Fossil Hunting Holiday In England 2013

[Paleoworld-101]

Hello guys,

I’d like to start this trip report by saying that the past few weeks has been the best fossil hunting of my life thus far, I have had an incredible time in England looking for fossils and am super jealous of you Brits who can go looking for this stuff just about whenever you want to! I’d also like to apologise for the long length of this trip report but there is just so much i wanted to tell. I planned the following 3 week holiday to England (also stopping over in Los Angeles) specifically because I wanted to look for fossils. I just finished high school a few days earlier, in early November 2013, and this trip was my family’s way of celebrating (I got to choose where we went hehe).

For additional background on this trip and tips from some of the members on this forum who helped me out greatly you might like to visit this thread- http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/34252-southern-england-localities/

After lots of research and help from TFF members, namely Kosmoceras and Ammojoe, I chose the localities I wanted to visit on my trip and mum took it from there by sorting out accommodation at nearby areas.

I’ve been collecting local fossils from around Sydney for about 6 years now but all of that has been invertebrate and plant material. Whilst finding any fossil is great, my main passion ever since I was a little kid has always been vertebrates so this trip I was determined to find my first vertebrate fossil once and for all. My overall main goal and the main reason why I picked England as the place to go on this holiday was to find an Ichthyosaur vertebra from Charmouth/Lyme Regis and follow in Mary Anning’s footsteps, but I knew it would not be that easy.

The first week of my holiday however was spent staying in South Kensington, London. On top of all the usual tourist-type attractions or places of interest (Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, London Eye, Buckingham Palace) I also visited the Natural History Museum which turned out to be the best museum I had ever been to. I absolutely loved it, particularly the huge dinosaur, mammal and marine reptile galleries. After a week in London me and my family then caught the Chunnel over to France and stayed in Paris for 3 nights, walking up to the second level of the Eiffel Tower (quite an effort), visiting the Louvre, Arc De Triomphe and also the Paris Natural History Museum, called the Jardin Des Plantes, which featured some incredible vertebrate galleries of both modern and fossil bones.

Following our 3 nights in Paris we headed back to England, hired a car and drove to Lyme Regis where we would be staying for the next 5 nights. The fossil hunting part of the holiday had finally begun!

Fossil Hunting Day 1 - 23/11/13 - Charmouth to Lyme

Locality image- http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3321/3421885519_e6bbd4771f_o.jpg

Mid-morning on the first day at Lyme Regis I set out from my seaside cottage accommodation on my own to start looking for fossils starting at Lyme Regis, walking along the coastline to the east towards Charmouth, when I realized that I was not going to be able to access the beach! There was huge construction work going on to make a new, giant sea wall and it along with the ocean itself was blocking the way to the beach. So instead I had to be driven to Charmouth and begin my fossil hunting on the other side heading towards Lyme to the west instead, which is the way I spent my next 3 days fossicking as well.

I started searching at about 11am and over the next 5 hours made my way along the coast all the way back to Lyme Regis, and was able to go around the construction work this time and get back to the accommodation by 4pm because the tide was much lower by then. I spent most of the time scouring the foreshore infront of and also in the slumping clay itself beneath Black Ven which is the largest mudslide in Europe I believe. The Belemnites turned out to be the most common fossil find by far and I pulled a few really nice sized ones straight out of the slumping clay. Smaller, more worn belemnites littered the ground just about everywhere I chose to inspect close-up. I also found a few small pyrite and calcite Ammonites amongst the pebbles on the foreshore close to the cliffs but the vast majority were only bits and pieces of coil. I also found what I thought was a marine reptile paddle bone, it had the right shape but clearly lacked any definitive bone texture and aside from the shape I was somewhat sceptical but my desire to find a marine reptile bone made me hang on to it anyway. Overall it was a nice first day hunt and made me more familiar with the site and what I was up against. Lots of small common belemnites and a couple decent Ammonites to take home but that’s about it.

Some photos of the days best finds- 1. My largest Belemnite guard 2. Various Belemnite guards 3. Two calcite Ammonites 4. Crushed Ammonite 5. Ammonite in split rock. I wanted to include a locality picture but as i did not take any, am not sure if allowed to use someone else's off google images?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 2 - 24/11/13 - Charmouth to Lyme Regis

The following day I met up with fellow TFF member Ammojoe at Charmouth car park around 10am, who had kindly offered to meet up, show me the ropes and give me some tips regarding fossils and where to find them at Lyme/Charmouth and also at subsequent sites I would be visiting later in the holiday. I showed Joe the ‘paddle bone’ from yesterday and he confirmed my suspicions- it was indeed just a rock. Oh well! After looking in the fossil heritage centre at Charmouth we set off to the east towards Seatown and began searching for pyrite Ammonites in the smaller pebbles close to the waves, with me getting wet shoes/feet in the process as I didn’t have proper boots or wellies. Joe told me to search for the areas where there are lots of bits of pyrite as this is where the ammonites are most often found. Sure enough we both found some small pyrite ammonites of varying completeness just lying on the surface, with Joe finding the best ones I might add, which he kindly gave to me.

