Successful Whiskey Bridge hunt

[Fishkeeper]

Spent about 2 hours at Whiskey Bridge today. I found that there's a decent bit of stuff directly under the bridge, but if you walk upstream, there's a lot of areas that haven't really been dug in. Plus, up that way the fossiliferous material is over my height, and you can just walk along it and look at all the layers. That's interesting, in and of itself. Not just because of the appearance, but because I tend to get to thinking about how old they are, and about how every one of those fossils is something's entire life, the cumulation of its efforts to survive. It's fascinating to picture- these layers on layers of life. I wouldn't make it as a paleontologist, not with my fatigue issues, but I'll gladly do this hobby-type stuff just for those moments. 

 

I found a good handful of shells, including a nice cone snail. I also brought home some shell-rich clods of matrix to work with. Gonna give those a good long soak and see if I can break them open without breaking the shells inside. A lot of these are surprisingly fragile- I guess they didn't have the strongest minerals replacing them. I soaked everything in water, then brushed them gently with a toothbrush. I cleared some of the mud out of their insides, but I did find that a decent number of them were being supported somewhat by the mud, so a number still have the mud inside. 

I'm really happy with that cone. The lip is missing and there's a crack, but it's otherwise intact, including the tip. It was actually on the ground, instead of in the wall. I was walking back to the car, looking around, and saw the circle of its end. Didn't want to hope it was intact, not at that size, but it (basically) was! I think it just weathered loose of the bank on its own. 

 

In non-fossil news, I found what looks like most of a rat skeleton, minus the toes, with some fur wrapped around it. Gonna clean that up and keep it. And half a snakeskin, which I brought home to show our cats. Also, someone had thrown a pumpkin off the bridge, I assume to see what it did, and we found some old railroad spikes. 

 

The sun's gone down most of the way, so I don't have any decent pics. Tomorrow I'll sort these by type and take proper pics, with scales, up close. No shark teeth, unfortunately. I also seem to have misplaced a few things. I had found a piece of what looked like mother-of-pearl, but purplish-blue, and some kind of odd... bryozoan clump, I think. Also some discs with a sort of tiny crosshatch pattern on them, very fragile. 

 

Note for next time: bring a smaller pick-style item, like a small icepick. Also bring several non-childproof pill bottles to keep in pockets so I can safely pocket fossils instead of having to hold them when I forget to bring my holdin' cup. It really is a low-tech area, though, you could find some good pieces with just a random stick from the ground. 

 

For flavor while there's no scale pics, here's my cat being intrigued by the rat bone, and the snakeskin. Her name is Capri, and I like to bring her things to sniff. 

[JohnBrian]

Nice bunch of finds! And a cute kitty!

[caldigger]

Looks like you got a nice variety of shells.

[FranzBernhard]

Those are some incredible nice shells! Congrats!

Thanks for sharing and for all the background information, too! Much appreciated!

 

"Is it bone or is it not bone??" 

 

Franz Bernhard

[sixgill pete]

What an incredible variety of gastropods that site coughs up. While I have never been there, I have searched matrix from there. Did you get into a vertebrate lens? The large cone is really nice.

[erose]

Looks like you did OK for your first visit. The formation dips to the south east so as you walk upstream the layers emerge from the river and as you go downstream they descend into the river. If you go too far in either direction the fossil bearing layers disappear. 

 

Despite their age many of the specimens are original shell. They are fragile so be careful cleaning them. If you haven't soaked those clods yet I would maybe reconsider. Better to just sit at the table over some newspaper and use a small pin or pick to peck away at it.

 

I use a small wet paintbrush and tissue to clean mine up. Then I "paint" them with several coats of diluted white glue. I also sometimes soak the dirt that is inside and holding them together with thin super glue. Something like Butvar or Paleobond might be better but white glue works better with my budget.

 

[Fishkeeper]

I unfortunately didn't get any vertebrates. I think I found a lense of sorts in one place, but it was mostly broken fragments. There were just a lot of them all layered together. 

