Near Hannover

[Martijn]

Hi Folks,

On Monday the 26 of April I was in Denmark on a course and due to this occasion I took the rest of the week of to hunt for fossils in Germany. After the course I drove up to a little idilic place called Bockleben close to the former West/East Germany border to pick up my good friend Gerrit-Jan. Together we drove the next day to Hannover stopping first at a small Cretaceous (upper Hauterivan) clay-quarry. Here we didn't find very much, it was our first time in this quarry and we were digging in the wrong layers, hahaha. So besides a couple of belemnites and some ammonite fragments we went on empty handed.

We arrived out the campsite and took a trip to a quarry we would also visit the next weekend. After 15 min we were asked to leave, which we did to not jeopardise the planned excursion in the weekend. So what to do? We had 3 days, before this excursion and we had to come up with a plan B.

We drove westwards to some quarries we could visit legally. On the way we found another closed quarry, which we checked out. Although a small location, we found some nice Scaphites and some nice echs ( Gautheria, Camerogalerus and Holaster). After some hours we drove on to a Jurassic quarry (Malm & Dogger), here we found some small ammonites, belemnites and lots of Gryphaea dilatata. We drove on to find a new campsite and took a little look at another quarry we would visit on thursday. In the quarry I kicked a pile of rocks and a very nice Ammonite (Acantoceras) was right in the middle! The next day we visit two quarries and the finds were meagre, but we had a lot of laughs. On the end of the day we had to hurry back to Hannover to meet Robert and Mirjam an extremely joyfull couple from the North of the Netherlands. They just returned from Poland and found some very nice ammonites with still the mother of pearl scale visable! We had a couple of beers and the next day we took thm to the small quarry and the Jurassic quarry again we did well. We also met some local German collectors who climbed all the way up the steep slopes and starting hammering wild in the walls, with us right bellow. They wouldn't listen to our warnings and one of them was even proud to say that he had been in the hospital before because of his stunting. Thanks to these kind of people collecting becomes more and more difficult in Europe.

Saturday and specially Sunday were great. We all found different species of echinoids, Robert found a beautifull gastropod, Gerrit-Jan a Nautiloid and a zigsaw puzzle of a Pachydiscus ammonite and I found a very nice Cretolamna tooth. All in all a perfect week!

Pictures will follow soon!

Regards,

Martijn

Edited May 5, 2010 by Martijn

[bmorefossil]

Sounds awesome! We have the same problem with people here in America so you are not alone

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Good times.....post some pics when you get a chance. Sounds like my kind of excursion.

[Martijn]

Here are some pictures, I will make some more of the finds when I have unpacked them.

Thanks for your responses!

Martijn

[MikeD]

Sounds like a good trip. Nice finds.

[bmorefossil]

the sharks tooth does it have a root?

[Martijn]

the sharks tooth does it have a root?

Yes it does, but it is missing one of the cusplets