April Hunt In "les Vaches Noires"

[elcoincoin]

Hello.

During winter did 2 quick trips to my favorite hunting spot, but they didnt worth a topic here.

So this time ,for end of april high tide me and GF went to our favorite mud cliffs.

We spent 2 days on the beach and for both of us the collect has been pretty interesting.

Somehow when u see both picks, it s not obvious we were at same spot .

She had radar focused on small (and even not so small) pyritized ammos (mostly Quenstedoceras / Cardioceras)

Been there 20 or 30 times and never found that many.

Her Day one ammos group picture :

Details of some :

She also found a crinoid calix (never found that for myself)

For myself, didnt found many ammos but got lucky with unusual finds there :

Nautile internal cast :

Unusual coral (size 10 cm)

A pretty poor preserved ursin, but first of this species for me : Hemiaster buffo

2 pyritized phragmocones including 1 in very very good condition

Also found 2 trigonia species, the current one and the not so frequent one, but not pictures (forgot it somewhere), good amount of fossilized drifted wood (fossil wood with fossil oysters on it) (no pix yet, still removing the salt).

Also found the usual suspects: different kind of oysters / mussels / gastropods / belemnites / brachiopods and also a few ammos.

A very big terebratula (3 time the usual size) :

A pretty cool gastro : pleurotomaria munsteri

A few of the ammos i picked :

Then after 2 rather tiring days it was time to head home....

More pictures in my gallery

Thx for reading

Edited May 4, 2013 by elcoincoin

[masonboro37]

Great finds! The ammonite's are splendid and I like the gastropod too. Upper Jurassic, pyritized ammonite's are so pretty. Thanks for sharing.

[nala]

Nice finds!

[Auspex]

Very nice, and very well photographed!

[CH4ShotCaller]

Nice variety of finds and good detail on the pictures!

[donckey]

Great finds!

Love to go for a swim on that beach.

Peter

[taj]

So it was you who removed this goodly sized fossilized wood piece from the Marnes de Dives banks appearing at low tide ?

[elcoincoin]

no no i didnt see anything more than 40 cm X 15 cm . So it wasnt me

[taj]

Hmm that may be it . I was there first thing saturday morning.Had to pick what was left !

[crinoid1]

That's an interesting crinoid. Any ideas on the genus?

Gabe

[JeanB]

Lovely finds indeed!

[elcoincoin]

That's an interesting crinoid. Any ideas on the genus?

Gabe

Crinoids in "les vaches noires" are not that commons and u only find small bits. First time ever i put my hands on a calix.

Therefore, I couldnt find any convincing documentation about crinoids at this site.

Most likely it s "millericrinus horridus". The "stem part" is very short so i cant be enterly sure the stem is spiky, but i think it is. It s a bit more obvious now we cleaned it a bit.

Its also the only common specie in "les vaches noires"

Other name that came to my mind was "Millericrinus munsterianus", but supposely the articles are totaly circular.

But then again its only my non specialist ID.

Edited May 6, 2013 by elcoincoin

[taj]

a quick haul ( approx one hour) in the Marnes de Dives at low tide .Small time window before tide came back . Difficult to do better , wake up at 5 AM was already tough, and before my arrival morning light was probably too faint.

Not much, but incredibly beautiful scenery: started with a full moon, saw magnificent sunrise , ended in a glorious morning sun...

Seen in de-salt clinic: biggest cardio in bottom left is a little over 4 cm, top right is a small (fish?) vertebra.

First time I've been hunting marine fossils.....in seawater!

Edited May 8, 2013 by taj