 

Walking upstream turned out to be fairly productive. Directly under the bridge seems to be decent, but the dirt was harder there than upstream, so it was harder to get things out in one piece. You're right, everything here is incredibly fragile. More so than most seashells I've found- have they lost something over the millions of years that made them more durable, or been infiltrated by minerals that softened them? Most modern shells seem to be more durable. I can confidently handle the majority of modern shells, and would feel comfortable putting most in my pocket. These, I don't even dare say "pocket" at. 

 

Good to have the reminder of the glue, thanks. I think I'll be doing that with these bigger ones. I've cracked a couple just from picking them up too firmly! And then there are these whatever-they-ares that I could not pick up intact. Two things, actually. One is, I think, some sort of echinoderm? It reminds me of a sand dollar, slightly. The other is a hollow tube. I got some out of the dirt clods, and will post pics of them tomorrow. 

 

Because that's what I did today. I went to grab something so I could take the pics before it got too dark for natural light, and then I got distracted for 2 and a half hours with the clods. I wound up soaking them a bit just to soften them and make it so they were easier to get things out of, though I don't think they'd dissolve on their own. Maybe with hydrogen peroxide, but that seems likely to damage the shells. Though I'm a little tempted to grab a sacrificial clod next time and see what happens if I put some hydrogen peroxide in the water. A lot of fizzing, I'd imagine. 

 

Better pics tomorrow, hopefully. On a nice background, with a scale, sorted by species as far as I can tell.

 

We found this concretion. At least, that's what I assume this is. It doesn't have any areas on it that look like the tip of anything (other than some broken shells), so no idea what's inside. Any guesses? Also, how do I get it open with minimal damage to whatever's in there? I'm thinking just the lightest workable tap with a hammer to crack it open. Hoping there's a shark tooth, but I'm trying to convince myself it's something boring so I won't be disappointed if it doesn't turn out something neat. 

 

That's a couple of the more promising clods. I kept a few pieces of these just to show people, especially that smaller one with the impression of a shell left in it. 

 

Got a decent little batch of shells out of the pound or so of dirt clods that I brought back. There were also a lot more bivalves, mostly broken. The majority were broken before I did anything with them. Innumerable bivalve shards, as well.

 

 

 

Here's a close-up of those smallest shells in there, plus one that I didn't photograph there, because I couldn't. To avoid losing it, it's in its own container. Just to be clear, that's a millimeter scale there. I don't know HOW I spotted this, because I wasn't using any sort of magnifier, but I found it. I don't know what to do with that! 

I don't know how I spotted it, because these weren't magnified, but that is a roughly 1mm shell. These were actually easier to handle than some of the big ones, though! Less empty air space inside, less surface area for me to mistakenly press too hard on. To clean these (except the tiniest, didn't dare clean that), I just rolled them as gently as I could between my fingertips, and it knocked most of the dirt off just fine. 

 

I think I know how to display these, too. I have these in this little display thing, and I think I can rig something like it myself.

They have a reasonably soft foam in there to keep them flush against the inside of the container, but gently- they can shift a little, they aren't being smushed. Not sure it'll work on the smallest shell, but it should be okay for the others. These are, if I remember correctly, star sand. Foraminiferans, right? They're a couple millimeters across, so if this works for them, it should work for a minor range of seashells. The only downside is I'd have to open it to turn them over for a different view. 

 

I'm very pleased with my finds on this trip. I was hoping for a cone shell, but trying not to expect to find one in case I didn't. I would have liked a shark tooth or two, especially the little weird-shaped ones, but there's always next time. And there will definitely be a next time! Maybe in December? Give it some time to weather down a bit and expose more. I have a cousin who'll be down here for Christmas who I suspect might like to come. 

[FranzBernhard]

Super-informative post, @Fishkeeper! Thank you very much!

I am somewhat used to this kind of stuff, I have something similar around myself:

Franz Bernhard

 

[Fishkeeper]

Oh, lovely! You have some really nice finds there. Great diversity of species, too. I haven't gone through mine to count out exactly how many species I have here, but I'm guessing somewhere more in the realm of a dozen.

 

It's a shame we're in different countries, or I'd look into the possibility that we could trade matrix samples. Mail each other some shell-rich clods to go through.