After that we decided to head back to Charmouth and work our way towards Lyme Regis in search of bones, particularly Ichthyosaur vertebrae which are the most common vertebrate fossil to be found. We spent most of our time scouring the pebbly foreshore, in areas of pebbles that are about the same size as you would expect the vertebrae to be, roughly in the 1-4cm range. Despite our best efforts neither of us had much luck, although Joe did manage to find a broken in half Ichthyosaur vertebrae that had the distinct bowtie shape looked at side on. Joe also found a pebble containing a few nice crinoid arms in it, which he also gave to me and I am most grateful for. I am used to finding bits of crinoid stem back home in Sydney but never multiple stems like this together. We stopped the search to have a quick packed lunch and then began looking again. In the clay close to the water we found more nice pyrite ammonites, with Joe finding the best one that was both large, complete and also had a smaller one stuck to its surface. Two for the price of one! Our hunt concluded around 3pm as Joe was picked up by his parents, but before we parted he gave me one of his nice ammonites from Yorkshire that he had found and prepped himself. To this day it is still the nicest ammonite I came away from my holiday with. It was a very enjoyable day overall and it was nice to meet and talk to Joe, who I thank very much for his help and generosity. The next two days searching at Lyme/Charmouth I would apply the tips and skills he showed me to great effect.

Pictures of the days finds are as follows. 1. Various pyrite Ammonites 2. Pebble with Crinoid branches in it 3. Bivalve shell 4. Dactylioceras commune given to me by Joe

1. 2. 3. 4.

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 3 – 25/11/13 – Charmouth to Lyme Regis

The next day I once again set out to Charmouth to begin another day of fossil hunting but this time my parents were coming along to join the hunt for a couple hours as well. We got to the beach around 11am and I gave them a quick briefing of what to look for and where to look as we set out further along the beach. The tide was still quite high so we had to sludge our way through the wet mud close to the water in order to get around some of the corners. This mud, slumped below Black Ven, turned out to be very productive to look in up-close as I managed to extract several nice pyrite ammonites (a couple of which are in the previous days pyrite ammonite photo) and also a few small crinoid stem sections as well as the usual belemnites. Maybe an hour into our hunt we were about a third of the way between Charmouth and Lyme Regis looking for fossils amongst the pebbles and boulders close to the water when dad called out to me saying he had found a vertebra. I was sceptical since none had turned up over the last 2 days except for a broken in half one but walked over to dad anyway and had a look at what he was holding out to me. Needless to say I was shocked- it was a perfect and complete Ichthyosaur vertebrae around 3.5cm wide which is a very decent size. He found it just lying in plain sight on the ground amongst the large rock boulders close to the water. It would have been underwater a couple hours earlier when the tide was higher. I was in disbelief and amazed at what had just happened.

Needless to say the find gave me largely mixed feelings. I was happy that I would be coming home with an Ichthy vert found on our holiday but was also very disappointed that it wasn’t me who found it. I had put in a lot of effort over the past 3 days to find one and dad had managed to live my dream and best me in barely an hour of looking. He didn't think much of the find either as neither of my parents are really into fossils. It seemed so unfair, this was the reason I chose to come here halfway across the world and it looked like I would be coming home without finding one myself. Beginners luck for sure! After that my parents left me to go do other things and i continued the hunt on my own heading further towards Lyme Regis. It turned out to be a pretty unproductive search and even though i searched for another 2-3 hours after my parents left i barely found anything worth keeping. I returned to my Lyme Regis accommodation a bit disappointed around 4pm. That night i was stressing quite a bit as tomorrow was my last day at Lyme Regis to complete my goal and walk away with an Ichthyosaur vertebrae that i had found. Part of me wanted to throw in the towel and give up but i recomposed myself and decided to give it my best effort one last time. After all i would have regretted not putting in 110% effort upon coming home to Australia for sure.

Pictures are as follows. 1. Ichthyosaur vertebra from Black Ven 2. Crinoid stem sections 3. Ammonite coil sections 4. Bivalve shell?

1. 2. 3. 4.

