crab

May 29, 2010 - Cretaceous Fossils, Union Co, MS

This month's trip was to northern Mississippi, where we collected in the Coon Creek formation. The area was once a bay in the Gulf of Mexico. This is a Late Cretaceous site, where we found numerous turritella (most in an extremely fragile condition), and even more crab and lobster parts, mostly looking like they had exploded, though several intact "bellies" and a couple of claws were found. The finds of the day had to be the mosasaur tooth found by Don H., and the fragment of a duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaur) tooth found by David. This site is being studied by George Phillips, paleontologist at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, who will be reviewing our finds for anything of scientific interest. The hadrosaur tooth fragment has already been sent to him for inclusion in his research.

Don C. had this to say about his collecting efforts for the day: "I'm very happy with my haul of crabs and shrimp (7 different genera and species in all), plus I got quite a few gastropods and bivalves, a squashed nautilus, a good piece of an ammonite with sutures, an Enchodus fang, and a small shark tooth. I brought home a bag of clay to sift and I'm still finding all manner of micro goodies too."

The diehards of the group had an evening of BBQ at a local restaurant, and as everyone headed home, two additional sites were scouted, neither of which appeared promising.

hadrosaur tooth

Part of a tooth from a duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaur)

David showing the tooth from a duck-billed dinosaur (hadrosaur) that he found.

May 16, 2009 - Cretaceous Fossils, Sumter County, AL

Old hands as well as new joined up early on Saturday morning for a trip to some great Cretaceous gully sites in West Alabama. Dr. John Hall and Dr. Andy Rindsberg, both from the University of West Alabama, led us down chalk roads (more later on the chalk roads!) and through the woods to the bottom of the ancient ocean. The landscape looked like the remains of an ancient clam-bake! Literally MILLIONS of fossilized shells including exogyra, various clams, shark and sawfish teeth, crab claws, oyster shells, echinoid spines, and at least one small shark vertebra. One of our teen-aged guests, Megan, discovered a large Rudist clam. This was only her second trip with BPS and her find was sufficiently rare from this location that Dr. Hall claimed it for the nascent Black Belt Museum in Livingston. Her name will remain with it and she will get a letter of recognition.

Many who drove up from Birmingham were watching the weather, and at least one member called to see if the trip had been cancelled. Cancelled??? Hey, this is BPS, guys! But later in the day rumbling could be heard and the clouds looked angry. The landowner sent word that the rain was about an hour away, so we started moseying back to the cars. Oops, not fast enough, we were drenched by the time we made it back to the field. So. How many people remember James Lamb telling us over and over - GET OUT OF THE GULLIES BEFORE IT STARTS RAINING??? Let's see. . . chalk . . clay . . water . . slick . . stuck in mud. Yeah, right. At least 3 vehicles had to be pushed out, um, slid out, perhaps? Needless to say, we were all pumped up with adrenaline by the time we made it back up the long winding road to the top of the hill! An exciting trip we will be discussing for years to come!

Edited by Vicki Lais

Pictures courtesy Nancy Lea, Larry Herr, Vicki Lais

Echinoid (sea urchin) spine.

hanging out after the slick climb up the hill

When we finally got back to the top of the hill, the landowners son helped wash off the thick clods of mud that were practically filling our wheelwells. Here we are waiting in line for our turn with the hose.

Becky searching the bottom and sides of a gully.

View of the group finding shark teeth and echinoid spines.

Mike heading back to the car to unload his fossil finds.

Our first sighting of the gullies. BPS has never visited this set of gullies, and they have rarely been collected, so we are anxious to start searching.

crab, shark tooth, enchodus tooth, echinoid spine

Couple of badly worn shark teeth, fish tooth (enchodus?), echinoid spine and small part of crab leg.

Nancy and her two young charges searching along the edge of the chalk.

exogyra

Joshua has found an exogyra with both halves. It's easy finding just bottoms, or just tops, but matching pieces are much more difficult.

exogyra

Joey holding an exogyra with both sides found.

Megan is showing Drs. Rindsberg and Hall where the rudist was found. After careful searching, several more pieces were found.

View towards the far end of the first gully where most of the shark teeth and sawfish teeth were found. Where is everyone? They all scattered to the many gullies in the area, and so most did not get photos taken.

oyster, exogyra, shark tooth

Joey's box of fossils.

Jan finally gets his turn with the hose.

sawfish tooth, shark tooth

Leisa has found a nice shark tooth and sawfish tooth.

Well, we didn't make it out of the site fast enough. The white chalk is like ice when it gets wet, so slick you can barely stand on it. These guys were slipping and sliding trying to push this car up a slight incline. We put branches and limbs under it to get traction.

sawfish

Sawfish tooth.

oyster

Oyster bed.

Inoceramus

Small impression of an Inoceramus. These are normally quite large, flat shells, 2-3 foot across, and usually broken into millions of fragments.

As many people know, BPS got its beginning with the Red Mountain Museum in 1984, where Gorden Bell, James Lamb and Scott Brande trained their first group of amateurs on how to assist professional paleontologists in the field. Larry joined us at the meeting location, modeling an ancient Leaping Lizards T-shirt from the old Red Mountain Museum. Unfortunately, he had to leave early and missed all the fun.