belemnite
UKAFH visit to King’s Dyke Nature Reserve, Sunday 19th August
On 19th August UKAFH visited King’s Dyke Nature Reserve at Whittlesey near Peterborough. This highly productive, family-friendly location is always a popular hunt and places quickly filled up so we had a full house of 35 with leaders Aidan Philpott and Sam Caethoven.
The geology of the location consists the Peterborough Member of the Oxford Clay Formation, representing the middle Jurassic period of circa 180 million years ago. The clay is quarried for brick making but a spoil heap is provided in a designated area for fossil hunting and it was to this area we were destined today.
We were fortunate to enjoy warm but overcast weather, making hunting comfortable and dry. We kitted up we headed down to the dedicated fossil-hunting area where Aidan gave the group an introduction to the fossils that can be found. The commonest finds are ammonites (especially Kosmoceras), belemnites (especially Hibolithes) and gryphaea, an oyster often called “Devil’s toenail” because of their curled, scaly appearance. However marine reptiles have also been commonly found in the quarry as well as teeth and bones from fish including the ray-finned Leedsichthys, probably the largest fish ever to have lived. An abundance of bivalves and brachiopods can also be found.
The location has an enormous quantity of fossils available and they are very easy to find, making it equally perfect for beginners who want to take home a treasure or two and for old hands who want to find something special, be it a bone, fish remains or a particularly large, complete or well-preserved specimen. The clay is easy to dig into and split so it is never a question of finding fossils; rather of narrowing down the large volume of finds into “keepers”. Soon we had good finds turning up, including calcite Kosmoceras ammonites, plenty of belemnite sections and an abundance of gryphaea.
Although on this occasion no-one was fortunate enough to find any reptile bone, a Hybodus sp. shark tooth was found by Silas Shaul – the first I’ve personally encountered from this site. Well done Silas! Some sharp-eyed hunters like Billy Currie found small fish scales, bones and vertebrae and Tracey Herod found a beautifully preserved calcite-filled gastropod with its aragonite shell still in place.
As events drew to a close we received many kind remarks from attendees who commented on how they had enjoyed their day and were pleased with their finds. We always love to hear your comments and see pictures of your finds, whether from one of our hunts or your own forays so please do share your news on our website and facebook pages! Also please do sign up to our mailing list or keep an eye out on our website for forthcoming 2019 hunts which will be published soon.
Sam Caethoven
UKAFH visit Seatown, 10th September 2017
On September the 10th, (which was a very blustery day) UKAFH set off on a hunt towards Golden Cap from Seatown.
In the right scouring conditions when the ledges are uncovered from the shingle, Seatown beach can be incredibly productive with the Belemnite Marls exposed – bringing out countless iron pyrite ammonites, crinoid stems and belemnites. Unfortunately, despite the gale that was blowing, the ledges remained covered.
We worked along the landslips on route to Golden Cap. The slips can produce green nodules (named because of the green calcite that makes up the preservation of the ammonites within). which contain many different ammonites, occasionally bivalves and very occasionally marine reptile remains. Within these nodule beds it is also possible to find parts of ammonites which have not been preserved within a nodule have been partially preserved. Many partially crushed Androgynoceras ammonites were found by members of the group, along with plenty of belemnites.
Once the group reached Golden Cap, we explored a little around the exposed Belemnite Marls and the landslips on the Seatown side (any further round, the wind became far too strong!). More belemnites and Androgynoceras ammonites were found. Despite the weather some great fossils were found!
Thanks to all who came along to Seatown and we hope you enjoyed the experience of
Photos from UKAFH’s fossil hunt at King’s Dyke Nature Reserve, Sunday 13th August
UKAFH King’s Dyke Nature Reserve Fossil Hunt on 2nd July 2017
The 2nd July was a momentous day in UKAFH history being the last hunt that founder Craig Chapman would lead before stepping down from leadership duties and we were very hopeful it would be a good hunt. We weren’t disappointed!
I had only been to King’s Dyke once before on a blisteringly hot day and got quite pink in the sun! So I was relieved that there was some cloud cover and we didn’t have to worry about people getting sunburnt.
The hunt was very well attended with about 30 or so people eager to pick through the clay in search of ancient treasure. I must thank the quarry owners for having refilled the area the day before giving us 2 large areas of fresh clay to pick through. After a brief introduction at the identification board we headed up to the smaller heap just up the hill and the hunt was on!
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- Large ammonites
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- Typical King’s Dyke ammonites
One of the best features of this locality is that is suitable for all the family and is productive enough that hunters are guaranteed to go home with something, and everyone who wanted one of the plentiful (and beautiful) flat ammonites found at least one. Belemnites are also very common and range in size from a few centimetres to several inches (sorry about mixing metric and imperial!) The largest complete ones are not to be found everywhere and are quite the prize and I was lucky enough to find a couple of beauties. James found the biggest most complete one and was justifiably delighted with it!
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- James and an enormous belemnite
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- Unusually well preserved ammonite
After about an hour or so at the secondary heap we headed down into the main larger fossil hunting area where we were hoping to find some of the other things that can be found from this section of the Jurassic. Fish, crocodiles, ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs are all known from here but are not common and are a major highlight if you are lucky enough to spot them. Between us we found 5 Lepidotes fish scales and even a couple of fish coprolites.
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- Lepidotes scale
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- Fish coprolite
I am deliberately leaving the best till last, and chronologically they were found last, all within the last 30 minutes of our time hunting. It wouldn’t have been a proper UKAFH hunt in the Jurassic without Craig finding a vertebra and he duly obliged with a lovely ichthyosaur vertebra. I chipped in with 20 minutes to go with my most spectacular UK find – a plesiosaur vert which truly made my day. Then just as we were packing up, a random family who weren’t even part of our group arrived and the young man hunting with his Mum and sisters found a “weird belemnite” that we were not at all jealous to identify as a plesiosaur tooth! They were on their first ever fossil hunt so I shamelessly plugged UKAFH as a great group to join!! Maybe we’ll see them again on a hunt another time, who knows.
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- Chris’s plesiosaur vertebra
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- Plesiosaur tooth
Either way it was a great day and the feedback was very positive. Thanks again to the quarry owners for the fresh clay to hunt through and I look forward to hunting there again next month with a new group.
Chris Tait
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- Craig’s ichthyosaur vertebra (of course!)
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- Craig – we love you! THANK YOU FOR GIVING US UKAFH xx