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 4 – 26/11/13 – Charmouth to Lyme Regis

My last day of fossil hunting at Lyme Regis and Charmouth I woke up feeling refreshed and more determined not to fail than ever! It was a pretty late start though as low tide was gradually getting later and later in the day over the course of my Lyme Regis stay and today it was around 5pm so I would have less time to look before sundown (sun sets really early in England, around 4pm it starts getting dark). I killed some time in the morning while the tide was too high by visiting the local fossil shops in Lyme Regis (there is at least 5) and admiring all the cool things on sale. By the time I had looked in most of them the tide was low enough for me to get out there and start looking for my own fossils again so I prepared for another days hunt in the usual fashion- rugging up with at least 4 layers of clothing, beanie, gloves, hammer and chisel, backpack and a whole lot of tissues as I was quite sick with a bad cold for the majority of the holiday (blowing my nose every 5 minutes while trying to look for fossils gets very annoying). I had planned on hunting the stretch of coast between Seatown and Charmouth today, which is known for its great ammonites beneath Golden Cap, but changed my mind at the last minute and headed back to the same area that I had looked the past 3 days. I did this for a number of reasons- the distance between Seatown and Charmouth is longer than the distance between Charmouth and Lyme, meaning that I was in greater danger of getting cut off by the tide as I had less time to hunt today due to the late time of low tide. Also Joe (Ammojoe) told me that the rocks at Seatown can’t be split due to the fact that the ammonites inside them will break before the rock does and that they need to be carefully prepped out by other means instead. I did not have such tools to do this, so going there and finding things that I couldn’t even prep properly would have been a little pointless. I made up my mind and decided to go back to Charmouth and Lyme Regis even though my search for an Ichthyosaur vertebra there had turned up nothing over the past 3 days.

I arrived back at Charmouth around 11:30 and set off along the shoreline on my own. It was a weekday so there was absolutely no one on the beach that I could see. After perhaps an hour of searching through the pebbles on the shore, on the first bend closest to Charmouth, I had found another bit of crinoid stem, a very nice Gastropod shell (which are not very common) about 2cm wide and more of the usual stuff- small Ammonites, Belemnites etc. I was looking on my hands and knees in an area that i had walked over 3 times already, once for every previous day i'd been fossil hunting at Lyme when i finally spotted what i had been looking for all along!! Not one, but TWO still-connected and complete Ichthyosaur vertebrae just lying amongst the pebbles. I can't even describe how happy i was and am glad no one was near me on the beach because I was cheering with joy. They are both in great condition, firmly fused together end to end and each measure about 3cm across which is again a decent size. Single Ichthyosaur vertebrae are hard to find but articulated multiple verts is something else entirely. What a fantastic way to end my Lyme Regis/Charmouth adventure, it was my first vertebrate fossil find too! Finding a marine reptile bone turned out to be much harder than i had expected and i very nearly came away with nothing. I guess it shows that determination and a positive attitude do pay off in the end. I will definitely remember that moment for the rest of my life. After finding the two Ichthyosaur vertebrae I was still quite successful. I made my way back to Lyme Regis and picked up a few nice ammonites, a pebble with tiny crinoid branches and two rocks with what appear to be fossil plants on them but I am sceptical of them. They might be dendrites? What do you guys think? They are definitely in the rock and not just stained on the surface from seaweed or something. See pictures of the days finds below. When I returned to the accommodation my family was happy for me that I had found the verts. I could finally relax knowing that I had accomplished what I came here for. Overall my stay in Lyme Regis was full of ups and downs but proved to be totally worth it in the end.

Pictures are as follows. 1. Two articulated Ichthyosaur vertebrae from Black Ven. Anyone know the species or bone position? 2. Another view of the two vertebrae 3. The connected Ichthy verts with the single vertebra from yesterday 4. Gastropod shell. Species? 5. Pebble with tiny Crinoid branches 6. First 'plant' fossil? 7. Second 'plant' fossil? 8. Nice Ammonite, too bad it has a crack in it

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

[Carcharodontosaurus]

I believe that the "plants" you found are either dendrites or sutures of an ammonite shell.

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 5 – 27/11/13 – Bouldnor, Isle of Wight

Locality image- http://www.discussfossils.com/forum/uploads/1207/beach2.JPG

We packed our things into the hire car and left Lyme Regis early in the morning, about 6am, driving to Lymington from where we would catch a car ferry over to the Isle of Wight and stay between the towns of Yarmouth and Bouldnor for the next 4 nights. Upon arriving at the accommodation I was too excited about the prospect of finding bones and turtle shell at Bouldnor beach that I wanted to go out and have my first hunt almost immediately. The tide was already low by that stage and would soon be coming in so I only had 2 hours to look but it was certainly worth it. Bouldnor beach is an Oligocene age locality that yields fossils of reptiles (mainly turtles and crocodiles), land mammals (the most common of which was a hippo-like herbivore called Bothriodon) and shells along its shoreline and requires no digging or hammering rock whatsoever. You simply just scour the pebbles and spot fossils lying on the surface. I was dropped off at the beach by my parents around 11am (our accommodation was barely a 5 minute drive from the beach) and immediately got down on my hands and knees looking amongst the pebbles for fossils. I found my first piece of turtle shell in barely a couple of minutes.

