permineralized wood

(Pictures courtesy Lea Martin and Vicki Lais.)

Hanging out at the meeting location, waiting for everyone to arrive.

Just hanging out. Claire was busy distributing BPS T-shirts that had been purchased for our fund-raiser.

Vicki and Loni are stretching out the aerial map of the creek, preparing to give an overview of the geology of the area and show the collecting sites to the group.

Our initial view of the creek, checking out the gravel bars.

Rick brought a hoe to tease the rocks, which worked very well.

Walking along a large sand and gravel embankment. Roger was visiting relatives in Alabama and decided to join us, and found some nice pieces of wood. Hope your vacation was memorable!

Gravel bars were quite wide in some locations.

Nancy searching off the beaten path.

Claire showing off one of her first finds.

A closer look

Paige with some of her finds.

The water looks deep, but in most places you will barely get your knees wet crossing to the other bank.

Rick lives in Chilton county, and obtained permission from the local landowners for BPS members to collect in several spots on the creek. A big thank you to Rick from all of us!

Loni is back after an absence of almost 15 years - Welcome Back, Loni!

This is a view through the water, which is about 1 foot deep at this point. Bottom of sand and gravel looks remarkably like pudding-stone. Some of the better petrified wood specimens were found in the water.

Rychard and Vicki, setting up for a photo op.

This is what we see as we walk along the bank of the creek. Notice how the piece of petrified wood blends in with the pebbles. Also, in many cases, the pebbles are actually very worn pieces of wood, so worn that one would never be able to convince a novice that it really was wood! When one taps pieces of the wood together, it sounds like tapping drinking glasses together.

Another piece of petrified wood hidden among the gravel. Some of us also collected the multi colored pebbles.

An outcrop of mottled red and pale red-purple clay, an indicator of the Gordo Formation. There are small outcrops in some areas, and other areas are all red-purple clay, with no sand and gravel bars at all. Some parts of the creek bed are also covered in this material, so it is important to be able to see the bottom as one is wading in the creek, as the clay is extremely slick, and you need to walk on the gravel or sand instead.

And here goes Paige fishing in the water. . . .

Another nice specimen "caught" by Paige.

And now it's Rychard's turn. . .

Rychard found some large pieces of wood that were badly weathered.

A small feeder creek draining into the main creek.

More pieces of wood. This creek location is known for wood, and wood was the only fossil found on this trip.

End of the day, plumb tuckered out. Claire with the nice sized section of wood she found midstream (see picture above) And yes, we get hot, wet, dirty, and sweaty on these trips, and have a wonderful time doing it!