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Greetings all. I had forgotten about this piece of shale that I split while at Jalama a couple of weeks back. To my eye it looks like either a land insect, or possible a sea bug, like a shrimp. Then again, it may be nothing. But just in case it's just to the right side of almost nothing, I figured I'd post an image or two. Thanks for any input provided. Cheers. Rats, I forgot the size reference/index. Length is ~15mm. Exploding fish reference thread. Monterey formation in Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
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Greetings experts, enthusiasts, and fellow pareidolia sufferers. I just got back from spending a couple of nights at Jalama Beach Park. I did manage to get in a little bit of rock splitting while there. I didn't see anything fish-like. After searching for a bit before my back said "no more", I reached the pick end of my hammer over towards a larger chunk of material and gave it a whack on the side where I thought it would split. It split nicely. At first I didn't see anything, and maybe I still didn't see anything, but something did stand out as unusual no matter what it actually is. At the bottom of that balloon shaped staining there is iron-colored staining(?) that is reminiscent of a human fingerprint. And while I know it's impossible for it to be a trilobite in such a formation, the imprint looks like a trilobite stain. The overall shape of the staining also looks like a horseshoe crab. All of that said, I'm thinking that it's most likely a seaweed fossil print something of that nature. Any thoughts are appreciated. If anybody would like another image of another area on the split, let me know. Cheers all. MrR.
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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.
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Has anyone been to Jalama beach or,surrounding beaches in California? With the recent oil spill, is there still oil residue along the beach or surrounding rock outcropping?