It wasn’t long before the finds just kept on coming- the end of a toe bone from some kind of turtle or crocodile I am suspecting, many other pieces of turtle shell of varying size (the largest was about 5 x 5 cm and about 1cm thick), a piece of crocodile scute and a few more bits of bone fragment including what looks like a ball and socket type joint. The high number of fossils amazed me, it took me over 6 years to find my first vertebrate fossil at Charmouth the previous day and here I was picking them up every couple of minutes or so as if they were nothing. It was great and I loved every second of it, a huge change for me since I am used to finding only plants and shells back in Sydney. In only 2 hours I had filled a small plastic seal bag full of vertebrate treasures and was just about to start heading back to the beach entrance for pick up to go back to the accommodation when I spotted a crocodile tooth on the tide line amongst all of the smaller pebbles. I knew what it was straight away and couldn’t believe what I had just found. My first fossil tooth find! It was a great way to end my first day of collecting at Bouldnor beach and I knew the coming days would be just as fantastic. Already I had declared Bouldnor beach as the best fossil site I have ever hunted in my life. In terms of quantity of vertebrate fossils and easiness to find them I had never been to another site like it. I felt so jealous of the people who live right next to the beach and can go there whenever they want. That would be the life!

Pictures are as follows. 1. Barely a quarter of the turtle shells collected over the 3 days i spent at Bouldnor, mainly the larger ones 2. 3 best bones from day 5 together 3. Ball and socket looking bone. Any ideas? 4. Limb or rib bone section? 5. Fragment of toe bone. Any ideas? 6. Crocodile tooth 7. Croc tooth in hand

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Edited December 14, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 6 – 28/11/13 – Bouldnor, Isle of Wight

Early morning the next day I was ready to go to Bouldnor and look for fossils once again and this time I had a full day to search so after yesterday’s productive 2 hour hunt I was expecting to come home with lots more stuff today. Low tide was at midday so I got to the beach around 9am. From the access point I skipped the first hundred metres or so of the beach, where I had looked the day before, and started the search in a new area. I straight away got down on all fours and examined the shingle as close as possible. Finds were a little slow to start off though- after an hour or so I had only found bits of turtle shell and a couple small bone pieces. Things quickly got better though after that as I found three nice sized vertebrae in a relatively short amount of time! One is definitely a small fish vert, found amongst the tiny pebbles and sand along the tide line on my hands and knees, and the other two are both crocodile I think as they both have ball and socket type endings on either side. The largest one is about 3cm tall and 3cm long which is quite a large sized bone (most of the bones are only small fragments). It is virtually complete and has most of its neural processes intact too which I suspect is quite rare as none of the other verts I found from Bouldnor had them anymore and most pics of croc vertebrae from Bouldnor on the internet also don’t have them. It ended up being the find of the day but it certainly wasn’t the last thing I found that day. After finding the verts i found a few other nice bone fragments. I also found more crocodile scute pieces, which are less common than the turtle shell fragments that can literally be found every minute or so. No teeth were found today but i was still extremely happy with how the days hunt turned out and i got picked up by my parents and taken back to the accommodation around 2:30.

Pictures are as follows. 1. The better bones, including a large croc vert and a fish vert 2. Large crocodile vertebra view one, species? 3. Large croc vert view two 4. Crocodile scutes, from all 3 days at Bouldnor not just today 5. Croc scutes close up 6. Plastic bag completely full of smaller turtle shell pieces and bone fragments, found across all 3 days at Bouldnor 7. Turtle shell corner pieces

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[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 7 – 29/11/13 – Brook Bay, Isle of Wight

Locality image- http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/36/77/1367783_78312e2f.jpg

The next day, despite the enormous success I was having at Bouldnor, I decided to try my luck at a different locality and fulfil a childhood dream of finding dinosaur bones. The closest dinosaur locality to my accommodation and one of the best on the island for finding rolled dinosaur bone fragments is Brook Bay on the south western coastline of the Isle of Wight. From what I had read previously, finding dinosaur bone fragments is largely hit-and-miss and often requires the right conditions in order to be successful. The last major storm to hit the area was a few weeks prior to my visit so I wasn’t sure whether there would be any bones left to be found. Nevertheless if I didn’t have a go and at least try to find a dinosaur bone while I was on the Isle of Wight I knew I would seriously regret it upon coming home to Australia.

