As scary as the name sounds (I have no idea of what it means, but the words sound ominous), the only frightening thing was the size of it.
(And that bit continues below!)
(We went to a few other sites, but this exposure was the main part, and where all fossils were found, so I will only retell our adventures here.)
I have been very unproductive in terms of blogging of late, simply because I really need to do more schoolwork now than ever before, plus search for and arrange accomodation for next year, prepare for the one-week field session we are having during the break, and begin to plan my summer (work, rehabilitation exercise for my bad knees, and I want to bring some friends from Bristol over), and do not forget the scientific method post I am working on (which seems like it will be massive, so I am considering cutting it into pieces and publishing them one at a time instead of the whole thing when it is all finished...)!
(However, I am intending to resurge my blogging soon, and especially include more discussions around material from our classes. I have a few ideas that could be of interest! Hopefully, it will bring a new dimension to this blog. I will also try to resume the PalQuizes.)
So, for this fieldtrip, I will actually dismember the narrative to focus on the fossils only. (Really, they were the only fascinating bit: the rest fell pale, especially since, typically, that day was like the coldest day of the year!)
Some fossils were large and clearly visible from far away.
There are some clear echinoderms – starfish, to be precise – and a few indeterminate worm-like creatures I have never seen before, so it was quite fun to see something new.
We found plenty of crinoids in the exposure wall (though the first one could perhaps be a rugose coral...).
A really nice impression of a stalk plate:
Another impression, this time of the side of the stalk, showing the contours of several plates:
There were also plenty of rugose corals.
The last one is adorable! I think it was Nigel who found it. He finds all the nice ones, so it probably was. *grumble*
However, I did made one rather amazing find. We were told that there would basically only be crinoids and rugose corals here, and indeed, it seemed so...
*TAH-DAM-DAM-DAAAM*
... until I saw this:
Some form of shelled creature, most likely a brachiopod impression from the side. The top part would be its dorsal shell (upper shell) and the bottom its ventral shell (bottom shell), which is larger. In life, it would sit on the seabed on a fleshy stalk sticking out from the tip you can see on top right there, and it would sit upside down – i.e. with its ventral shell upward – and stick out a tentacly tongue-like structure from its other end (bottom left) to filter food particles from the water.
Brachiopods are one of my favourite invertebrate fossil groups, and this is one of the finest specimens I have seen in the field. A really successful day after all!
We also found plenty of fossils to bring back home, and I will show them in another post.
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