Post by Joe Botting on Jul 28, 2005 13:53:23 GMT -5
Hi All,
Just back from another few days' collecting in our favourite place, so we thought it was only fair to report back. The main point of going was to accompany Tim, a fourth-year undergraduate student, and set him loose on a rather remote section. His project is to describe and interpret a new and spectacularly spiky odontopleurid trilobite from the murchisoni Biozone. Tim's eye for finding and recognising obscure, millimetre-sized fragments in a gloomy wooded valley led to quite a haul of specimens. Although no complete ones turned up, there are now enough fragments to do a fairly complete description of the beast; he'll be working on this over the coming months, and of course we'll post the results here when there's a publication to report.
In the same section we found a single machaeridian sclerite (a different species to the other one), and a few more 'new' species (gastropod, conodont and dendroid graptolite). A nice little place, really.
We also went back to our holothurian site, with some success. Lucy found a second specimen (hooray!), albeit a fairly grotty one, that will help enormously in getting the beast published. We also got a good few dozen sponges, although of perhaps only two species - I'm not quite certain until I get them all under a microscope. Some of them (well, one at least, which Tim found) are quite stunning specimens. Interestingly, they seem to come from the same level as the holothurians, and from the distribution of sponges, we've narrowed most of them down to an interval only 2 cm thick. In other words, it's pure chance that we ever found them. The 'Jaekelocarpus-like' mitrate is also quite common in the foot or two around this level, and Lucy found another more-or-less complete one. Combined with the holothurian, a prolonged period of smugness ensued.
We also met a Portsmouth undergraduate student there, doing a project on trilobites. Lawrence also turned up a real, definite, categorical conulariid from the lower part of the teretiusculus Biozone, just to really confirm that they exist in the area. It's beginning to seem rather silly that we missed them.
We'll post some photos when we get them.
Joe
Just back from another few days' collecting in our favourite place, so we thought it was only fair to report back. The main point of going was to accompany Tim, a fourth-year undergraduate student, and set him loose on a rather remote section. His project is to describe and interpret a new and spectacularly spiky odontopleurid trilobite from the murchisoni Biozone. Tim's eye for finding and recognising obscure, millimetre-sized fragments in a gloomy wooded valley led to quite a haul of specimens. Although no complete ones turned up, there are now enough fragments to do a fairly complete description of the beast; he'll be working on this over the coming months, and of course we'll post the results here when there's a publication to report.
In the same section we found a single machaeridian sclerite (a different species to the other one), and a few more 'new' species (gastropod, conodont and dendroid graptolite). A nice little place, really.
We also went back to our holothurian site, with some success. Lucy found a second specimen (hooray!), albeit a fairly grotty one, that will help enormously in getting the beast published. We also got a good few dozen sponges, although of perhaps only two species - I'm not quite certain until I get them all under a microscope. Some of them (well, one at least, which Tim found) are quite stunning specimens. Interestingly, they seem to come from the same level as the holothurians, and from the distribution of sponges, we've narrowed most of them down to an interval only 2 cm thick. In other words, it's pure chance that we ever found them. The 'Jaekelocarpus-like' mitrate is also quite common in the foot or two around this level, and Lucy found another more-or-less complete one. Combined with the holothurian, a prolonged period of smugness ensued.
We also met a Portsmouth undergraduate student there, doing a project on trilobites. Lawrence also turned up a real, definite, categorical conulariid from the lower part of the teretiusculus Biozone, just to really confirm that they exist in the area. It's beginning to seem rather silly that we missed them.
We'll post some photos when we get them.
Joe