This month the group traveled to Butler County, Alabama, to a sandy creek which runs through early Tertiary and late Cretaceous material. The weather was overcast on Saturday, making collecting very pleasant. A number of members camped out for the weekend. Sunday the sun was out, and it made us grateful for the cloud cover on Saturday!
The sandy beaches and gravel areas yielded up shark teeth, ray teeth, some nautiloid sections, and recent mammal material which was sometimes as fasinating as the fossils.
We had quite a few young people on the trip who enjoyed both the fossil collecting and swimming, splashing and running in the shallow creek. There is an area of soft clay, and some enterprising young men fashioned bowls from it.
More about the artifacts found on the trip.
--Photos courtesy Claire Smith and Vicki Lais.
The whole group, except for one young lady who didn't want her picture taken.
Screening for fossils in the shallow creek.
We found several areas where tadpoles had taken over shallow pools of water.
Coquina, a very hard "stone" composed of compressed shells, used in many parts of Florida as building stone.
He's holding a very large piece of coquina found in a pile of boulders.
Shell from a recent turtle.
Making ones way up the creek took a very long time. First you have to play in the water, feel the sand between your toes. Then you have to stop at every gravel bar and see what's there. It takes most people hours to get less than 1/4 mile.
Hanging out on the large sandy beach. This is like a crossroads, everyone passes this way, or returns here to rest.
Nancy neck deep in a swimming hole.
Martha screening for shark teeth
Picking through the gravel bars hunting for fossils.
Everyone set up for enjoying this wonderful creek in their own way.
Tiny ray tooth
Collecting fossils in the creek.
Small piece of fossil coral.
Shark tooth
Is it a fossil?
Several small turritella.
Sitting in the creek is sometimes the most effective and cool way.
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