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Showing results for tags 'geistthal-formation'.
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I did it again!! Fossil hunting in the Northern Kainach Gosau, Styria, Austria (Upper Cretaceous)
FranzBernhard posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Too lazy to translate it myself, I just put the finished pdf through the google translator : Fossilien_2023_21052023_E.pdf Some, but not all, formating is lost, though. And its just one page of text besides three pages of pics. No worries about the detailed site map, as we already know, nobody cares about rudists . Here is the link to the original, German version, for our German speaking members : Fossilien_2023_21052023 (pdf, 3.4 MB, personal homepage) Here are the original pics: Have fun ! Franz Bernhard- 4 replies
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Hello, several weeks ago, I presented a rudist recovery "operation" from the Afling-formation of the Gosau-group of Kainach (Upper Cretaceous): Well, the same day I have discovered the rudist zone featured above, I have also discovered a rudist zone about 100-200 m stratigraphically deeper. It is confined to an about 1 m thick, very dark limestone bed rich in various rudist and echinoid remains. The limestone belongs to the Geistthal-formation, considering the limestone is still located within the sequence with some red clastic rocks, suggesting strong terrestrial influence in some layers. The limestone can be traced for at least 500 m along strike; at the footwall, it develops gradually from a conglomerate, in the hangingwall it is sharply overlain by fine-grained sandstone to siltstone. Here is a schematic map of the area, including also the Trochactaeon-bearing zone. In this post, I am dealing here with the "Liegende Rudisten-Zone". 59 = Geistthal-formation; 54 = Afling-formation, squares are 2x2 km. The fossils stick firmly to the limestone. But there are some impure zones (sandy-silty) within the limestone, where, with the help of some weathering, some fossils largely free of matrix can be found. Two zones of this kind are known at the moment, a natural outcrop in the forest and an outcrop at a forest road, which will be presented here. Approaching the outcrop (well, that pic was taken after the dig...): The outcrop was completely overgrown at the beginning, and this was the third day of working at this outcrop. You can see the worked area and the area prepared for today. The red x are markers placed above wooden marker sticks and about 1 m apart from each other. The soft zone between the hard limestone beds is visible. Sorry for the rather poor pics, my scrappy camera had a hard time dealing with that kind of lighting (clear sky and full shadow). Detail of the area to be worked today, still with vegetation: Vegetation cleared, first rudist found, a fragmentary Vaccinites, below the left red x. The pen is 13.7 cm long. Work in progress, "two" Vaccinites discovered. Only after some time I recognized, that this is a bouquet: Work practically finished, another Vaccinites discovered (4963). Turned out to be one of the nicest so far: Beside these Vaccinites, a few Plagioptychus aguilloni were also found in that area. But what to do with the rudist bouquet? Leaving in the outcrop or recover? I decided to recover, because it was already a little bit loose and already broken in several parts. And a one of a kind find until now. Here is the recovery, P.a. denotes a Plagioptychus aguilloni, numbers indicate individual Vaccinites specimens: The recovery ended in 8 fragments. I numbered them to help reassembling them together. This bouquet appears to be in live position, but this can also be by pure chance. Maybe closer examination with give some hints. That´s the outcrops after the work of this day, with the position of the specimens featured above indicated and before their recovery: If you are interested in the other days at this outcrop, have a look at this: 05/22/2021 (link to my homepage, in German, pdf, ca. 2.9 MB) 05/30/2021 (link to my homepage, in German, pdf, ca. 5.8 MB) From this few meters of outcrop, I have recovered ca. 10-15 Vaccinites, 5-10 Plagioptychus aguilloni and several radiolitid rudist until now. A great surprise was one large Trochactaeon snail intermixed with all the rudists (see link to 05/30/2021 above). I don´t take all fossils with me, about half of them I am leaving at the outcrop, so only approximate numbers. In the pavement of the forest road below the outcrop, I have also dug out about 15 Vaccinites specimens. Then there is the outcrop within the forest, which yielded also at least a dozen Vaccinites, still with a lot of potential. And all the other outcrops of the rudists limestone that I have not checked out in detail yet for loose rudists. Also still a lot of potential there and still a lot to do.... Hope, you enjoyed ! Franz Bernhard
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04/13/2020: End of my lock-down. Visited a locality with oncoids-oncolites in the Santonian - Lower Campanian Geistthal-formation (59) of the Gosau-basin of Kainach. Locality is near Kreuzwirt south of Geistthal and was told to my by a friend, so I will keep it secret. This is a specimen from block 1. Most of block 1 is still there, I removed only about 2 kg (2 specimens) of the about 40 kg heavy block. Only two more blocks of this material were found, despite really good outcrops just nearby (with alternations of conglomerates, sandstones and siltsones). There should be a better locality west of Geistthal, but have not found anything there during previous visits. Last but not least some typical landscape of the Gosau-basin of Kainach. Cherry trees etc. are blooming at the moment, but everything was soooo try. But we finally had some rain during last night! Franz Bernhard
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Fossil hunting in the Geistthal-formation (Santonian - lower Campanian), Gosau basin of Kainach, Styria, Austria
FranzBernhard posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Fossil hunting in the Santonian - lower Campanian Geistthal-formation of the Gosau basin of Kainach, Eastern Alps (Styria, Austria) As a whole, the Gosau basin of Kainach - St. Bartholomä is not very fossiliferous. In contrast to the St. Bartholomä-formation with its rudists etc., the other, much more extensive formations, especially the very extensive, somewhat tubititic Afling-formation, are generally very poor in fossils. Some are known, eg. ammonites, but their occurrences are rather elusive. One exception - or at least in part - are Trochactaeon snails. They are known since the beginning of geological documentation of the area (around 1850), but only as loose pieces. It took until about the 1960ies for the first finds of this snails in outcrops. However, only a few sentences were (repeatedly) published since then, only a list of the species is given (without any description), and also no detailed description of the occurrences and their exact locations. That´s the sad side. The good side is: There is at least one (permanent) occurrence of this snails in an outcrop at a major road! This occurrence is at the red X... Part of Geofast-map (left, squares are 2x2 km) and geological overview from Ebner (2000) (right). There seems to be not much correspondence between these maps. For orientation, see village Geistthal in upper part of both maps. ...and it is featured in an excursion guide from 2015 (from Hubmann & Gross, 2015): The snails are located in the upper part of the Geistthal-formation, a succession of gray conglomerates, sandstones and siltstones with very occasional thin coal layers and thin beds of calcareous onkoids. The lower part of the Geistthal-formation is a coarse-grained, red conglomerate; its the basal formation of the Gosau basin of Kainach. I have visited this outcrop in December 2015, and yes, the snails are still there.