BVP Fieldschool to Poland (09/07/2022 - 17/07/2022)

[ziggycardon]

The prep lad did have a lot of fossils on display from location all over the world. 

 

 

A marine reptile fossil from the Cretaceous of Morocco, my guess is from Goulmina based on the preservation

 

 

Ichniotherium prints from the Permian of Poland

 

 

 Ammonites from the jurassic of Solnhofen, Germany

 

 

A schrimp from Solnhofen

 

 

Armigatus sp. from the Cretaceous of Lebanon

 

 

A Triassic Crinoïd

 

 

Ammonites from the jurassic of Holzmaden, Germany

 

 

Aspidorhynchus sp. from Solnhofen

 

 

Moyenisauropus tracks from the jurassic of Poland

 

 

 

 

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In the afternoon we eventually went back to go digging at the Krasiejow digsite

 

 

Unfortunatly because we lost some time due to the flooded area we hadn't have much time to dig in Krasiejow. 
I unfortunately didn't reach the bonebed in time, so I only found freshwater bivalves. But Tom who was working next to me and was some 10 - 15 cm deeper than me did find some cool things like a few Phytosaur teeth and an osteoderm which could belong to an Aetosaur.

 

Some pictures of the Phytosaur tooth we made before we handed them in.

 

 

 

[ziggycardon]

Day 8 (Saturday 16/07):

The last day before our departure we went on a field trip to the Odra II quarry in Opole accompagnied by paleontologists Elena Yazykova, John Jagt and Dawid Mazurek.

The fossils from this large limestone quarry date back to the turonian, cretaceous (94 - 90 mya).

 

 

 

 

According to the paleontologists present "the find of the day", a large petrified (coal-ified?) log which was found by my girlfriend Elise.  

Elena & John did make some photographs of it and took some samples for research.

 

 

A less scientific but the collector find of the day was this large ammonite (Lewiceras peramplum) by Jonathan

 

 

 

Another very cool find was this Ptychodus tooth by Ad. 

One of two Ptychodus teeth found on that day, turns out that Ptychodus makes up 1/3 of all shark teeth found in the quarry, which is remarkable given how much rarer they are at other locations.

 

 

We did find some Brachiopods and bivalves, some urchin remains which are quite rare in this quarry, a Cretoxyrhina sp. tooth, some trace fossils and coprolites which I'll post in the coming days.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

11 hours ago, ziggycardon said:

Most you find cross sections of the bones on the rocks and you have to puzzle and glue pieces together to prep later. 
The matrix is extremely hard to prepare while the bone are extremely soft and fragile which doesn't make for a great combo. Even some of the more experienced preppers in our group are still hesitant to start prepping the material. 
 

[...]

 

Here are 2 good pieces I got after our visit at Gogolin, they also gave me a bucket full of puzzle 'n prep material but I'll probably let that stay in that bucket until I am more confident in preperation.

 

Yeah, that's generally a problem with Muschelkalk vertebrate material, it being extremely difficult to prepare due to the matrix being very hard but bone being soft and pieces often being to be fitted back together. That's actually what happened to the Middle Triassic ichthyosaur vertebra from France that I found: I even took it to a museum to have proper tools and support available to help me do the prep. But even so I botched it up. Luckily I knew when to stop, though, and then brought the piece(s) to an experienced preparator friend for further preparation, and he was luckily able to save the specimen. But that was indeed the trickiest prep I've attempted so far, even after experimenting with some goniatites at home before...

 

Anyway, you still got to go to Gogolin, which is a world-renowned site for Triassic fossils. So you can at least strike that off your list

 

11 hours ago, ziggycardon said:

Unfortunately the preperation lab in the Jura Park is more a tourist attraction that an actual prep lad as the lighting is quite dim and there are barely any tools present (no mechanical tools at all).

 

Quite horrible that you guys ended up having to work with Dremel engravers!  While this is also what I've got available for my own preps at home, there's such a difference in quality to what you can achieve with a proper air scribe...!

 

11 hours ago, ziggycardon said:

First they gave us some old unlabeled field jackets from 2007 but since they weren't marked with where the fossils were located, what fossils were in it. 
None of the finds had ben threated or conserved which meant that lot so much of the clay had crumbled and dried out that many of the fossils had been damaged or even reduced to dust. 
So we quickly gave up on these jackets and moved on to some smaller and easier material.

 

But I guess that then having the luxury of allowing fossils to crumble to dust by lack of attention indicates how rich the locality actually is. Because in any other place such a story would be completely mad...! 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

11 hours ago, ziggycardon said:

A marine reptile fossil from the Cretaceous of Morocco, my guess is from Goulmina based on the preservation

 

Interesting fossil! Preservation does indeed appear consistent with the Akrabou formation, but it's not one of your usual plesiosaurs or even Tethysaurus nopscai (by the look of the vertebrae). Could this be something like a varanoid? Very unusual...

[jpc]

Great trip report.  I want to go to poland now.