Tuesday, 8 October 2002
Monthly Meeting of the Essex Rock & Mineral Society
Fossil Collecting in Russia by David Ward
Notes: R Coleman
The talk given by David covered and summarized the events and conditions of three collecting expeditions from fluvial deposits located at a remote spot in Uzbekistan.
David started by explaining all the procedures for first gaining permission for accompanying the expeditions. Interestingly in Russia, palaeontology is headed by the Zoology faculty and not Geology.
Once all the necessary paperwork had been obtained, the team departed to the remote destination, pausing in Samarkand for supplies. Their base camp was located at what seemed a desert with nearby hills/mountain complex. David showed a few pictures of the local wildlife, a rather charming sand squirrel and carrier of bubonic plague plus the usual flees. The excavation quarry was located about a one hour walk (up hill) away. The choice of camp site was such that it could be served by water tanker on a regular basis, and should things go seriously wrong, the possibility of "walking out" from this location remained an option. David explained that it was usual to have at least two vehicles, however the team only had one, owned and driven by a Russian with the belief he could drive anywhere. The tale of being pulled out by a bulldozer on a previous visit, and how many bottles of spirit it cost, were amusing, especially the picture taken of the same bulldozer, now an abandoned wreckage in the middle of nowhere.
The collecting conditions were formidable with daytime temperatures averaging 105 F and on occasion going much higher. At times it became too hot and David then ordered that work must cease to avoid casualties from heat stroke. The team excavated and sieved approximately two tonnes of sediments per day. These fluvial deposits were from a braided river complex (a relatively straight river split by numerous sandbars into several channels) of Late Cretaceous age and rather surprisingly they found fossil sharks' teeth. The reason for this was soon evident, the teeth had been eroded from marine deposits exposed above their quarry.
The real aim of the expedition was to search for small mammal fossil bones. Their efforts recovered mammal bones from two groups of animals, one group akin to rats & rabbits, the other group being Ungulotes (Spelling? Animals that gallop, small deer?). The age for this Cretaceous site was dated at between 85 to 88 million years ago, some 17 to 20 million years before the KT event and the final extinction of the Dinosaurs.
It was an excellent lecture, much of which has been left unreported as David's work is still continuing. Our sincere thanks to David Ward for stepping in at the last minute to replace our scheduled talk.
One other interesting aside, on the technology front, was the equipment used to project the digital pictures stored on a laptop computer and coupled to a digital projector. Typical flash stuff of the future is what I've come to expect of Rick Johnson. It was good, especially the even colour/brightness balance of the digitally reprocessed pictures. (Someone has a big bucks IT budget? Jealous? Not half!)
Members' finds on display:
Jon and Ursula Deith brought in their collection of the more unusual finds from the Naze. (Walton)
Just vertebra, (probably shark but don't quote me).
Look again, once articulated, very unusual!
Note the matrix, similar to Sheppey!
The specimen pictured looks as though it was collected from the London Clay foreshore
Crab
carapace (probably Zanthopsis lechi)
(Whilst photographing these specimen, one person (gender and name will remain unsaid) came over, she picked up the specimen I had just focused on, twiddled it around, uttered those immortal words, "if only someone would show us what to look for".
I hope the point is not lost in these pictures?)
A small piece of fossil Lobster! Another London Clay specimen from the
Naze.
(The trick to finding specimens of note is to stop talking endlessly about nothing! Get down on your hands a knees, pick up anything unusual and then only speak when you want to ask what it may be, you might learn something then! Don't just come to meetings, mishandle or even worse drop someone's prized rare find and put it down again, WITHOUT EVEN ASKING WHAT IT IS. I know you don't know. Annoyed, you bet!)
Displayed
here is an echinoid (sea urchin) the species looks like an Echinocorys.
It is quite heavy and probably flint! An example of a derived fossil from
the Cretaceous? Amazing what turns up at the Naze!
Ursula
and John had a fine assortment of fossil Whale bone from the foreshore.
However this piece (broken to the right of picture) is an ear bone, a
large one!
You can see lots of these in a certain museum, collected in Victorian times, but today they are a rare find.
Another
Whale ear bone! How lucky can you get? This specimen is complete but a
lot smaller than the one above!
Very many thanks to Ursula & Jon for bringing in these specimens, again, to be photographed, and to Bob Williams for reminding me to ask U & J.
These are uncommon finds for the Naze, and the hope is that these pictures will give you that "edge" to find similar specimens for yourself on the next club visit!
Isle of White:
Did the trip happen? YES. The weather wasn't bad, but the results were bleak indeed. Perhaps a disappointment to some? However, David Turner was there and brought in a fine selection of photographs of the trip for club members to view. Seems like some where having fun and almost losing their heads! As for Dinosaur bits none were found.
David did bring to the meeting a small collection of fossil bones he found a few days earlier on the island before the official trip.
Astralagus
(ankle bone) of Anthracothere, a pig like mammal.
Period: Oligocene
Location: Hamstead I.o.W. 13/09/2002
Anthracothere
teeth
Period: Oligocene
Hamstead I.o.W.
Alligator tooth.
Diplocynadon Hantoniensis
Hamstead I.o.W. 13/09/2002
Amongst the collection was also some turtle bone from the same period.
A big thank you to David Turner for bringing in the collection for us to view, added another dimension to the Isle of White fossil record for me!
It would seem that collecting from another period than the Dinosaur era seems to produce interesting results. Worthy of investigation in addition to the normal (tourist) dinosaur hunts next time, perhaps?
(Note: all dimensions are very approximate)
(Optimised for printing in A4 format with all margins set to 10mm)
All pictures & text © Roger Coleman, 2 November 2002