wait til you get to the part where you find a complete icthyosaur (hopefully) :popcorn:

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16 minutes ago, Scylla said:

Good report so far, I can't wait til you get to the part where you find a complete icthyosaur (hopefully) :popcorn:

Oh gosh isn’t that the dream? Tomorrow is our last day here, so send me all the good luck you’ve got!

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26 minutes ago, gieserguy said:

Oh gosh isn’t that the dream? Tomorrow is our last day here, so send me all the good luck you’ve got!

:dinothumb:

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1 hour ago, gieserguy said:

Oh gosh isn’t that the dream? Tomorrow is our last day here, so send me all the good luck you’ve got!

:Luck::d_good_luck: Here's a double whammy!

 

 

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Day 2

 

Sorry for the delay folks, but here is the rest of my report!

Yesterday we went out bright and early and made it to the beach by 7:30. First people on the beach, and the water was working it’s way out. (If you ever decide to make it out to the Jurassic Coast, make sure to keep track of tides!)

We were able to walk all the way over to Black Ven, where we found a bunch of belemnites!

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I’m very pleased with the theee phragmocone pieces on the bottom right of the photo!

 

Along the way (both to and back from Black Ven) I would tap the occasional rock to reveal a lovely fossil like this calcite ammonite. 

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Another great find (in my opinion at least) is this death bed of some tiny ammonites (I cant remember their name right now unfortunately). I originally thought this might be a coprolite of ammonite-muncher, but now I’m thinking it’s just lucky weathering. It’s presented very nicely on this flat-bottomed stone. DD6905EB-97D2-488F-9B60-6B001A640254.thumb.jpeg.501902d3613950b05ed0a4c4053c9e6b.jpeg

 

Unfortunately, since I have to fly all the way back to the states, I can’t take any larger pieces. So when I found this triple sea urchin piece I knew I had to get them out of there. 

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Unfortunately the smaller one (lower left) shattered in the process but I was able to recover the other two, and even found another urchin along the way! That one is likely Micraster sp. 81E9BC02-04F9-4D38-812A-C8D11B8C2FAE.thumb.jpeg.22776a92564d84dbdf1ce82ae1a5eb7e.jpeg

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Here are some other larger-than-takeable pieces that just killed me to leave behind. These are from both yesterday and today. 

 

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Big ‘ol beautiful belemnite

 

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Big ‘ol bivalve

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And then there’s this, which I couldn’t even tell you what it is. It spanned from both sides of the rock, at least two feet. 

It might be best if I never find out what it was, or I’ll be kicking myself forever. Already am, but it’s just not something that could be packed. 

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After this, we took a nice little break and ate some crepes. A great time!

Then we headed down the Marine Parade because Brandon (the tour guide, remember him from earlier?) was doing ammonite polishing and selling fossils at a little stand. So of course I had to polish and ammonite! The ammonites he polishes are from farmers fields aren’t quite lookers on the outside, but inside they are beauts! He also brought a piece of green Skye marble from the Isle of Skye in Scotland. I spent a solid 2 hours working on both, I had to make sure they were perfect and I had nowhere else to be. 

On top of that, I bought a few ammonites and a bivalve fossil from him and another stand- a Dactylioceras, Liparoceras, Blockley bivalve, and a Caloceras johnstoni- for somewhere around £15 total. It’s amazing what you can get when it’s all local. 

I don’t have any pictures of the ammonite, marble, or purchases right now, as it’s all tightly packed in my suitcase, but I’ll make sure to post it when I get home. 

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Brandon working on the final step of polishing, using his felt buffing wheel and tin oxide to really make it shine. 

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Brandon told us he had to set up for a fossil polishing event with the Lyme Regis Musuem the next day, so he invited us to visit the museum at night. We were greeted by his friend and colleague Chris Andrew, who regaled is with story upon story of the history of the town, Mary Anning, and just about anything else you could think of. We were able to take in the museum once more, and man is it a nice little museum. They’ve fit so much into it! Everything from a massive Temnodontosaurus head to the 400 year old fire engine to a fun and interactive box on the history of the world (geologically, of course) :P

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Me, Chris, Brandon, Temnodontosaurus (in that order)

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I also forgot to mention that I saw this shark tooth vending machine in town. 

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It was just too hilarious not to do it!

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Day 3

Then came today, the final day! Low tide today was at 12ish in the afternoon, so I went out to the beach at 8! :raindance:

The waters were not that far out yet, but I was the very first on the beach again. It’s a great feeling owning that beach all for yourself, even for just a little bit of time. 

I found a good number of small pyrite ammonites, and I noticed many of the pyrite lumps were fairly cylindrical and seemed to look like a crinoid columnal in the cross section areas. They were all in a decently close area, so I tried collecting as many as I could and maybe I’ll be able to piece back together what might have once been a colony!

Once again, I apologize for the lack of pictures, but it’s all packed away in my suitcase so I’ll take them when I get home. 

After a while I was starting to wind down and be finished, I’d been out there for several hours and the tourists were absolutely cramming the beach (it’s ironic that I’m complains about tourists, right?) So I decided to sit down for a minute and just started peeling apart some shale pieces. I knew there is a low chance of finding anything in these rocks, and even if you do find something it’ll be just a crumbled dusty pile within days as it dries. So I was just peeling it for fun, breaking apart some nice big dry slabs. But as I was peeling one apart on particularly splittable slab, I noticed a shiny black spot. A fossil! I found two more shinies and a brachiopod in these shales. 

I decided to take a little trip on over to the polishing event and visit with Brandon and Chris. I just so happened to also bring those fossils for some ID help as well. 

Turns out one is likely a fish scale, another is indeterminable without a microscope (woo!), but the very first one I found when I was peeling that nice slab is...

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An ammonite beak!

 

Now that’s something I’m very excited about finding, even if it won’t survive much longer. That find really made my whole day (if finding beautiful pyrite ammonites wasn’t enough!)

I have since coated the shale pieces in hairspray in hopes of at least protecting them a little bit. Maybe they’ll be safe, and if not I gave it my best to save it. 

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Great find, a nice addition to any collection.  Looking forward to seeing more pictures when you get back state-side.:popcorn:

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