Learned Something Last Weekend

[chele]

I finally made it down on the river. As I walked a path that leads to the river I noticed dead fish scattered here and there, I went a little further and I stumbled across a pool of water that was about 200 feet from the river and 15 feet higher. I also noticed that there were sandbars that ranged from a few inches to 10 to 15 feet thick. The pool was only about 10 feet wide by 20 feet long and about 6 inches deep. The small pool was full of minnows. This pool was a leftover from one of the floods that occured lately. I later sat down near the river bank and let my mind wander millions of years back in time. I pictured a great storm and a very strong storm suge. Instead of minnows there were ammonites, baculites, bivalves and other marine animals washed ashore and trapped in pools after the water receeded. The pools eventually dried up and the animals died. A short time later another storm hits and once again there is a flood. This time other animals are washed in, however, alot of sand and debris is also washed in covering the previous victims. I finally drifted back to reality and I now know why sometimes I will ony find one fossil in a large area(after spending a weekend digging), and then jump in the truck and drive a few miles further down the road and find a spot with hundreds of fossils in a tiny area. Now I know a lot of you guys will go "duh", but that is what it took for me to understand this fossil thing a little better.

[Ludwigia]

Very well thought through, Chele. As that famous Greek philosopher (what was his name again?) exclaimed while sitting down in his bathtub and thereby displacing the water: EUREKA!

[Coco]

Hi,

Ludiwgia, it was Archimède ! "Any thing plunged into the water...".

Coco

[Ludwigia]

Hi,

Ludiwgia, it was Archimède ! "Any thing plunged into the water...".

Coco

EUREKA!

[Coco]

Coco

[Fossildude19]

Wait,...

Did he "You Reek ugh" before getting into the tub, ... or after?

Chele -

Seriously, ...sometimes it takes a while for these things to 'sink in', but it's wonderful that you may have opened someone else's eyes by posting this. I know I take allot of what I know for granted, and this just shows that you never know what you may uncover in your thoughts.

Great Job!

Regards,

Edited August 23, 2011 by Fossildude19

[Auspex]

"As now, then" is the most powerful big-picture tool we have to analyze what we see in the fossil record; relevance brings fossils alive! You have had the epiphany .

[chele]

It is amazing how mother nature can change something so easy. Spots that I hunted on the river last year are now 10 feet under a sand bar. Banks I walked along last year are gone, now 50 feet of bank gone. It looks as if a bunch of bulldozers went down and pushed the rock and sand around. I have 2 boulders back in Idaho that have hundreds of bones in each. Some of the bones are massive while others are very tiny. Something must have happened to put all the different animals in one spot. Flash flood comes to mind, jamming all the animals into one spot. I have no idea what the bones are. Some as big around as a soda can while others the diameter as a tooth pick. I wish I had them here so I could get some identified.

[sward]

A few weeks back I had posted some photos of the mammoth dig site in Waco, TX. At that site, if I recall properly, they have so far uncovered 22 mammoths ranging from full adult male and females to infants, and one camel.

The same scenario that you describe (flash flood) is what they believe happened at this site. They believe the herd of mammoths were in a low lying area feeding when a flash flood hit. The embankments were too steep and muddy for the animals to get out and they all died in the same area.

I agree, sometimes it takes a while for the "light bulb" to finally come on. I am a novice at fossil hunting, but the more I learn about fossils, and fossil hunting, the more fascinating it becomes. This is one of the things I enjoy so much, that the learning never seems to end.