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I found this nice plant fossil at the base of the cliff last year. I think it's my best plant so far I'm sure my usual pen would be way too strong and easily damage this delicate fossil. I think removing some of the rock at the right hand side of the fern could make it look better. I'm tempted to try and just split it off but i know it could damage fern. What are your thoughts?

After so many people showing an Interest in the Golden Cannonball Nodule, I though I’d start a thread to document my Yorkshire finds and prep, be they ammonites, bone, or what ever else. Hope you all enjoy

Found this fragment from Whitby area, at first I thought it was a flattened belamnite but wonder if it's in fact a tooth. Any ideas?

So, what do we all havecurrently on the prep table? Be interesting to see what challenges await everybody. My current piece is this bone block, most likely ichthyosaur rib. A few scattered ammonites from the genus Dactylioceras sp. if expecting to probably found more bone further in all being well, probably a vert or two and some more ribs.

Hey all, quick prep question. I’m looking at buying this dremel set with these accessories. I want it for smoothing (removing pen marks) polishing and sharpening the tip of my TT. Would i need to buy anything else to do this or is everything in this set? This is for hard Yorkshire Coast material Thanks

A recent Yorkshire, England find of mine, prepped by Mark Hawkes. There are 3 perfect verts, neural arch still connected and a rib. Also bits of verts of either side. Originally i found this in a water rolled stone with just one worn vert showing on the outside, but the contents inside were beautiful

I originally thought it was very thin bone but i’ve been told it’s acually a coprolite. This is from near whitby. Would be interesting to know if it’s from a fish or marine reptile. Probably impossible though.

Hi guys/gals, found this bone a while back, thought was a worn Plesiosaur vert at first but once I removed the matrix a strange shape started to appear, found on the Yorkshire Jurassic coast, any idea's ? Thanks, Alan.

I just made a video of some of my finds over the past 3 months, lots of times when i find things i forget to film them on the beach so i've not included those!

Hello, I was wondering how swell effects fossil hunting on the coastal locations This week seems to look really good for it?

My ichthyosaur paddle section has just come back from prep. i am waiting on another similar sized paddle section from the same Ichthyosaur which is being prepped, will look great together even though they wont fit. Here are the pictures, i think it looks stunning!

A few months back, I spent three days along the Whitby coastline. It was a very good three days of collecting, but my last find of them days, is to this day my best find. I had decided to head to Runswick Bay. My legs and back were exhausted, so decided the short walk to to car park would be fairly light on the legs. Now, in my experience, Runswick hasn’t really produced much in the past for me, so I hadn’t gotten my hopes up too much. So you can imagine my shock, when I see a rather large nodule day there in Situ. I’ll let the pictures say the rest

It’s been a long time since I posted here. So here’s a thanks to everybody that’s helped me out in the past on here. It’s seriously appreciated. So. Here’s a lovely 6 inch Hildoceras I found recently at Kettleness, I’m the Yorkshire coast. She’s a beauty. A few of the outer whorl chambers are a little crush, but it just adds to the piece of think

Hi I got this from a minor who found it 3000ft down in a mine in Yorkshire UK. He thought it may be part of a tree but wasn't 100%. Can anyone help identify this? Thanks

G'day all! After three years since my last visit to the UK, i finally returned in December 2017 for another massive collecting trip across England. This was my most ambitious tour of the UK's Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrate deposits thus far, with 20 days of collecting across ten different locations. These were (in chronological order from first visit): Abbey Wood in East London Beltinge in Kent Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight Compton Bay to Grange Chine on the Isle of Wight Lyme Regis to Charmouth in Dorset Aust Cliff in Gloucestershire Saltwick Bay in Yorkshire Kings dyke in Cambridgeshire Minster in Kent Tankerton in Kent. If you went collecting at any of these places in the last month, there's probably a 25.6975% chance you saw me looking very intimidating hunched over in my hooded rain jacket and muddy pants 14 of those collecting days were back-to-back, a new record for me, though it was very tiring! Having just come from the hot Australian summer, winter collecting in England was certainly a challenge at times and my fingers and toes froze to the point i could barely feel them on multiple occasions. Temperatures for many of the days reached 0 degrees celcius or below, with ice on the ground around me and even snow falling while i was trying to collect! I also went out during the middle of the night to collect using a head torch on some occasions (mainly at Bouldnor) due to the tidal conditions and bad weather which prevented collecting during the day. All in all i am certainly pleased with how the trip went, i was successful at all locations with the exception of Tankerton. For some of the locations (Aust Cliff, Kings dyke, Saltwick Bay) it was also my first and only visit, so i'm glad i still managed to do well with no prior experience at these sites and with such limited time at each. I have tried to write this trip report not only as a means of showing you guys my finds but also to provide an informative overview of some of the better locations for Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates across England for others who might be planning similar trips. Anyway, here are the results! Pictures will be spread across the next 12 posts due to file size restrictions. Abbey Wood - East London (6/12/17, 30/12/17 and 31/12/17) Formation: Blackheath ('Lesnes Shell Bed') Deposit Age: 54.5 million years (Eocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, bony fish, chimaeroids, bivalves, gastropods, rare mammals, turtles and crocodiles This was one of only two inland locations i visited (the other being Kings dyke). As i have found, the majority of the UK's easily accessible fossil collecting locations are coastal! Abbey Wood is an excellent location just 45 minutes on the tube from central London. It is situated in a park called the Lesnes Abbey Woods and there is a small collecting area that is open to the public for shallow digging (see my first two pictures below). You definitely need a sifter, shovel and basin of water at this location to have any real success. Be warned though that once you combine the fine Blackheath sediments with water during sifting you get some pretty gnarly mud so expect to come away from this site looking like you've just been rolling around in the dirt. I'm sure i got some interesting looks from people on the tube going back to London it was all worth it though, as every single sift load produced at least one shark tooth across the three days i visited. Very impressive considering the number of obvious holes dotted around the ground from years worth of other collectors visiting. It should be noted though that the mammalian material from this location is of high scientific importance, and collecting here is allowed on the condition that any mammalian finds be brought to the attention of and handed in to specialists like Dr Jerry hooker at the Natural History Museum in London. I didn't find any such material on my trips unfortunately. Here is the designated collecting area. The statue at the front is of Coryphodon, one of the rare Eocene mammals that has been found at the site. The full haul of shark teeth from three days of sifting in the collecting area. Most are from Striatolamia and Sylvestrilamia. I gave up trying to count them once i got past 100 Some of the other fishy bits that often turn up during sifting, including guitar fish teeth on the far left and two dermal denticles (Hypolophodon sylvestris), one gar pike fish tooth in the middle (Lepisosteus suessionensis), one shark vertebra down the bottom and unidentified bony fish vertebrae on the right. I don't typically collect shells, but i picked these up for the sake of adding a bit more diversity to my Abbey Wood collection. These are bivalves and gastropods of various species. The molluscan diversity from this one location is actually quite impressive. Beltinge - Kent (7/12/17 and 29/12/17) Formation: Upnor ('Beltinge Fish Bed') Deposit Age: 56.5 million years old (Paleocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, chimaeroids, bony fish, rays, turtles, crocodiles, bivalves, wood This is my favourite shark tooth collecting location in the UK and probably my favourite that i have visited anywhere so far. The shoreline directly opposite the access point at the end of Reculver Drive in Beltinge is loaded with teeth and dare i say it's impossible to come here and walk away empty handed. The shore however is very flat so there is generally only about a two hour window of time that collecting can be carried out here, one hour either side of low tide. Conditions can also vary depending on how sanded over the shore is, whether the Beltinge Fish Bed itself is exposed and how low the tide drops. However even on a poor day you will still find teeth here, just not as many! I experienced this first hand as the first day i visited on December 7th the conditions were excellent. The tide dropped quite low, there wasn't too much sand covering the clay and the Beltinge Fish Bed was exposed. This allowed direct in-situ collecting of teeth from this rich layer and i ended up with something like 240 teeth from just a couple of hours of looking. The second visit i made on December 29 of the same month was almost the exact opposite. It's amazing how quickly these coastal locations can change! The shore was largely sanded over, the fish bed was covered and the tide didn't drop anywhere near as much. I was out about the same amount of time as the first but only managed 69 teeth (only ). Keep these things in mind if you are planning a visit. Luckily though i didn't just find shark teeth, i also managed to locate some of the other less common finds as you will see below! Here is the area of shoreline that produces teeth, photographed on December 7th. It was quite cold and rainy! Three teeth sitting next to each other as found. More as-found shark teeth. This one made me quite excited when i saw it. It's a large piece of chimaeroid fish jaw and mouthplate coming straight from the Beltinge Fish Bed itself (the darker, dull-green sandy clay in this picture). Beltinge is continued in the next post.

