crab
UKAFH field trip to Folkestone Sunday 6th October 2019
Another week another hunt! Great stuff! This week we were visiting the late Cretaceous deposits of the Gault Clay and Lower Greensands at Folkestone, Kent. The geology at Folkestone is Albian age, between 90 and 112 million years old. Although there are chalk exposures east of Folkestone, our focus today was west from the beach entrance at the Warren heading towards Copt Point.
We assembled in a quiet residential street (I think the locals have got used to our occasional assemblies of yellow jacketed, hard had wearing groups!) and Sam gave a superb talk with some great show and tell fossils. The rocks at Folkestone we’re formed in a shallow marine environment so the fossils include molluscs such as ammonites, belemnites snd bivalves as well as corals, sharks and other fish, urchins, turtle and occasional marine reptile remains. However the seasonal dryness in the locality is evidenced by scarce dinosaur footprints. Many fossils are exceptionally preserved, retaining original shell preservation, due to the soft and highly anaerobic clay which preserves aragonite and calcite shells in beautiful, iridescent colour. Chris, our leader on the day, briefed the group on the locality and a couple of health and safety messages and we headed down to the beach carefully, then heading West from the chalk to what we hoped would be much exposed clay.
We totally beat the weather forecast, with many of us stripping off the full waterproofs for much of the excursion, and got away with only a couple of showers. Unfortunately we could not contend with the abundance of sand covering a lot of the clay so a chunk of the areas we are used to hunting were covered. This did not mean it was an unproductive hunt though and more than I was expecting was found! Yay!
The first fossils encountered were from the freshly slipped clay. The colourful shells of the bivalves within were evident but were too fragile to collect and we also found an unusual number of equally fragile heart-shaped urchins.
A very large and exceptionally well preserved shark tooth was found by Jo and Isabel and Peter Bines continued his hot streak, finding a little tooth that would have gone unfound without his persistent sieving efforts as well as part of a chimaeroid fish tooth palate which has a distinctive spotted texture and can be found in both the Gault clay and Greensand.
Suzanne, a first time guest was pleased to find some iridescent ammonite sections and see the beautiful but fragile bivalves which look gorgeous on the beach but have a short shelf life once exposed. Meanwhile Louie Fleckley found some beautiful complete ammonites!
Other finds on the day included crinoid stems, a fish vertebra, a solitary coral, many ammonites and ammonite fragments including sections of heteromorph (irregular/uncoiled) ammonites which are unusual but quite common at Folkestone and yet another great find from hawk-eyed Peter who found a beautiful small crab carapace.
Everyone had a fun time and it was absolutely lovely to wander up to Sam and hear that our youngest guest of the day Louie wanted to tell her before he went home that he had a great time and thought we were all lovely! Thanks for the great feedback and that is exactly why we do this. We love to encourage and inspire and share our love for fossils!
Roll on the next hunt!
Chris Tait
Fossil Hunt at Isle of Sheppey, 12th Nov 2017
On Sunday 12th November UKAFH met in Warden, a small town on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent for the last UKAFH fossil hunt of the year.
Along the East coast of Sheppey is the largest exposure of London clay in the UK stretching over 6km from Warden to Minster on Sea. The London clay is a marine deposit roughly 52 million years old at this location, of the Eocene epoch. The fine sediment was deposited in a fairly deep, warm and placid sea which was relatively close to land – evident in the abundance of wood and plant remains and occasional but rarely terrestrial birds, mammals and reptiles.
After a fantastic explanation of the local geology and palaeontology by Sam Caethoven and a show and tell of some exceptional specimens by Eliott Mills, we were off in search of fossils!
We were bombarded by a strong, bitterly cold arctic wind but fortunately it was not long before we made some great finds. Lucy was first off the mark with a beautiful shark vertebra, found just a few hundred yards from the carpark. Gastropods, bivalves, nipa fruit and shark teeth were all found within a short time on the beach. We soon headed further north along the beach, staying clear of the tall clay cliffs which are particularly dangerous at the moment as large clay blocks are falling frequently – The site is prone to extreme erosion, most evident by the world war two pill boxes which once sat atop the cliffs but are now haphazardly strewn on the beach in front of us. Beyond the pill boxes, the great finds just kept coming. Numerous crab specimens in phosphatic nodules were collected, some of which were exquisitely well preserved. Shark teeth, ray teeth and fish vertebra were also abundant. Eliott Mills made the exceptionally rare discovery of a leaf preserved in clay.
The relentless biting winds made hunting tough, but we endured and were rewarded for our hardy nature. Thank you to everyone who attended, it was a great day and I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed yourselves!
See you all again in the New Year!!