Abbey Woods, London, UK, March 4 2024

[citronkitten]

Location: Abbey Woods, London, UK

Epoch: late Palaeocene to early Eocene (54.5Ma)

Geology: Lesnes Shell bed of Blackheath Member

Date visited: 4 March 2024

 

As the visit to Tankerton proved a bust, I was eager to actually find some fossils and decided to try out Abbey Woods when the Monday dawned sunny and mild. Again, this was a new destination and I thought it best to scout it out before dragging the rest of my family along. I took public transport with a nice muddy backpack and hiking boots, so must’ve confused a fair number of people on the London tube. Thankfully, the new Elizabeth line terminates at Abbey Woods, so it was pretty easy to access. It’s a fair walk from the tube station to the park (.7mi) and there is very little on the high street (if you could even call it that), apart from a few corner shops to get a drink and a Greggs. You could seemingly take a bus to the park, but I didn’t see any during the time I was walking, so probably best to plan on a walk. The main entrance to the park is somewhat signposted, although you can’t really see it until you get close; it’s near the pedestrian overpass.

 

The park itself is beautiful. I didn’t know what to expect, and was very pleasantly surprised. The ruins of the abbey are striking, and the trails are clearly signposted and lead up into a wilderness area that feels like you’re completely outside the city. There’s a café/information centre near the ruins with clean toilets and running water. The water will be KEY to this site.

 

To reach the fenced-in fossil bed, you can either go up a gentle slope to the left of the main entrance or take a steep set of stairs from the café. I would recommend going with the steep stairs when hauling water, as it’s considerably closer to the café and, although steeper, a shorter distance to travel. I didn’t know how far away the water was, just that it existed on site, so didn’t bring the appropriate transportation gear; all I had was a collapsible bucket, so abandoned the idea of wet sieving on site.

 

Instead, I put on my waterproof trousers and began to dig down into the dirt with my trowel. It is spring in the UK, so the dirt was wet. The recommendations online https://ukfossils.co.uk/2016/06/16/abbey-wood/  are to wait for a dry period, but who knows when that will be, so I went for it anyway. The dirt was easy to scoop and move about into my sieve.

I found Group A dry sieving, and was quite pleased, as what I had seen online indicated that it would be very hard going indeed to find anything during this part of the process. That being said, I didn’t start finding anything until maybe 18 inches down, but then it was fairly regular for the remaining hour and a quarter that I was there. While sieving, I separated out the larger rocks and sticks and put the fine sieved dirt into a bag to carry home. You can remove 2k from the site; I wouldn’t have wanted to carry more than that in my backpack for over an hour on public transport anyway!

 

Another group joined me about an hour into digging – a mum, her 7/8yo son and his friend. They had buckets, a plastic sieve, and plastic shovels and were getting quite frustrated. I gave them some pointers and ended up inviting them to share my hole that I had dug out so they could reach a deeper layer. The son became frustrated quickly and just played around, but his friend loved it once I started pulling out teeth (and gave one to him). He found a couple of bits that may have been teeth that I recommended he take home to wash, and right at the end the mum found a definite tooth – she was delighted! I was glad to help them enjoy the digging more and get some results; I expect the friend will be back with his family at some point.

 

There is a definite technique to follow at Abbey Woods. I’m going again with my family and another two families (kids range in age from 4-6) in a couple of weeks and will bring the following:

- metal digging implements (and plastic ones for the kids to play with)

- waterproof trousers for kids definitely (and recommended for adults) and generally outdoor clothes

- large buckets for wet sieving

- milk jugs to carry the water up the hill

- sieves (mine is 2.5mm, but I would recommend smaller as some of the teeth are teeny-tiny)

- bags for taking home micromatrix post-sieve

- spare bags for muddy clothes and tools

- snacks and drinks and money/card? for the café

 

There is a wonderful resource for identifying your finds: <http://www.trg.org/downloads/fossils of abbey wood.pdf> It is written simply for the general public/amateurs, has a clear key for the diagrams, and has high quality images. I used it to identify the majority of my finds - just a few questionable pieces remaining. See photos below. 

 

I hope this information has proved helpful to anyone reading! Maybe see you there next time. 

 

1. Marsh Clam                                                                2. Marsh creeper                                                     3. Moon snail                                                        4. Auger shell

5. Extinct clam 1                                                                  6. Clam sucker                                                    7. Extinct clam 2                                                  8. Freshwater snail

9. Ray/fish mouth parts?                                            10. Sand shark (Gluekmanotodus heinzelini)             11. Sand shark                                                             12. Sand shark (Jaekelotodus robustus)

 

 13. Sand shark (Palaeohypotodus rutoti)                      14. larger Sand shark teeth                                           15. Fish teeth?                                                          16. Trace fossils

17. Questionable pieces; the top tooth is another Jaekelotodus robustus I left out, I think. The bottom left looks to be a partially erupted tooth? And the bottom right is either from a mouth plate or a piece of bone - really small fragment and hard to tell. Please let me know any confirmations/corrections.

 

Cheers! 

Edited March 6 by citronkitten
order of images

[Yoda]

@citronkitten

 

Another great trip report. 

 

I keep planning to get to Abby Wood, but have yet to do so. 

[t-tree]

Very informative , sounds like a good trip that will be even better next time. My Abbey-Woods finds came the easy way a friend sent me a big bag of matrix to sort through which was very productive ! 

