Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'turtle fossil'.
-
From the album: Sheppey, Eocene, London clay Turtle (Most likely Puppigerus sp.)
Well preserved limb bones-
- isleofsheppey
- eocene
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with:
-
From the album: Sheppey, Eocene, London clay Turtle (Most likely Puppigerus sp.)
The underside of the turtle is equally well preserved and exposed.-
- eocene
- isleofsheppey
-
(and 3 more)
Tagged with:
-
From the album: Sheppey, Eocene, London clay Turtle (Most likely Puppigerus sp.)
The complete fossil with associated bones layed out on a 10mm square scale.-
- 1
-
- eocene
- isleofsheppey
-
(and 4 more)
Tagged with:
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
- 2 comments
-
- 1
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
- 1 comment
-
- 1
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
From the album: Sheppey Turtles
-
- london clay
- london clay fossils
- (and 5 more)
-
TREASURE!! (opalised turtle bone) found in Lightning Ridge potch'n'colour
OzFossilphile posted a topic in Member Collections
This is from an email exchange between Dr. Elizabeth T. Smith (of Lightning Ridge and author of the singular "Black Opal Fossils of Lightning Ridge") and I, last month. [Liz also co-authored "Ornithopod diversity in the Griman Creek Formation (Cenomanian), New South Wales, Australia" which was first published in Peer J magazine and which established the new species of herbivore, Weewarasaurus pobeni.] "To explain, it's 0345 and I have insomnia intensified by my excitement about an opalised Lungfish plate I bought today from a top bloke mining at Emu Field (Coocoran), and a little bone I found while going through several hundred pieces of a Ridge miner's selections over the last 4 days. I know it was unfair of me, Liz, to send you that photograph and ask you to guess where/what the piece was from one photograph, not having the advantage that I did of the dish in front of me, pieces wet, under a light. [Digression: before you read on, have a look at the rocks in the dish below and see if you can spot the 'treasure'] : I have sent the same photo again (above) and I'll guess you have a grasp of some Cartesian Geometry so I want you to imagine that the dish has a horizontal X-axis and a vertical Y-axis through the middle which becomes the Origin, the point (0,0). Let's say each axis is 20 units long (which is pretty close to its actual length of 22cms). . The piece in question is approximately at the Point (1,3). What caught my eye was the nearly circular concavity, which irl is about 6mm in diameter. As you know, bones (neck, tail, if turtle) often have those concavities which made that piece stand out in the dish as my eyes roamed at first glance over the contents. The second photo, cropped, is a close-up using the rock at 6 oclock (at the bottom) as (0,0). As I said, I had been going through the material for nearly 4 days, about 20 hours all up, and I was close to the end of the lowest grade of potch and colour (well, potch and potch, really, ha! ) in the bottom of the container he gave me as part of a deal that we did, oh, I don't know, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. I had been through the rest of it not long after I got it, but I went through it all again this week, including the lowest grade (but the latter for the first time). It's not a big-money or spectacular piece with any colour through it. In fact it's rather dull (grey), unassuming, and could easily be mistaken for just another piece of Grey potch in host Rock. A small bone of inconspicuous presence, it does not shout "OH WOW!!" like the little croc tooth on the cover of your wonderful book. If it was one of Portia's caskets from "The Merchant of Venice", it would be the lead one. However, I am typically/predictably enchanted by it, as plain as it is. In your own language, one of the transverse processes on one side of the neural arch has been worn away, either in the process of deposition, or washing in the agi. It's a bone with only one wing, so to speak. But you'll see more of that in the next email when I send you some more photographs. Until I found it, I was going to text the miner and congratulate him on not missing anything. The more unusual or really interesting pieces he takes out --- he has a great eye for detail and for the unusual --- and puts those in separate small bags and has often identified small bones himself, for example a lovely small grey croc scapula (July 2017) and another small bone which I think is turtle and has a little colour in it. The miner is quiet, unassuming, never skites about anything he finds and through our common fascination with opalised fossils, we have become opalised-fossil mates. The sheer volume of non-commercial opalised pieces that he has found and kept only because he finds them so interesting is staggering. Some of the pieces are so tiny I am surprised that he even sees them. I believe he worked two claims at Allawah which were smack on top of an ancient Cretaceous billabong or maybe a creek or similar. The hundreds of pieces that he has kept contain just about anything and everything opalised that you can imagine, or have seen, and plenty of stuff I've never seen before! To my knowledge I don't think there have been any fish vertebrae, but many gastroliths ("yabby buttons"), opalised pine cones, many hundreds of pieces of opalised wood some of which are very pretty or have great shape/contours/lines. Gastropods and other shells, too. Also turtle remains (a few pieces of shell and bones), croc too, and I think at least one Dino bone (not sure). There's also pieces that look like coprolite; worm tubes as well. I can't wait for you to see the whole collection and although I have spent many hours rebagging and measuring and weighing and adding notes/descriptions there will be many more hours spent on it. I can foresee somebody doing valuable research or even a thesis on his collection alone. The wealth of opalised geological, flora and fauna pieces from one small area is jaw-dropping. Most miners would have thrown a lot of it away. His collection is also an excellent summary of the story of opal mining. A lot of hard work over many hours for not much reward and even when there's a huge volume of opalised material only a small percentage of it contains colour, or commercially valuable stones. My guess is that this latest piece --- one tiny bone in many hundreds of pieces, about 5kgs of rough --- is turtle but it has one really unusual feature that I've never seen before but I'll save that for your call after the next email. I may not finish it this morning. It's now 0435 and I'm starting to fade a little bit. All the best, M. P.S. In this 3rd photo where I am holding the piece, a very small fragment has been broken off (middle top left) but is held in place by host rock. Very unusual. Hi Liz I'm sending you some more photos now. One end has a round, smooth and convex protrusion. The other end has that lovely little concavity. Both are about 6 mm across. I'm guessing that the rounded concavity is the rear of the Piece in which the rounded convex protrusion of another piece would fit and move smoothly. Is that right? Separated by cartilage when alive? One of the little "wings" (transverse processes) on the left side is missing, probably broken off by mining or when being washed in the agi. No colour, but otherwise the preservation is very good thanks to the host rock I suspect, as you noted. In that same photo you can see that I started to clean off some of the host rock on the bottom right hand side but I stopped when I realised that some of the host rock also contains other little bits of detritus or whatever that might have scientific interest, so I'm not going to clean it any further. At its widest, it's 14mm but that would be closer to 19 or 20 mm across if that "wing" on the rhs hadn't been broken off or damaged. 10mm high. As is, it weighs 9.6 carats but I would estimate that at least 2 to 3 carats are host rock. Both of the convex and concave ends are about 6 mm but not really circular as much as rounded trapezium, if that make sense? I await eagerly your thoughts! M."" Dr. Smith has confirmed that it's from a turtle, probably caudal at the base of the tail. I know the above is a long read, but I've tried to explain how tedious going through 5 Kgs of potch'n'colour can be, except when one is rewarded by such a lovely little treasure! -
Help Identifying fossil. Possible turtle or Crustacean?
Montana Moss Picker posted a topic in Fossil ID
Need help identifying what I'm guessing is a Fossilized Crustacean or turtle that I found this week on Yellowstone River. Any help would be highly appreciated.- 4 replies
-
- help
- identification
-
(and 4 more)
Tagged with:
-
- 9 replies
-
- turtle
- turtle fossil
-
(and 1 more)
Tagged with: