Trip report: The Fabulous Fossils of Pas de Calais!

[FossilLerp2]

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another trip report!

Last week, me and my family went to France once again, but this time to northern France, near Cap Blanc Nez. Cap Blanc Nez is a well-known fossil-hunting site for its ammonites and other fossils. It is located quite near the coast of England, and if the weather's clear you can see the cliffs of Dover very clearly. 

 

Day 1: it's a start

 

The first fossil trip was rather disappointing. We walked down the stairway to the beach and headed directly to Grand Blanc Nez, the main landmark in the area. We started searching close to the cliffs, between the large chalk boulders. After some time had passed, we found something which, at first glance, looked like a rock covered in plants. After examining the rock for a while, we came to the conclusion that these "plants" must be suture lines from an ammonite. The rock was way too heavy to be carried off the beach, so I took some pictures to closely examine the ammonite later. Here it is:

Lewesiceras sp.

 

It slowly became dark, and we decided to return to our cottage, after what wasn't a particularly satisfying fossil hunt. But as we were walking back towards the car, a surprise was waiting for us: some clay layers (which later turned out to be from the cenomanian stage) were exposed while we were busy searching for fossils amongst the rocks. On top of the clay layers were some small pyrite ammonites, of multiple genera. These finds were certainly promising, but it quickly became too dark to find anything, so we went back to our cottage. After I had scoured the internet and a useful conversation with Euhoplites on instagram (you should definitely check him out) , it seemed like we went to the wrong side of the beach. Like I said in the beginning of the trip report, we went to Grand Blanc Nez, which is on the righthand side when you walk down to the beach. Euhoplites told me that this isn’t the best location for fossils at Cap Blanc Nez. You should actually go left, towards Petit Blanc Nez.

 

 

Euhoplites sp. This pyrite ammonite was found on top of the cenomanian clay layers.

 

You can find day 2 in the comments!

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by FossilLerp2

[FossilLerp2]

Day 2: a great find

We were back on the beach for some more fossil hunting. This time, our plan was to examine the clay layers first, then head for Petit Blanc Nez, which didn’t turn out to be a great idea, but I’ll save that for later. My father found our first fossil of which I was quite surprised, a Turrilites ammonite. This ammonite is coiled like a gastropod- but it’s still an ammonite.

 

Turrilites sp.

 

After we had found some other things, like a beautifully preserved sea urchin, we were headed for Petit Blanc Nez. As we were walking to the south-east, we came across multiple sponges, which later turned out to be from the Exanthesis labrosus species. While we were hunting for more fossils, we noticed that the tide was rising quite quickly, much quicker than we had expected beforehand. We decided to further inspect something what seemed like a recent cliff fall. We were very short on time, and we didn’t have much longer than 10 minutes before we had to return. Once we had spent some time scanning the rocks, we didn’t have high hopes we would find something before we had to return. But then, I saw something. A small edge of an ammonite was sticking out of a rock. I picked up the rock, and what I found was (at least in my opinion) pretty incredible. It was an ammonite of the Acanthoceras genus, and about 15 centimetres in diameter.

 

Acanthoceras sp.

 

We quickly put the ammonite in a linen bag into my backpack. We rushed towards the stairway off the beach, and found our way back to our cottage. Here’s a tip for when you’re out fossil hunting at Cap Blanc Nez: watch the tides very closely. Approximately one and a half our after low tide, you should definitely be back from the beach. After what was quite the exiting fossil trip, we safely arrived at our cottage.

You can read part 3 in the comments!

Edited January 14, 2022 by FossilLerp2

[Sjfriend]

Always great to start to figure out a new spot and looks like you are well on your way. The ammonites a nice, love the one from the 1st day. That looks so cool.

 

I understand about the tides completely. My local spot is beach access and our tides average 12-15 feet (4-5 meters) with a maximum of about 26 feet (almost 8 meters!). It can be a big danger on any beach location for sure.

 

 waiting on the rest of your report 

[Euhoplites]

Hey! Glad I could help you out.

Grand Blanc-Nez (turonian) is not easy to collect, best tip is to go with someone who knows what to look for.

 

That being said, I'll be there this saturday. Who knows a TFF member will show up :).

[FossilLerp2]

Day 3: on a roll

We knew that the Acanthoceras could well be the best fossil of the holiday, but we still went back to the beach for some more fossil hunting. We went back to Petit Blanc Nez, but we checked the tides very carefully this time, so we wouldn’t be as stressed as last time. After we had walked to Petit Blanc Nez, we started to examine the beach once again. We even went beyond the Petit Blanc Nez, but we didn’t find another Acanthoceras like last time. We did find some other cool stuff though, like this Calycoceras navicularis:

 

Calycoceras navicularis

 

There were some massive ammonite imprints in the rocks though (far too big to even be considered to be taken home), of which I thought they were from the Acanthoceras genus. We also found this nice ammonite, which is called Schloenbachia varians.

 

Schloenbachia varians

 

Acanthoceras sp. 

 

On an unrelated note, I find it to be incredible that in about 13 million years, ammonites have evolved in such an incredible way. Last summer, I went to Carniol, where the fossils are from the Aptian stage. The ammonites from Cap Blanc Nez are very different than the ammonites from Carniol, even though they are just 5-20 million years younger. It amazes me how fast ammonites evolved. (Though I should note that not every ammonite species in Northern-France also lived in Southern-France) What is also different from Carniol, is that the ammonites can be absolutely massive. It must have been amazing to swim alongside these beasts. I also noticed that the diversity in just the ammonites alone is incredible. During this holiday we found about thirteen genera of ammonites. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but you have to remember that it is incredibly rare for an animal or plant to fossilise. It’s just amazing to realise that the amount and the diversity of ammonites must have been much greater than we can even imagine. These squids were like modern fish.

 

Anyway, we found one more note-worthy fossil: it’s from the same family as the aforementioned Turrilites, but this one is a little bit older. This coiled ammonite is called Mariella bergeri:

 

Mariella bergeri

 

After this trip that wasn’t as successful as the last one, but still quite productive, we knew we only had one more trip to go. Two days later, on Saturday, a fellow fossil-hunter was going out hunting as well, so we decided to go together.

 

Part four has now been released, read it in the comments!

Edited January 15, 2022 by FossilLerp2

[FossilLerp2]

Day 4: a fossilicious finale

When we awoke on Saturday morning, we knew our fossil hunt was going to be a tough one. The weather was absolutely horrible. Since I promised someone to go out fossil hunting, we went to Cap Blanc Nez anyways. I didn’t find a lot this time, but my family did. As we were searching between the rocks, my family was examining the clay layers next to Petit Blanc Nez, and this yielded some pretty incredible results. As you may have heard before, the clay layers near Petit Blanc Nez are quite famous. They’re informally called the Gault Clay layers. These muddy layers are frequently filled with pyrite ammonites. This layer is also exposed in Folkestone.

 

Gault Formation; Albian stage

 

As I was saying, the fossils from these layers are pretty awesome. The fossils are quite well preserved, sometimes covered with something of which I think it could be their original shell. Here’s an example of a Hamites, a heteromorph ammonite.

 

Hamites sp.

Some other really surprising finds were these Hoplites and Euhoplites armatus:

 

Hoplites sp.

 

Euhoplites armatus

 

The clay layers had quite the quantity of fossils, not as much as Carniol, but still a lot. Again, I love the diversity of fossils here so much. These layers where kind of a dream to me. They aren’t exposed all the time, actually, they aren’t exposed most of the time. You don’t see them come round all that often.

 

That brings us to the end of the fossil-hunting part of this trip report. I’ve had a great time writing it, and I want to give another special thanks to @Euhoplites on Instagram. After this part has released, I will release one more part with my sources for this trip report.

click here to read my previous trip report; on Carniol and Les Baronnies: Trip report: The Fantastic Fossils of Southern France - Fossil Hunting Trips - The Fossil Forum

 

Part 5 is coming! 

