Gallery
These photos are from my Instagram feed and get updated every week.
I found another section of what I suspect is part of a cetacean skull. I have another very similar concretion which had a section of squamosal and an earbone in it, hopefully this one does too! Some very dense bone in there for sure. I'm not sure if that is a bit of earbone peeking out in the one photo. I'll have to go back as there are 3 other pieces of it as well 😆
Look what I found hiding in amongst the rocks, I thinks its a tiny Metacarcinus novaezelandiae crab. Just the claws are exposed and a tiny bit of the carapace so it should be a beauty once prepped.
I stopped at one of the local rivers on the way home and found a couple of fossils and a bit of jasper looking rock. First photo is some petrified wood with very nice grain visible. Second photo is some jasper I'll cut. Third photo is a bit of worn Waiparaconus thats tumbled down the river. There is still a debate whether this is a barnacle.
Beautiful day for a fossil hunt! You can't beat a crisp Canterbury winter's day ❄ Swipe to see a mystery crab that I found, it will need some prepping to figure out what species it is 😃 hopefully one of the more rare ones 🤞
Edit: looks like it is Megascyliorhinus cooperi I saw this tiny bit of shininess in the cliff today and was hoping it would be a shark tooth. I carefully removed a circular section of siltstone after putting some consolidant (B72 paraloid) on it. Luckily I did as it had a nasty crack running through the one side of the root. Back home this evening I removed the siltstone with a toothpick and water and exposed a beautiful shark tooth! Have a look at under 6x magnification, its a beauty! The tip is see through and still sharp as the day it got lost. It's around 12-million-years-old, mid-Miocene from New Zealand. Let me know if you recognize the species!
I stumbled across this beautiful piece of petrified wood on the weekend, my first piece in ages! It has some nice dark, agatized sections as well 😀 Im not sure of the age or species as I was exploring a new area.
Update: might be something like a Protosphyraena rostrum 😃🐟 A quick fossil prep of a bit of Cretaceous bone this evening. I thought it was a bit of rib at first but the taper doesn't look quite right 🤔 Let me know if you recognize it. The cross section shows some really thick walls as well.
A chunky bone block I found today while I was out exploring a new area a bit more south of me. Not sure of the age but I'm 90% sure it's late Miocene or younger. Perhaps cetacean bones?
A beautiful fossil I found earlier today hiding amongst some rocks 😀 It's a nautiloid, unsure of the exact species but the chambers are beautifully exposed. The body of the nautiloid occupies the last chamber, the living chamber. Often I find the chambers of the fossil ones I find are filled with calcite crystals. Swipe to see it's living relative, the nautilus. #
Im just about ready to give my air abrasion setup a go! Just a bit of plumbing still to do and then it's ready to rock. I've gone with the Vaniman Problast and I'm going to start with the softest media until I find something that works well for the fossils we find here. Between the air scribe, acid and air abrasion I should be able to tackle some of the trickier fossils 🤞 First up is this bone cluster that just won't play nicely with the acid.
Big fossil whale bone! 🐋 The rain was too heavy for a fossil hunt but still managed to get a bit of whale skull! This was dredged up from 1000m deep and is fully fossilized. It was dropped off today by Pete and is in great condition! It measures 700mm in length and is very solid. Some cool foramen and other features are visible, I'll have to try and figure out what their proper names are. It doesnt look to have suffered much bioerosion which sometimes happen with these bones from the depths. Bioerosion in bone is when organisms start breaking it down which leads to a loss of detail. Thanks for the amazing gift Pete! Edit: looks like its a beaked whale 🤩🤩🤩
First cut with my lapidary saw I have been fixing up. Super smooth cut! It should polish up really easily! Its amazing how solidly built this little 10" saw is. It has a power feed which gives a really consistent finish. I have some petrified wood I've been wanting to cut as well as a couple of damaged nautiloids 🤞
Swipe to see the end result... my first cetacean tooth and its a chunky one! I found it exploring one day but it was too fragile to remove so I came back with some consolidant to strengthen it. Age wise, I think it is Oligocene. As for the species, I'm not sure 🤔 maybe someone out there knows? It has two cusps on the one side, but none on the other. I donated it to Te Papa and will update as soon as they come back with some more info.
I don't often find shark teeth so every one gets me excited, even if the root is broken 😆 this one had fallen into a tiny crevice and I happened to spot it as I walked past. Not sure on the species at all.
A beautiful piece of petrified wood still in the rock matrix 🤩 it might be as old as Cretaceous, I'm a bit unsure of the area still. It extends about 20cm into the rock and I managed to get it home. I'll be sending it to someone at Otago Uni that is studying South Island petrified wood if he will have it 😄
Beautiful nautiloid chambers 🤩 they look to be filled with calcite or some other mineral and there is still quite a bit of shine to the shell. I've tried prepping one of these before and it was a real challenge as the shell was quite broken. I had to consolidate it every step of the way 😀
A big section of whale skull and ear bone I found yesterday 🐳 its a beautiful piece of bone, smooth and dense. I'll get someone from the museum to take a look at it in case its something they are interested in.
A very smooth chalcedony pebble I found in the mountains of South Canterbury, maybe a gastrolith from a bird such as a Moa 🤔 All the other rocks in the area were jagged and unrounded so this one really stood out.
Tooth or claw? I found a large bone cluster that I managed to get home with the help of @paleo_craig and found what looks like a tooth or claw next to some of the exposed bone. Does it look familiar to anyone? Its a mid-Miocene ocean deposit.
A few nice bits of petrified wood I found today, it only took me 5 hours of searching 😆 The wood has been replaced by silica and it will take a really good polish. I was hoping to find a complete round today but wasn't to be. It was a great day of exploring and scratching around 😀