My Trip To Capitola

[JimTh]

I want to thank FossilForKids for posting about Capitola in the California section. I probably would never have known about it otherwise.

I was in California for work this week and managed to go to Capitola two evenings and catch the low tide. I had read some about it and knew to expect some whale bones embedded in the cliff or in rocks. I did not expect to see the sheer volume of shell material. I was with a coworker and he found a large (2"?) gastropod mold right off, which I was jealous of. The first night I gathered some shells from the soft cliff fall chunks and picked up some modern shells for the kids. I found a long whale bone embedded in a big rock. Then on the way back, my coworker found a section of spine in a large rock. We went back the second night to get pics of us beside it.

The second night I did some more hunting, gathered a few more shells, but also found fossilized barnacles. I almost didn't bring it home because of it's size, but now I'm glad I did.

Found a sand dollar but didn't bring it home due to the size of the rock it was on:

And the real find of the trip, also posted in the ID forum, a piece of man-portable bone:

I also saw live sea anemones, lots of little critters crawling on the cliff (looked like giant roly-polys), and seaweed everywhere. Very cool place to go and I highly recommend it. Probably my favorite "geotrip" so far.

We also stopped by the Pleasonton/Sunol Road site and I got a few gastropod molds and one largish shell.

[FossilForKids]

Glad you had a great time. I recognized those bone sections. Capitola is great for collecting and a great little beach town.

[RJB]

Lots of stuff at capitola. I use to go there about 20 years ago. If you go in the wintertime and are lucky enough to have all the sand removed, you will find at least 5 whale skulls in some rather large rocks and lots and lots of other neato stuff. One of my best finds was actually over by the big wood stairs that the surfers use to get down to the beach. The bone material over there is not usually in concreted rock! anyways, its a fun place.

RB