Edited January 17, 2022 by FossilLerp2
Changed the Protohoplites sp. to Euhoplites armatus

[Shellseeker]

18 minutes ago, FossilLerp2 said:

That brings us to the end of the fossil-hunting part of this trip report. I’ve had a great time writing it, and I want to give another special thanks to @Euhoplites on Instagram. After this part has released, I will release one more part with my sources for this trip report.

click here to read my previous trip report; on Carniol and Les Baronnies: Trip report: The Fantastic Fossils of Southern France - Fossil Hunting Trips - The Fossil Forum

Fantastic finds... Something I can only "see" thru your trip reports... thanks for sharing.  Makes me want to go out for different fossils in different places... Going to rain heavily tomorrow, but Monday is a possibility.

[Euhoplites]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:15 PM, FossilLerp2 said:

Some other really surprising finds were these Hoplites and Protohoplites:

 

 

 

Protohoplites sp.

 

 

That Hoplites is sweet! I don't think the other one is a Protohoplites but rather a very worn Euhoplites armatus since we can see the little knobs.

[FossilLerp2]

1 hour ago, Euhoplites said:

 

That Hoplites is sweet! I don't think the other one is a Protohoplites but rather a very worn Euhoplites armatus since we can see the little knobs.

Thank you, I wasn't too sure about it anyways.  

Edited January 17, 2022 by FossilLerp2

[FossilLerp2]

Sorry for the delay of part 5, I didn’t have much motivation to write this part.

 

GEA1970003002001 (1).pdf (Dutch magazine)

robaszynski_ea_1986_the_cretaceous_of_the_boulonnais.pdf (English magazine)

GEA1983016001010.pdf (another Dutch magazine)

Before the trip, I had researched Cap Blanc Nez quite well. Here are a couple of sources, in Dutch and in English, about Cap Blanc Nez. The English one is very informative, though it’s quite old. It compares this part of France (the Boulonnais) with a geologically similar area in the UK: Kent. The Gault clay of Cap Blanc Nez is exactly the same as the Gault clay in Folkestone. The latter file contains some useful ammonite species, but it's in Dutch. I'm sure there's a lot of information on the internet that is in English, but English isn't my native language. 

 

Here's an update on the Euhoplites Armatus of the last post, I tried to clean it up, and in my opinion it turned out pretty well:

 

That wraps up the last part of this trip report, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind reactions. This has been my most successful fossil trip yet, and I cannot wait for the fossils that are still to come. 

 

-Fossillerp2

[Everhardus]

Nice trip report and the prep of the Euhoplites turned out quite well. CBN is a great place.…

[Euhoplites]

On 1/23/2022 at 2:51 PM, FossilLerp2 said:

Sorry for the delay of part 5, I didn’t have much motivation to write this part.

 

GEA1970003002001 (1).pdf (Dutch magazine)

robaszynski_ea_1986_the_cretaceous_of_the_boulonnais.pdf (English magazine)

GEA1983016001010.pdf (another Dutch magazine)

Before the trip, I had researched Cap Blanc Nez quite well. Here are a couple of sources, in Dutch and in English, about Cap Blanc Nez. The English one is very informative, though it’s quite old. It compares this part of France (the Boulonnais) with a geologically similar area in the UK: Kent. The Gault clay of Cap Blanc Nez is exactly the same as the Gault clay in Folkestone. The latter file contains some useful ammonite species, but it's in Dutch. I'm sure there's a lot of information on the internet that is in English, but English isn't my native language. 

 

Here's an update on the Euhoplites Armatus of the last post, I tried to clean it up, and in my opinion it turned out pretty well:

 

That wraps up the last part of this trip report, I'd like to thank everyone for their kind reactions. This has been my most successful fossil trip yet, and I cannot wait for the fossils that are still to come. 

 

-Fossillerp2

That's a nice E.armatus. Same one as in my profile picture. Not easy to find with knobs attached, so well done on that fine specimen