Lapworth Museum (and a trip to Aust Cliff)

Last year, while visiting friends in Birmingham, we went along to the Lapworth Museum. Despite Birmingham not having the richest fossil record in the world, the fossils on display were diverse and very interesting. They were not limited to UK fossils, as you will become abundantly aware when you enter and are met with an Allosaurus skeleton. Because it had worldwide fossils on show it did make for a worthwhile visit.

The Allosaurus skeleton that greets you when you enter the Lapworth Museum.

There is a display devoted to more local fossils, this is the Palaeozoic of the Welsh Borders. These featured a diverse array of trilobites, crinoids and graptolites.

But best of all (at least for me!) is the display of plaster models of foraminifera. There is also a microscope next to this showing the true size of foraminifera and other microfossils.

Plaster models showing the range of shapes of benthic and planktic foraminifera.

Although a small museum it is easy to spend a while here to appreciate everything it has to offer.

I also went on a quick trip to Aust Cliff under the Severn Bridge. This is a site that, at its base, is dominated by the Mercia Mudstone Formation. Unfortunately this is largely unfossiliferous. However, the overlying Rhaetian Bone Bed and Blue Lias can be very fossiliferous. Blocks of Triassic rock fall from the top of the cliff sometimes packed with bones of reptiles. We didn't manage to find these bone blocks but did manage to see three different reptile teeth. They were cemented into large pieces of rock so couldn't be collected.

Tooth from Aust Cliff.

Tooth from Aust Cliff.

Tooth from Aust Cliff.

My Collection #2

Small Kosmoceras jason on a piece of Oxford Clay with a tiny
belemnite to the left.

These fossils were collected from Must Farm Brick Pit in Whittlesey, near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, UK in June 2016.

Kosmoceras ammonites are known from Callovian age Oxford Clays of the Late Jurassic Period in Europe. These ammonites therefore date back to around 163 Ma. As with these two fossils, they are commonly found flattened in the clay, rarely it is possible to find three dimensional casts of the shell. The maximum diameter known from fossils is about ten centimetres. There is evidence of sexual dimorphism in these ammonite, the more decorated males have a smaller shell than the females, the purpose of the ornamentation is unknown.

Calcitic Kosmoceras jason from Kings
Dyke Brick Pit.

A larger iridescent Kosmoceras jason on a piece of Oxford Clay

The preserved phragmocone of a belemnite from the
Oxford Clay.

Cylindroteuthis is a belemnite known from the Early Jurassic, ~200 Ma, to the Early Cretaceous, ~140 Ma. This specimen is rather common, being found in Asia, Europe, North America and New Zealand. The calcitic guard of the belemnite is what is commonly found, lengths range from ten centimetres to twenty-two centimetres. Rarer fossils exhibit traces of appendages and an ink sac, showing their relation to squids. The guard would be an internal feature as traces of blood vessels have been found on the surface of the guard. This fossil is not to be confused with the shell of the belemnite, this is found within the guard, as shown in the photo to the right.

The largest of the Cylindroteuthis belemnites in my collection from the Oxford Clay at Kings Dyke Brick Pit.

This is a fragment on a bone from the giant fish Leedsichthys. This member of the pachycormidae is known from Callovian sediments of the late Jurassic. Discovered by Alfred Leeds in 1889 when the Peterborough brick making industry was taking off and quarries were being opened in and around the city, Leeds collected various marine fossils from the Oxford Clay in this time. Fossils have been found in England, France, Germany and Chile. In 2002, another individual was discovered in the Must Farm pit in Whittlesey by students at Portsmouth University. An excavation led by Jeff Liston of Yunnan University, revealed thousands of delicate bones, including the pectoral fin. A lot of the skeleton would have been composed of cartilage and so it doesn't fossilise. Size estimates put the fish at around twelve metres long. It is believed that a spike in planktonic populations were the reason behind the size of the Leedsichthys. Being a filter feeder, water would have been forced through gill rakers that removed the plankton from the water.

A small fragment of Leedsichthys problematicus from the Oxford Clay at Kings Dyke Brick Pit.