So I was dropped off at Brook Bay around 11am to coincide with low tide which was at 1pm. The first thing that hit me was the cold- it was freezing and a strong wind was blowing the entire time. The beach is of course not protected from these winds at all and it was going to make my collecting efforts that much harder. I was already sick and blowing my nose every few minutes but now I was freezing cold on top of that despite four layers of clothing. My parents expressed concern that I was too exposed and sick to be out in this weather for hours on end so I agreed to be picked up earlier than I had wanted, around 2pm which gave me 3 hours of collecting time.

Once my parents left I started scouring the pebbles immediately in front of the cliff looking for that distinctive honeycomb structure that would indicate fossil bone. I also knew to be focusing my search on the darker rocks as the bone is usually black or dark grey in colour which allows the majority of light brown and cream coloured rocks to be ignored and makes things a lot easier. I also looked in the cliff itself as this is where the more complete, unweathered fossils can be found. For the first hour of steadily looking along the pebbles at the base of the cliff and in the cliff itself I had yet to find any bones. On the other hand bits of fossil wood turned out to be very common and I was picking them up by the dozen to check they weren’t actually dinosaur bones as the wood and bone can look very similar. Both are dark in colour and sometimes to tell them apart it is handy to draw on a light coloured rock with them as the wood will leave a black streak like coal but bone of course does not.

I had walked well over 150m along the coast inspecting the pebbles and turned up nothing so I decided to try my luck closer to the water’s edge, in the smaller shingle along the tide line. I had read that fossil teeth could also be found but of course they are extremely rare. The thought of finding a dinosaur tooth kept me going for another hour or so but still I had not found anything and was starting to regret coming here instead of another successful day at Bouldnor. After finding nothing along the tide line I went back to the cliff base and continued moving further south east towards Brighstone Bay, which is another well-known dinosaur locality. After about 2 hours since I first arrived at Brook Bay, I finally found my first bit of dinosaur bone in the shingle along the cliff base. It looked like wood from a distance but upon picking it up I immediately knew it was bone and not wood. The texture was very different and it resembled photos of bones I had looked at from Brook Bay too. Just to be sure I drew with it on a nearby rock, gently of course, and there was no black streak. Success at last! It finally sunk in a few moments later that I had actually found a dinosaur bone, what a great feeling that was. I put it into my collecting bag and continued the search more relaxed now knowing that I had at least found one bone and not wasted my day by finding nothing. Barely 10 minutes after finding the first bone I found a second fragment, followed soon after by a third more rounded fragment also amongst shingle at the base of the clay cliff. This third one looked even more like wood than the first one did with its black colouration and I picked it up just thinking it to be wood but was pleasantly surprised to see that distinctive honeycomb, bubbly bone structure on either end of the fossil that confirmed it as bone. Once again no black streak upon lightly drawing with it.

Now that i had found three fragments i was in a much better mood despite the freezing winds which were still blowing a gale. My fingers had started to lose feeling even with gloves on but i kept going with the thought of finding another dinosaur bone in my mind to motivate me. It was only about 30 minutes until i was due to be picked up so i had to make the most of it. I continued to walk further south east and was now between Brook Bay and Brighstone Bay (probably closer to Brighstone) still looking along the base of the cliff when i found my largest fragment yet. This one was a good sized chunk and had very distinctive bony texture and measured around 7cm long by 4cm wide. The feeling of finding a dinosaur bone such as this never gets old! It was great but i knew i had to start heading back in order to be picked up on time. With four great bone fragments and one nice bit of wood in the bag i left Brook Bay satisfied and pleasantly surprised with how the day had turned out. Now that i had successfully found a dinosaur bone i could once again spend my last day on the Isle of Wight tomorrow at Bouldnor without thinking i was missing out on anything else. It was going to be another great day i could already tell!

Pictures are as follows. 1. All four dinosaur bones and a piece of wood (left) to go with them 2. The first dinosaur bone i found, is it just me or does it look like a section of jaw? 3. The second bone fragment, maybe a section of rib? 4. Third fragment of dinosaur bone 5. The last and largest bit of dinosaur bone i found

1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Paleoworld-101

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 8 – 30/11/13 – Bouldnor, Isle of Wight

