Fantastic Fossils!

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Last year we were asked to process a membership application from a person who lives in Australia (our previous record distance for a member was Germany). His name is Nathan Enriquez and he is a palaeontology student. He was due to come over to the UK at Christmas, and was keen to visit Kings Dyke. He visit was a couple of weeks after the clay was turned over.

He e-mailed us with some photographs and made the following comments. Hopefully of interest!

“The first photo is a section of rib within the clay. For the two smaller bones, the black piece has the shape and texture of an ichthyosaur rostrum fragment and I have tentatively identified it as such (probably Ophthalmosaurus). The lighter piece is probably another small rib fragment (it has a rounded cross section). The belemnites were fantastic. I’m a vertebrate enthusiast, but I couldn’t help but pick up those huge belemnites poking out of the clay when I saw them. These are the biggest I have collected by quite a considerable margin. I would have also tried to collect more of the ammonites but due to the snow and rain the clay was effectively slop. Layer-splitting would have just showered myself with splashes of mud ha!”