Thinking of popping up to Whitby or Scarborough next week although the conditions for finds I'm assuming haven't been great given the serene conditions down south. How have conditions been on the Yorkshire coast?

Leeds man finds 140,000-year-old walrus skull while fossil hunting on Yorkshire clifftop, Yorkshire Post https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/leeds-man-finds-140-000-year-old-walrus-skull-while-fossil-hunting-on-yorkshire-clifftop-1-9266896 Yours, Paul H.

Please could anyone suggest what this is? I'm assuming fish, with little (less than 1mm) white spherules that might be teeth or denticles. From the Jet Rock (Mulgrave Shale Member) - a Lower Jurassic, Toarcian shale at least partly deposited in anoxic waters. Near Whitby, Yorkshire, UK. (Acquired in an auction as an extra with another fossil that I really wanted so I'm just curious really, I know little about fish!)

Is this a belemnite phragmocone? I found this today in yorkshire.

Just got back from a week fossil hunting trip in North Yorkshire. It's fair to say it was pretty productive! Lots of nodules still need to be popped open!

I decided to have a steady walk to sandsend today. There is a large carpark and then we walked towards the left up some steps. If you want a sandy beach you can go to the right (no fossils here though) After a 15 minute walk you come to an old tunnel (bottom right) You do not go through the tunnel and go down the steps on your right. (Top) near the bottom these steps are very steep espeically with a bag full of fossils. Once on the beach i spent a good few hours looking around. The only people i saw on the beach were fossil hunters, others just go to the easy access sandy beach i think I found alot of bone or wood? Maybe you guys can tell me if any is bone. I found lots of nodules, but they are very hard and I had no good breaks on the beach. But notice the nodule on the left, hopfully its a nice one. The little ammonite on the top right is on a nice nodule also. Overall a great day out, and the rain stayed off until i left!

Today i visited saltwick bay, the beach right next to famous Whitby. I parked at the holiday park at the top, had a cup of tea and made my way down the steep steps. The beach is great, good for dog walking and fossil collecting! The cliffs are massive and the pictures do not do it justice to show how large they are. It is also constantly eroding even while i was stood there. So it’s probably wise to spend as little time under them as possible. It’s rarther scary really. I had lots of great finds, my favorite find of the day is the hildoceras on the left. Others included multiple ammonite nodules and a Belemnite phragmocone. Another great place to come if you’re in the area!

Today i finally visited port mulgrave. It was wet, sludgy and foggy. I had looked forward to visiting this place for ages. I parked at the top and then begun the long slippery climb down. The ladders are pretty steep and it’s a long, wet climb down but it’s worth it for crazy fossil hunters like us. Once at the bottom and you climb down the ladder to the beach ammonites are everywhere, i found two right next to each other (bottom left picture). I was very pleased to find a good belemnite and it came out without breaking! It seems you’ll always find things here, But the hardest part is getting back up the cliff with a bag full of fossils. Here are my finds from today! A very productive site! Thanks for reading