For my last day of collecting on the Isle of Wight I decided to hunt at Bouldnor beach from the other side of the coastline to where I had looked previously, further east and closer to Hamstead. To enter the beach from this side I seeked out the access path described on the Bouldnor page of the UK Discovering Fossils website (which was a great resource for planning my trip). The page said that the path could be muddy after periods of wet weather but since it had not stormed for a few weeks I thought it couldn’t be that bad. Boy was I wrong! I was dropped off at the path entrance around 11:00, a bit earlier than I had wanted but my family needed to be somewhere else on the island for a tour of Osborne house and so I had to be dropped off while the tide was still quite high (low tide was at 2pm). I began walking down the path which started off perfectly fine, not muddy and open/wide enough that I didn’t have to shove my way through overgrown bushes. This quickly changed as I moved further along the path and it wasn’t long before I was bush bashing through thornbushes, yes you heard correctly thornbushes, with large spikes jutting out all along the branches. My arms and legs were getting scraped and pricked even though I was wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt. I had to carefully move the thorny branches out of the way as I moved through the path and avoid getting spiked but this was not easy. There were so many. The path itself also started to live up to its muddy reputation as the ground gradually became a sloppy mess of soft clay that my shoes sunk into with every step. There were also large inclined slopes of mud that I had to traverse down on hands and feet whilst avoiding the spiky bushes as well. In the end the path slowly began to disappear as the bushes gradually became so thick that I had to crouch head down and arms first as a shield to push my way through the thornbushes. I could hear the waves and saw blue through the trees so I knew I was nearly there. After another minute or so of bush bashing and getting spiked I broke through the tree line and onto the beach. Finally! Now it was time to get down to business.

The tide was still very high so I only had about 2 meters of shingle between the water and the clay bank to work with. Straight away I began the search on hands and knees by examining the shingle as per usual. It wasn’t long before I was picking up pieces of turtle shell by the dozen. Gradually as I made my way west towards Bouldnor and the area that I had looked in previous days (it is a very long stretch of coast however so even at the end of this hunt I had not reached the site of my previous collecting) the fossils got better and better. Bone fragments suddenly overtook turtle shell or at least matched them in number as the most common find and I began to pick up larger and larger pieces. This area close to Hamstead was proving to be even more productive than where I had been previously. The bones were more common, larger and more complete. At one point I picked up 4 decent sized bones in the space of maybe 20 seconds and I was loving it. Perhaps not many people come to this part of the beach due to the shocking state of the entrance path? I certainly got the impression that no one had been here collecting in quite a while. Over the next hour as I made my way along the coast I had already filled all FOUR plastic zip-lock collecting bags to the brim with fantastic specimens. I still had hours of hunting time left and already had no more room for any new fossils. My jacket pockets became the solution to the problem and gradually I filled them to the brim as well with fossils. These included lots of turtle shell, decent sized bone fragments including the end of some kind of limb bone, a couple more crocodile vertebrae, three sections of crocodile jaw, another 4 or so limb bone fragments, a small fish vert, what could be a large mammal ankle bone and various other bones that I have yet to identify what they are.

Even the turtle shell pieces that I was finding here were bigger than the pieces from the other side of the coastline, many of them more than 4cm long and nearly up to 2cm thick. This continued for another few hours until all 4 of my jacket pockets (i was wearing two jackets one on top of the other) were full of finds and I had arrived at about the halfway point between the thorny entrance path and the area I looked last time. Satisfied with how much I had found I was just about to start heading back to be picked up by my parents when I found perhaps the best bone yet, a complete toe bone lying side-on at the base of the clay bank amongst the pebbles. I quickly picked it up and realized it was complete, one of the only complete bones I had managed to find from this locality as the vast majority are broken fragments. I immediately suspected it was mammal and i certainly hope that it is as mammal fossils are much harder to find than the turtle and crocodile fossils.The toe bone ended up being the icing on the cake of an extremely successful day of fossil hunting. In the last 5 hours alone I had managed to just about double the number of finds I had made on all of the previous days collecting so far. After finding the toe bone i started to make my way back to the pick-up spot, and since i was about halfway between the two different places i used to access the beach, i chose to walk over to the entrance from the previous days collecting at Bouldnor instead of bush bashing up that thorny path again.

Pictures of the better finds only as there was so many. 1. The toe bone, view one. Am pretty sure it is mammal but what kind? 2. The toe bone, view two. 3. The toe bone, view three. 4. Unknown large bone fragment. Any ideas? 5. Same fragment as 4, view two 6. The end of a large limb bone view 1, ID? 7. End of large limb bone view two 8. A large unidentified bone fragment view 1, ID? 9. A large unidentified bone fragment view two 10. Another large unidentified bone, this one looks like it could be complete. Some kind of ankle bone? 11. Second view of the possible ankle bone 12. A section of limb, ID? 13. Three vertebrae, i think all are crocodile

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

[Paleoworld-101]