 

John

[citronkitten]

25 minutes ago, Yoda said:

@citronkitten

 

Another great trip report. 

 

I keep planning to get to Abby Wood, but have yet to do so. 

Thanks - glad you enjoyed it!

I was putting off going too, because I thought getting there would be a hassle. It wasn't too bad, except for when I got lost in the underground shopping malls in Canary Wharf on the way home...but overall definitely a worthwhile trip. 

[citronkitten]

23 minutes ago, t-tree said:

Very informative , sounds like a good trip that will be even better next time. My Abbey-Woods finds came the easy way a friend sent me a big bag of matrix to sort through which was very productive ! 

 

John

Thanks! Yes, I am hoping so now that I will be more prepared (and drive there with all the gear). That's the way to do it - pre-sieved matrix! Glad to hear it was productive for you. 

[citronkitten]

Thanks to an excellent recommendation from @LordWampa, I have purchased a USB microscope for photographing smaller pieces, and it's amazing! I am so pleased with the ease of use, built-in lighting, and image quality. Also, it (obviously) allows me to see more detail and make more accurate attempts at identification (or render earlier attempts less probably because of new details). I'm attaching here some photos of items I posted earlier that I retook with the microscope camera. 

 

1. Shark teeth EDIT: partially erupted tooth is actually a broken tooth root with a cusp; thank you @Notidanodon for the explanation. 

 

2. Shells

 

3. Teeth?

4. Bone?

5. Trace fossil

 

Any help on things with a question mark would be greatly appreciated! 

Edited March 8 by citronkitten
Correction on ID

[Notidanodon]

3 hours ago, citronkitten said:

Thanks to an excellent recommendation from @LordWampa, I have purchased a USB microscope for photographing smaller pieces, and it's amazing! I am so pleased with the ease of use, built-in lighting, and image quality. Also, it (obviously) allows me to see more detail and make more accurate attempts at identification (or render earlier attempts less probably because of new details). I'm attaching here some photos of items I posted earlier that I retook with the microscope camera. 

 

1. Shark teeth

 

2. Shells

 

3. Teeth?

4. Bone?

5. Trace fossil

 

Any help on things with a question mark would be greatly appreciated! 

great finds  the 'partially erupted tooth' is a broken root of a tooth with a cusp attached,, samewith the one you thought was a root

[citronkitten]

47 minutes ago, Notidanodon said:

great finds  the 'partially erupted tooth' is a broken root of a tooth with a cusp attached,, samewith the one you thought was a root

Great information, thank you! I was quite confused about those items; clearly teeth, but wasn't sure if broken/fragmentary or in a certain stage of development. I looked up specifically what a 'cusp' is when referring to teeth, and that makes more sense now. Thanks again! 

[Notidanodon]

Also on the shark teeth the second is definitely striatolamia macrota based on the shovel shaped cusps, the first I would call sylvestrilamia teritidens, though not quite as sure on that one  

[citronkitten]

12 hours ago, Notidanodon said:

Also on the shark teeth the second is definitely striatolamia macrota based on the shovel shaped cusps, the first I would call sylvestrilamia teritidens, though not quite as sure on that one  

Thank you! I was just going by the images in the guide I mentioned in my report, and it doesn't show cusps like that for Striatolamia, so had to take my best guess. I'm sure the guide is showing the most common forms to keep it from being overwhelming.
 

Also, it's just really hard to tell! I based my identification for the first off of the root section being 'flatter', less upward angling to the roots. Is that a good way to tell, or just a random aspect of each tooth? Also I thought that the tooth was wider at the base and almost touching the cusps, which from the images seemed to be suggestive of Jaekelotodus, but maybe those teeth are even wider and more attached. I will need to keep looking and see if I can find some teeth with definitive differences! 

 

Thanks again! 
 

 

[Notidanodon]

11 hours ago, citronkitten said:

Thank you! I was just going by the images in the guide I mentioned in my report, and it doesn't show cusps like that for Striatolamia, so had to take my best guess. I'm sure the guide is showing the most common forms to keep it from being overwhelming.
 

Also, it's just really hard to tell! I based my identification for the first off of the root section being 'flatter', less upward angling to the roots. Is that a good way to tell, or just a random aspect of each tooth? Also I thought that the tooth was wider at the base and almost touching the cusps, which from the images seemed to be suggestive of Jaekelotodus, but maybe those teeth are even wider and more attached. I will need to keep looking and see if I can find some teeth with definitive differences! 

 

Thanks again! 
 

 

While to roots do differ, it’s pretty nuanced for these species so the best differentiatior for me at least is the cusps and striations on the surface of the tooth, I’ll see if I can find a resource for you  

[citronkitten]

12 hours ago, Notidanodon said:

While to roots do differ, it’s pretty nuanced for these species so the best differentiatior for me at least is the cusps and striations on the surface of the tooth, I’ll see if I can find a resource for you  

Thank you, that's very helpful! I wasn't able to use striations as an indicator before as I couldn't really see them properly, but now that I have the new microscope it will be much easier to get a good look at them. Same with the cusp shapes; much easier to look at the shape properly under the microscope. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

What a nice report and some decent finds too.

[Balance]

Missed this first go!! Very detailed and thorough. Thanks for sharing. 
 

The sand tigers are beautiful! 
 

Jp