Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,455
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Post by Sabre52 on May 19, 2009 9:35:59 GMT -5
Howdy folks, Was out hiking yesterday and checked out a caliche pit here on the ranch. We've had quite a bit of rain so I wanted to see if any fossils were exposed and quite a few were. Here are just a few pics of some of the stuff exposed from the early Cretaceous Walnut Formation: Oysters everywhere: Oyster close up: Small gastropod in situ: Texas heart clam: I spotted a hump in the dirt and kicked up one of those huge 6" Lunista sp. snails with my toe: The large and the small. The small snial is about 1" long:
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Post by johnjsgems on May 19, 2009 13:43:41 GMT -5
Mel, why do you get so many fossils and just a few miles away (Henly ,7 miles West of downtown Dripping Springs) all I have is limestone, limestone, and more limestone?
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,455
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Post by Sabre52 on May 19, 2009 14:01:02 GMT -5
Boy John, you must not be looking hard enough. Watch for the flaky yellow/buffy looking limestones of the Walnut or Glen Rose formations. The wife and I took a drive down to Boerne,then up to Luckenbach the other day and every roadcut was loaded with fossils. Same way all around Kerrville. Even found a pile of fossils in the roadcut behind my dentists office in town. It's actually hard to find limestone without fossils so you must be not looking carefully enough. My Texas roadside geology book says check out for a quarry wall exposure on the north side of 290 in Dripping Springs and that the whole stretch of 290 from Oak Hill to Johnson City cuts through Glen Rose rocks. Anywhere you see Glen Rose limstones there's a pile of fossils...Mel
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Post by NatureNut on May 19, 2009 14:13:36 GMT -5
Mel, that is too cool. Looks like it's time for a clambake with an escargot appetizer in Texas!
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wyobrian
fully equipped rock polisher
GO VIKINGS
Member since February 2009
Posts: 1,739
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Post by wyobrian on May 19, 2009 14:34:20 GMT -5
cool finds i need to do a little fossil hunt Brian
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Slydog
has rocks in the head
Member since February 2006
Posts: 555
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Post by Slydog on May 19, 2009 14:39:09 GMT -5
Mel, I don't know where you are going to go when you die because you are already in heaven! I just can't believe the fossils, rocks, and animals you've ben showing us, awesome, all of it. Looks like heaven to me!!!!! Nona
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Post by 150FromFundy on May 19, 2009 20:35:06 GMT -5
You make fossil hunting look pretty easy. I'm guessing the rain necessary to expose new material limits how oftern you get to do it.
150FromFundy
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Sabre52
Cave Dweller
Me and my gal, Rosie
Member since August 2005
Posts: 20,455
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Post by Sabre52 on May 19, 2009 20:47:58 GMT -5
Fundy: Not really. You can always dig in the proper formation, walk the stream beds where water is always at work, or work the hundreds of roadcuts in this area. Millions of years of erosion coupled with human activity has really exposed a lot of material in this area.....Mel
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Post by johnjsgems on May 20, 2009 7:12:37 GMT -5
Thanks Mel, I'll keep looking.
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Post by texaswoodie on May 20, 2009 7:28:59 GMT -5
Nice trip Mel! I'm not real crazy about limestone fossils. Takes too much work to get them purdy. ;D You need to come up this way and we'll go out and find some Mosasaur stuff. Curt
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49er
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since February 2008
Posts: 753
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Post by 49er on May 23, 2009 0:13:03 GMT -5
Very interesting finds. Nice
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adrian65
Cave Dweller
Arch to golden memories and to great friends.
Member since February 2007
Posts: 10,774
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Post by adrian65 on Jun 10, 2009 14:19:11 GMT -5
Very nice snails. I simply cannot leave a well preserved fossil snail on the ground, no matter how many I already have.
Adrian
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