Hey everyone, today Nancy and I are at Partidge Point right near Alpena, Michigan
where we live
and
Nancy
doesn't remember ever being here before
I've seen the videos
they're great, you should watch some of them
so anyhow, we're going to look for fossils today
it's finally a nice day, it's 60 degrees, I'm wearing a sweatshirt but it might
come off, because it finally feels like spring here
(Nancy) so I started out along the shore a little bit, and
found this kind of nice little coral fossil here
but it's catch and release day, so
it's being released
but let's go over here and see what Rob's up to
he's doing a little more in-depth digging
I'm trying something new
I'm trying a technique I learned from WildKyle and Paleo Chris when I was way
down there this winter
they use a sifter, and so
there's all these big rocks on the top, and I always move those and put them
back when I'm done, but I get down to the smaller stuff
and I'm just going to scoop this into here
(Nancy) this is where we insert the note that you forgot to bring a shovel, which
might've been handy here
eh, I don't know if the shovel would've worked that well actually
but yeah that was the plan
so then I'm going to sift it into here, get rid of the sand
and then
got a little cleaner fossils to work with here, or rocks
it'll be a lot of fossils in there
so I'm going to
see if this method works any better
I'll let you know if I find anything
so one of the most common things to find on this beach is a crinoid stem
a crinoid is an animal that looked kind of like a plant, it's got like a long stem
and on the top it's got a head called a calyx
the calyx is what I really like to find, I don't find very many of them
but uh
we'll find other things here, brachiopods
here's a little crinoid stem
there's some corals here
something called bryozoan
and I'm not seeing that much in here except for a few crinoid stems so far
another crinoid stem
(Nancy) okay, just over here and
came across this pretty cool
fossil
obviously some fun coral going on there
if you flip it over you can
see the structure of the
branches on the back
and we'll leave that here
for the next
few hundred million years again
also finding lots of crinoid stems, I'm sure Rob is finding those in his sifting over there
and
he mentioned taking his sweatshirt off because it was such a nice day, I think
the wind shifted and it dropped about 20 degrees and got windy, so
but we're out here and going to be tough for you guys, so
stay tuned
(Rob) Nancy found something
(Nancy) nice branching coral (Rob) oh that's neat
(Nancy) nothing on the other side
(Rob) oh that's really cool looking
(Rob) just in this one little spot I knelt down
and found all those crinoid stems
they're kind of thick around here
that's what you find more than just about anything
so Nancy's strategy and my strategy have been different, I've been digging in the
ground more, and she's been looking for surface things
I think she didn't want to break a nail (laughs)
I'm not that kind of person
anyway, just found this one which I thought had some interesting patterns to it
(Rob) yeah, can't say what kind of coral that is
(Nancy) and then this one required
a lot of work
because it was out in the icy cold waters, even though it's not really ice, but it-
it felt really really cold
and part of it was sticking up
so I thought oh, I'll pick that up, but then it was like buried, so I had to try to
unearth it while digging in the icy cold waters, and
then I wasn't sure if it was part of the bedrock, but it did come out, so
very nice size - kind of ignore this part, but very nice size horn coral
(Rob) That's-that's a big one
that's really cool
(Nancy) so that was the one I had to work the hardest for today I guess
(Rob) there's something I didn't expect to find
I'm pretty sure that's banded iron formation
it's tiny
(Rob) ooh
that's a crinoid head
(Nancy) you can see like a little
stuff coming out the sides there
and I have one more
(Rob) ooh, another crinoid head, you're doing great
(Nancy) I thought you'd like it
(Rob) what's the other side look like?
(Nancy) Thought I'd get the stamp of approval (Rob) yes
very good
hey, it's about a week later, and a whole lot colder
we woke up to snow yesterday, it's mostly melted today, but it's still really
really cold
when I was here last time with Nancy about a week ago, I tried a new microphone
setup, and it did not work with the wind at all, so
I'm going to try to salvage what I can of that video and mix in some new stuff
today, and hopefully you guys don't mind too much
here's a decent sized horn coral
not as big as Nancy found, but
it's kind of cool looking
some sort of a coral fossil here
you can see where it grows out from kind of a center spot there it looks like
another coral of some sort
you can see out in the water the bedrock that's breaking up
that's where all these fossils are coming from
that whole area in front of me right there it was all under water last year
when Nancy and I were here I looked it over pretty well, I didn't find too much
out there
another interesting thing is that there's
a lot of iron in the water right here
just in this one little section of beach
it's kind of interesting that you don't find very many Petoskey stones here
I did find one the other day when I was here
it was out in the water there
but you don't typically find a lot of Petoskey stones
Petoskeys are from the Devonian period, and so are the rest of these
fossils, so I don't really know why they're in some places and not others
there's different formations, so I guess they're probably from
little slightly different layers
still cold
there's a coral
and I believe that's a horn coral
pretty big one
(geese honking)
not sure what that is, but
some sort of a big coral-y type of thing
out here in the water, it's
much bigger than what we've been finding
this is zebra mussel, which is an invasive species
but that is
a brachiopod
which is very old
another crinoid stem
you can see there's just stuff all over the place here
there's a crinoid stem
right in the middle
here's a little disc from a crinoid right
there
another thing that's very common on this beach are death plates
where you just get these
bunch of fossils, just kind of all stuck together in a big rock
there's a lot of those here
I'd almost go as far as to say that most of the rocks here are like that
really cool stuff
some are more plain, sometimes you flip them over and there's something on
the back
I've been just digging in one little area here, I haven't moved, and
you can just see the- all the crinoid stems I found
there's a little itty bitty
brachiopod right there
that's a bryozoan
and so is this
and
a little bigger brachiopod there
that's kind of a cool looking fossil there
look at that one
that's kind of neat, I guess that's a crinoid stem, it's a really little one
here's a couple cool death plates
lots of crinoid
bits and pieces
digging another hole, just found these crinoid stems in this one
and
that
which I believe is a bryozoan again
I decided not to
bring the gold classifier back, that sifter thing I had last time, it's
a gold classifier
that was a
1/8th inch classifier
and really all that took out is the sand
I need to take out some more of these little tiny rocks, so
quarter inch would be a better size for here
I love it when they have those little branches coming off of them
check this one out
look at that
that's really cool
whole bunch of zebra mussel shells here
but look at this
I'm pretty sure that's a bryozoan
which is a moss animal
and I don't know any more than that
that is part of a crinoid calyx
which lis like the head of the crinoid
they have these really geometric patterns on them sometimes
friend of mine found one this spring that's just amazing
that's cool, look at that area right there
it's got a branching thing coming out there
never seen something like that
these death plates are just so much fun to look at
just like, you can just imagine the
stuff all settling down to the bottom of the
sea
there it is
350 million years later
look at that
horn coral in there
been digging around here, and found a couple really nice little brachiopods
there's not as many of these as there are some other places I know around here
but there's a few
I thought those two were pretty nice
here's my latest finds
crinoid stem
and brachiopod
little brachiopod and this crinoid
has something going on there
I imagine that's
where it goes into the calyx, or the head of it
but I'm not 100% sure, different anyhow
and
that is a crinoid
disc right there
if I can get it to focus
it's got little spikes on it
it's kind of cool
you may have noticed that there's an island offshore here
it's called Sulfur Island
I went out there in my kayak a few years ago
and there's completely different rocks out there
no sulfur that I could smell or see
but uh, really really neat stuff, so
click on that video and I'll see you over there