My next adventure takes me to a site that has Carboniferous Period fossils everywhere you walk! A plethora of ancient life preserved in stone, consisting of plants, marine and trace fossils. One of my all-time favorite spots near home. When the majority of people are sleeping in from a hard week of work, today I'm getting up at the crack of dawn to see the beautiful sunrise and head to my favorite spot. A good number of folks arrived at the designated meeting spot in North Birmingham. After the talk by Ashley we were on our way in a long caravan. When we arrived at the site, everyone was given specific instruction of boundaries and we all split in different directions
I got situated and see there are new spoil piles to look in but didn't find much that was spectacular the first hour or so, and there were a lot of rocks! My vehicle as size comparison to some of those piles of stone!
It took several hours of moving around from one pile to the next before I started finding anything? The entire area looked barren with nothing but rocks and piles of rocks but off in the distance beyond those piles were trees coupled with the beautiful blue skies and wispy clouds it was breath taking!
My goal for the day was to find fossilized ferns whereas in the past I had much success on this site. Today wasn't going to be the day but I did find a few ferns. The majority of the fossil finds for today was 3D interior casts and impression of trees that are now long extinct. Lyginopteris ferns along with some Calamites finds.
Calamites are usually found on Carboniferous Period sites, here at this site they were in abundance. They thrived in the swampy areas of what is now Jefferson County and were prehistoric relatives of the modern horsetail plant (genus equisetum). The grew to 40+ feet. They have a distinctive bamboo like appearance with vertical ribbing and are usually found in 2D flat impressions or 3D stem casts. Calamites were hollow bodied plants and when they fell in the swampy forests and waterways the interiors filled with sediment forming the 3D casts we find today. Pic#1- Calamite with stems, Pic#2- All my twenty years of collecting fossils this is the first giant 3D Calamite cast found. It measures 7" wide. Pic#3- Large Calamite cast, Pic#4- Collapsed Calamite end-piece, Pic#5- Calamite stem cast with what appears pieces of Mica making it sparkle, Pic#6- 3D Calamite stem casts, Pic#7- Color drawing of a Calamite by yours truly.
There were lots of Lepidodendron bark impressions as well as trunks found today. I found mostly the bark impressions which are fun to collect and sometimes the preservation of the bark looks like a fish or reptile scales and have been often mistaken for it, hence the reason this gigantic tree is called the "scale tree". Lepidodendron is considered as a Lycopod and was hollowed body too. When they fell into waterways or caught up in a flood they often filled with sediment and it explains why so many trunks are found on the site. Pic#1- Lepidopholios, upper portion of the trunk of the Lepidodendron? Pic#2- Lepidodendron lower portion of trunk leaf scars, Pic#3-5- Detailed Lepidopholios leaf scars
The other Lycopod found on site is called a Sigillaria. It's an oddly shaped tree that appears to have two heads with hair on a trunk? This tree had scales too, and grew to heights of less than a hundred feet tall. It had grass-like leaves and reproduced with spores.
Pic#1- Sigillaria bark impression too large to move so a picture will have to do, Pic#2- Cyperite leaves of the Sigillaria, Pic#3- Detailed bark impression, Pic#4- Sigillaria drawing from yours truly.
In addition to the fossil plant finds there were marine fossils as well. Most were bivalve shell impressions which indicated that a fresh water, swampy environment existed. Pic#1- I was told this is a Pecten, positive and negative plates, Pic#2- Pelecypod? Pic#3- Assorted bivalves
I found a few giant fossils that couldn't be hauled home so a picture will have to do. Everyone had a productive day finding cool stuff to take home with them. This site remains as my all time favorite and look forward to going back soon!