Pictures of day 8 finds continued. 14. Another unknown bone fragment, ID? 15. View two of unknown bone fragment 16. The largest piece of bone i found at Bouldnor, is it just me or does it look like it was chewed? There are cracks all over it but it is stable 17. A section of crocodile jaw 18. Two more crocodile jaw sections 19. A tiny fish vertebrae 20. Biggest piece of turtle shell collected from Bouldnor 21. Various fossil shells 22. The underside of what i think is a crocodile scute, why is it shaped like this and none of the others are? 23. The days best bones together

14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Edited December 11, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[Paleoworld-101]

Fossil Hunting Day 9 – 1/11/13 – Folkestone

Locality image-http://www.folkestone.ukfossils.co.uk/location-photos/1.JPG

Early morning on the first of December we caught the car ferry off of the Isle of Wight back to the mainland and began our drive towards Folkestone where we would spend one night before flying out of London the next day. It took a lot of time to get to Folkestone and we were held up by other things so that by the time we were there and I was all ready to go fossil hunting, there was little more than an hour of sunlight left. Bummer.

I set out on my own anyway to try my luck, climbing over the hazardous seaweed covered rocks to reach the slumping Gault Clay cliffs that date back to the mid Cretaceous, roughly 110 million years old. At first I looked in the clay itself but since I had so little time before sundown I figured my best chance of finding something, anything worth taking home, would be by looking in the shingle amongst the boulders in front of the cliff. Sure enough I started to find fragments of ammonite coil and bivalve shells, both of which turned out to be very common indeed. In little more than 30 minutes I had already picked up over 15 nice bits of ammonite and a few large complete bivalves. Complete ammonites proved to be far more elusive but by the end of my hour search I had found about 4 or 5 complete or near-complete ammonites of various species. All of them were small however. To top it all off i even managed to find a crab carapace as well as a couple bits of long, uncoiled ammonite shell which was pretty cool.

I wanted to keep looking as it was turning out to be more productive for ammonites (mostly partials but many of them quite big) than even Lyme Regis and Charmouth, but sadly the fading light cut my search short. I soaked the finds that night and then packed my bags, wrapped all of the finds I had made over the last 9 days in cotton and then packaged them all together in a large cardboard box ready to be sent back to Australia.

Pictures are as follows. 1. All Folkestone finds 2. A crab carapace, species? 3. Some of the more complete Ammonites 4. The better finds from Folkestone 5. All fossils collected on the holiday together

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Post Fossil Hunting – 2/11/13 to 5/11/13

Just before me and my family went to the airport on the 2^nd to fly out from England we sent the box at the Folkestone post office. It ended up weighing over 5 kilograms and cost a hefty 97 pounds to send but it was certainly worth it.

The following 3 days my family and i then stayed in Los Angeles just to break the journey home up a bit. I managed to visit both the La Brea Tar Pits (Page Museum) as well as the Los Angeles Natural History Museum which were both fantastic. We then left LA on the 5^th and arrived back in Sydney on the 7^th of December (we skipped an entire day). By the time we got home late on the 7^th, the package of fossils we sent from England had already arrived the previous day on the 6^th and beaten us home! 4 days from England to Australia, now that’s what I call quick. Am happy to say that there were no breakages and everything worked out perfectly as I had hoped it would.

Overall it was certainly an amazing experience for me and one that I will remember for the rest of my life. 9 days of fossil hunting is definitely the most I’ve ever done in one hit and it took its toll on my back, neck and knees which are all still aching but without a doubt I’d do it all over again if i could afford it.

And finally a big thankyou to everyone who read this report!

Cheers guys!

Edited December 14, 2013 by Paleoworld-101

[Ash]

Holy write up! Ive only looked at the pics so far, but snarge! Looks like you had a great time!

[MarleysGh0st]

Wow! That trip was a very nice graduation present.

[Uncle Siphuncle]

looks like a superlative trip! remember pops on fathers day...

[traveltip1]

Very well written account. Those 2 articulated verts sure look like 'big bickies'!

And it was all of YOUR intelligent research, determination, hard work and leadership that ultimately put your father in that spot where the first vert was found. (Credit is due to the whole team)

Looking forward to your next adventure story.

Have you hunted marine invertebrates along headlands of Victoria coast or along Murray river area? Plenty there.

[t-tree]

Well written report of your fossling holiday and great finds well done.

John

[jpc]

no time to read all this right now, but #23 in post ten is the frontal bone of a croc skull.

Edited December 11, 2013 by jpc

[DE&i]

Fantastic report you bought back so many memories for me of my time at the Isle of Wight last summer , while I've been tracing your footsteps in your report its almost as though we were fossicking together.

I know exactly this location you speak about " Perhaps not many people come to this part of the beach due to the shocking state of the entrance path? I certainly got the impression that no one had been here collecting in quite a while."