The larger and more complete Gryphaea
in my collection.

Also known as the Devil's Toenail, Gryphaea is an extinct genera of bivalve mollusc. Their geological range is from the late Triassic through to the Eocene. These bivalves are some of the more common finds in Jurassic marine deposits of Europe. They possibly lived in small colonies as shown in the photograph to the right. The bivalve had a larger hooked valve and a smaller, flatter lid. The
larger valve would be embedded in the sediment whilst the lid remained exposed. It is one of the only bivalves that have one valve larger than the other.

A broken Gryphaea from the Oxford Clay.

The underside of the above Gryphaea.

Museums: Hessiches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt

This museum in Darmstadt, Germany, varies in its collections. We were only interested in their Palaeontological collection, although we did have a look at the zoological displays also. So, lets take a look at some photographs from the museum. Again, not much to say, but plenty to look at.

This is what greets you when you enter the geology and palaeontology gallery, an American Mastodon. 

Side view of the American Mastodon skeleton.

Part of the palaeontological collection also includes fossils from the Pleistocene of the area. This is the giant Irish Elk, Megaloceros.

This is the skull of the primitive proboscidean, Deinotherium. This elephant ancestor is easily identified by the short tusks that protrude from the lower jaw.

The complete skeleton of the early horse from the Messel Grube pit, Propalaeotherium. There is an example of this horse that is pregnant. The pale slab that the fossil is displayed on is the resin used in the transfer method mentioned in my Messel Grube post.

This is just one of many examples of the fossil fish that have been found in the Messel pit. My class was very fortunate to discover two of these gar pikes.

One of the rarer bird fossils found at Messel. This is an Eocene Ibis.

The more common bird is Messelornis.

Messel was also home to a diverse population of crocodiles, varying in size and orientations. This particular specimen was preserved in three dimensions, coming to rest on the bottom of the lake on its side.

This is the exceptionally well preserved skull of a larger genus of crocodile from the Messel pit.

The diverse reptile fauna also included snakes of various sizes. This was one of the largest on display.

Messel Grube Pit

The first visit while I was in Germany was to the Messel Grube UNESCO World Heritage Site, near the town of Darmstadt. The strata within the quarry itself is of Eocene age, approximately 47 Ma. This was a period in time when the earth was experiencing temperatures much higher than today. At the time of deposition, the Messel Grube area was a lake environment with a diverse fauna of fish, reptiles and mammals, the latter of which were washed into the lake to be preserved under anoxic conditions. The area is believed to be volcanically active, periodically releasing poisonous gases into the waters and nearby forests.

The pit was originally dug for the exploitation of hydrocarbons, with the discovery of brown coal and bituminous shales, when handling the rock you find that you are quickly covered from head to toe in oil. Once the pit had become disused the local government used it as a landfill site for local industries. After a lengthy campaign from the local community, the site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its diverse palaeontology. On the plus side, the rubbish that was placed in the pit is now a perfect habitat for a population of bats.

There are only two museums that are allowed to dig in this quarry, Darmstadt and Senckenberg (Frankfurt). We were fortunate enough to be allowed in under supervision to excavate some fossils.

The fossils here are incredibly delicate. The nature of the oil shale means that once exposed to air it begins to dry rapidly, in the process the rock, and subsequently the fossil, begin to curl up. This led to the development of the transfer technique, this is where the fossil is taken and placed in resin then the rock is removed in the lab to reveal the fossil.

When we arrived, we set about removing the overburden to reveal the shale. This had been put there to keep the rock moist. We then used wedges and the spades to break the rock into large slabs and moved them away from the excavation site to be split further. The rock itself was soft enough to split with a large knife.

Getting to work removing the overburden to expose the oil shale and find exceptionally preserved Eocene fossils.

Our finds included, several bowfin fish (Cyclurus), a number of gar pikes and even a bird wing. By far the most common find was coprolite (fossilised faeces). The gars and bird wing was quickly taken away to be treated in order to be preserved.

After this we went on to visit the Darmstadt Museum to see the true diversity of the Messel Pit. I will show some of these fossils in my museum series.