Post by Joe Botting on May 3, 2008 4:21:35 GMT -5
Hi all,
It's been a bit quiet over the winter, but I'm glad to say that we got out to Wales again last weekend, and had a right good time of it. Went to two sites that we were fairly sure we knew well, only to find that we didn't. The best carpoid locality has yielded loads more cornutes, some wonderful mitrates (in different growth stages)... and other things. Something that looks like an eocrinoid, a palaeoscolecid a couple of new bryozoans, bivalved arthropods, weird bits... it was quite amazing, really. Most promising of all, perhaps, is that we now have a diasrticulated mass of echinoderm plates that looks suspiciously like ophiuroid - which would be a first for the inlier, if true.
Another one was a classic site called Camnant Cliff, at which Ormrod helped out with transport and hammering - thanks again, Tess! This site is a well known old quarry with a limited fauna of trilobites, brachiopods and molluscs. A longer look turns it into a potentially fabuluos crinoid locality, and Tess came awaay with the only calymenid trilobite known from there, almost complete. Add to that several new molluscs (there are loads of tergomyids, which is unusual!), and you can safely say it was a successful sort of trip... will be working on some drawings (or at least updating the faunal list) in the near future.
Now, of course, we're itching to get back there again! ;D
Joe
It's been a bit quiet over the winter, but I'm glad to say that we got out to Wales again last weekend, and had a right good time of it. Went to two sites that we were fairly sure we knew well, only to find that we didn't. The best carpoid locality has yielded loads more cornutes, some wonderful mitrates (in different growth stages)... and other things. Something that looks like an eocrinoid, a palaeoscolecid a couple of new bryozoans, bivalved arthropods, weird bits... it was quite amazing, really. Most promising of all, perhaps, is that we now have a diasrticulated mass of echinoderm plates that looks suspiciously like ophiuroid - which would be a first for the inlier, if true.
Another one was a classic site called Camnant Cliff, at which Ormrod helped out with transport and hammering - thanks again, Tess! This site is a well known old quarry with a limited fauna of trilobites, brachiopods and molluscs. A longer look turns it into a potentially fabuluos crinoid locality, and Tess came awaay with the only calymenid trilobite known from there, almost complete. Add to that several new molluscs (there are loads of tergomyids, which is unusual!), and you can safely say it was a successful sort of trip... will be working on some drawings (or at least updating the faunal list) in the near future.
Now, of course, we're itching to get back there again! ;D
Joe
