studio visit scheduled for today. didn’t have much to show. took the curator fossil hunting instead. worked out what the work will be by walking talking climbing looking hunting finding. pictured here, 40 million year old bivalves and gastropods found in the matrix of the slumping Barton Clay. #fossilhunting

yesterday: showed my friend’s kid some fossils. today: the kid found an echinoid (sea urchin) fossil on the beach. my work is done here. #fossilhunting

Visited Oliver at the Dinosaur Farm 🦕 yesterday to help identify some of our #fossil finds. Amongst our collection we have:
- echinoids
- echinoderms
- sea sponges
- crocodile teeth and jaw
- early mammal tooth
- stingray teeth
- fish vertebrae
- crocodile skin
- turtle shell
- fish and dinosaur poo
- and more…

#IsleOfWight #FossilHunting

careful! watching your step may result in fossil hunting. squatting to speculate on gastropods and bivalves in curb stones. we very nearly got hit by a car. #fossilhunting

40 million year old cousin of the northern moon snail, or shark eye? #fossilhunting

fossil hunting exhibition to the south coast of Hampshire yesterday, to collect 40-million-year-old sea shells from slumping cliffs of Lower Eocene Barton Clay. as one does. #FossilHunting

a huge amount of cretaceous chalk was brought into the Thames to make barge beds. most barges are gone, the chalk eroded or covered over. but flint nodules that came in with the chalk remain. here’s one with a slightly squashed echinoid fossil, possibly micraster. now extinct. #mudlarking #fossilhunting

all this time I’ve been calling mould fossils cast fossils. such is my dyslexia. anyway, these are MOULDS (or imprints) of echinoid (sea urchin) spines in cretaceous flint nodules formed between 145.5 and 65.5 million years ago, found on the Thames foreshore recently #mudlarking #fossilhunting

crinoid death bed in carboniferous limestone. crinoids (aka sea-lilies) are invertebrate animals. relatives of sea urchins and starfish. 340 million years ago, they were so prolific they covered the bottom of the sea like a crop of wheat. #fossilhunting #yorkshire

one definition the OED offers for mudlark is urchin, a small or mischievous youngster. from Middle English urchun, hedgehog. I’ve found three sea urchin (echinoid) fossils on the Thames foreshore so far. they first appeared in the Ordovician. excellent fossil record. so, lots to learn. #mudlarking #fossilhunting

found this on the Thames foreshore last week. thought it might be a piece of fossilised echinoid (sea urchin) spine. ID now confirmed: it’s from a cidarid echinoid. temnocidaris. an extinct genus that lived from the Late Cretaceous to the Paleocene. #mudlarking #fossilhunting

So, 6 hours on Barton beach, and these are the ~40 million year old sand tiger shark teeth I collected. The first image is of the teeth with little weathering, and the second adds those in poorer condition. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed today, exhausted now though 😅

I have to remind myself that, in terms of the span of time, these shark lived closer to the dinosaurs than to us.

#fossils #FossilHunting #Eocene #SharkTeeth #DeepTime #geology

#FieldWork can be fun on #FieldworkFriday

Hunting for #fossils on Florida's Peace River. The Peace River is one of #Florida's oldest "wild" rivers that cuts through old growth cypress swamps. There are rich Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene fossil deposits.

Here we are sifting for fossils in the river. We reach the sites by kayak. It can be a lot of fun on a sunny day. Fossil finds include everything from small shark teeth to big mammoth tusks (rarely).

#Paleontology #FossilHunting

For #FossilFriday, I present this fossil raccoon skull.

This example is Procyon Lotor and is dated to the #Pleistocene period approx. 12,000 to 2,500,000 years ago.

It was recovered by me from the Peace River in #Florida's Bone Valley Formation.

From the Galactic Stone & Ironworks collection. Not for sale.

#Paleontology #BoneValley #Fossil #Fossils #FossilHunting #Raccoon

#FossilFridays #FossilHunting #BeachCombing #NovaScotia

We found this one on a tidal beach in the 1980s. Can anyone help me with the identification?

(glasses for scale 😂 )

#paleontology

#introduction time! Hello all, my name is Erin and I am a not-yet-published writer (novels, novellas, and short stories with folkloric and gothic elements) and an artist (mixed media, mostly portraits).

Looking forward to connecting with the #writingcommunity and other folks here!

Some interests not listed in my bio include #SlavicStudies #FurnitureRefinishing #FossilHunting #Foraging #SustainableLiving and #HavingCrushesOnDeadActors though none of those hashtags seem particularly popular. ;p

A combo toot for #FieldPhotoFriday and #FossilFriday (1/2)

These show my stepson and I searching large spoil piles at a construction site in #Florida's Bone Valley Formation.

The piles shown are entirely #Miocene and #Pliocene fossils - mostly seashells, along with some corals, shark teeth, and cetacean bone bits. These piles were 10m high in some places and quite unstable - caution was required.

We found some really nice specimens.

#Paleontology #Fossils #FossilHunting

A combo toot for #FieldPhotoFriday and #FossilFriday (1/2)

These show my stepson and I searching large spoil piles at a construction site in #Florida's Bone Valley Formation.

The piles shown are entirely #Miocene and #Pliocene fossils - mostly seashells, along with some corals, shark teeth, and cetacean bone bits. These piles were 10m high in some places and quite unstable - caution was required.

We found some really nice specimens.

#Paleontology #Fossils #FossilHunting

I've finished cleaning my #Carboniferous (#Stephanian) fossils today. I haven't spent much time trying to identify them yet, but they are mostly ferns and calamites : Odontopteris, Pecopteris, Asterophyllites, Annularia...

#fossil #fossilhunting