This
month, BPS members headed to Montgomery county to collect in the
late Cretaceous. Another beautiful day for being in the
woods,
and playing in a creek. This year, the creek was down, way
down,
so moving from shore to shore was much easier than our last
trip.
A number of nice echinoids and ammonites were found, a variety of
shells including gastropods, and a few shark teeth. Most of
the
ammonites at this site are not collectible due to their fragile
nature. Later in the day, members headed south to another
creek
for more collecting.
A few of the diehards ended up at "The Swamp", a
really cool
"hamburger joint" on the Alabama river in Selma. The owner is
an
engineer and designed the building to "float" when the river
rises. Normal water level is about 80 feet, and in their 1st
year
of business it rose to about 120 feet - the restaurant floated!
(Pictures
courtesy Dr. Jan
Novak
and Vicki Lais.)
View of the echinoids, in matrix. Many of them are weathered out, and can be found where the water has washed them into the numerous holes in the shoreline.
Ammonite in matrix. Most of these cannot be removed as they easily break into small rubble.
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