And i can certainly appreciate the look on your face as you drop onto fossil after fossil !

I've identified most of my finds from those location's of which are very similar to yours if not the same. Ill help you with them over the next couple of days...you'll be pleasantly surprised...i know i was.

p.s. I managed to identify alot of my finds from this link to help you get started.

http://www.dmap.co.uk/fossils/

Regards,

Darren.

Edited December 11, 2013 by DarrenElliot

[Paleoworld-101]

@Carcharodontosaurus- I tend to agree that they are probably dendrites but have yet to find photos of similar specimens from Charmouth on the internet. Will just have to wait for someone else to weigh in I guess.

@traveltip1- Unfortunately no I have never been to Victoria. A shame since they have some great fossils down there.

@jpc- Fantastic! Do you mean from the base of the skull?

@DarrenElliot- I'm glad you appreciated the detail I put into the write up and thanks for reading! Would be awesome if you could help me ID some of the finds as so far I have only crossed a few off the list.

[DE&i]

That's quite all right...i shall do my upmost best.

Regards,

Darren.

[Paleoworld-101]

That's quite all right...i shall do my upmost best.

Regards,

Darren.

Cool, if you need additional pictures of any of them to help with ID then just ask.

[jpc]

Nice trip, nice report... and as others have said, good job organizing. And your parents are really cool to let you take off like that up and down the beaches.

Its just not fair when dad (or other guest) finds the good stuff and you don't. Happens all the time. But I'm glad you bested dad with a very cool find.

#4 in post 2 is a brachiopod, not a bivalve

the plant in post 4 look like ammonite suture marks, bu th tey look cretaceous and there should not be any cretaceous amm's there. Then again, I am not too familiaar with Jurassic sutures.

your socket bones form bouldnor might be croc verts... they have a ball and socket articulation system from one to the next.

Pix 4 and 5 in post 9 look like turtle humerus or femur head. pix 10 and 11 are a large mammal ankle bone... not sure which bone. The pattern on turtle shell 21 is typical of soft shelled turtle. I saw you had other soft shell pieces in some of the other turtle shell pix. I mis-numbered and mis-identified in my previous post.. 22 is a croc parietal. Most croc skull and jaw bones have the same texture as scutes. It is from the top of the skull between the eyes. Google crocodile skull images... you'll see.

Excellent trip report... now if ony I could get my French one posted.

[Paleoworld-101]

Nice trip, nice report... and as others have said, good job organizing. And your parents are really cool to let you take off like that up and down the beaches.

Its just not fair when dad (or other guest) finds the good stuff and you don't. Happens all the time. But I'm glad you bested dad with a very cool find.

#4 in post 2 is a brachiopod, not a bivalve

the plant in post 4 look like ammonite suture marks, bu th tey look cretaceous and there should not be any cretaceous amm's there. Then again, I am not too familiaar with Jurassic sutures.

your socket bones form bouldnor might be croc verts... they have a ball and socket articulation system from one to the next.

Pix 4 and 5 in post 9 look like turtle humerus or femur head. pix 10 and 11 are a large mammal ankle bone... not sure which bone. The pattern on turtle shell 21 is typical of soft shelled turtle. I saw you had other soft shell pieces in some of the other turtle shell pix. I mis-numbered and mis-identified in my previous post.. 22 is a croc parietal. Most croc skull and jaw bones have the same texture as scutes. It is from the top of the skull between the eyes. Google crocodile skull images... you'll see.

Excellent trip report... now if ony I could get my French one posted.

Strange to be replying to this post from inside the Australian Museum lol, there is a skeleton gallery downstairs that i can go to and examine the various things that could correspond to my specimens. There is a croc skull there i'll go have a look at it's parietal after this post.

Any ideas for post 6 photo 5, post 9 photo 6 and 7, or the complete toe bone from post 9? I looked at all the toe bones in the skeleton gallery from various animals and the closest in appearance was the human hand bone lol.

Am glad that post 9 photo 10 and 11 is likely a mammal ankle bone which is what i suspected, if only it was possible to work out which mammal it specifically came from.

Anyway thanks for your help and anyone else too who offers their ID opinion.

[Paleoworld-101]

I think i found a picture showing an ankle bone very similar to the one i found (post 9 photos 10 and 11). This is the foot of a Hippo, a distant relative of Bothriodon which is the most common mammal found from the Bouldnor formation. The ankle bone in question is the far top left one in the image below with the crescent shaped top, not sure what the bone is specifically called. Could i be onto something here?

[DE&i]

Heres another mammalian I've been researching from that area that may be of interest to you.

Cynodictis

Regards,

Darren.

Edited December 12, 2013 by DarrenElliot