April Took Us to Mississippi

The APS headed out of state in April to neighboring Mississippi. We visited one of our favorite sites, which is an Oligocene quarry. It was a beautiful day, much different than the muddy day we had on our previous visit. Lots of activity at the quarry had turned over plenty of new material to explore. After a quick brief on the site and the fossils, we hit the piles.

This is an excellent marine site with a wide variety of fossils. The first group of photos are of some of the fossils in situ; there are areas where the ground is literally covered. From top left to bottom right: shark tooth, shark tooth, limestone block, scallop shells, swimming crab, and sea cookie.

The following pictures are some of our APS member finds.

Shark, Fish, and Ray Teeth

Sea Cookies and Urchins

Bivalves and Scaphopods

A Gastropod

Crab Bits

Fish Bits

Fish Otoliths (ear stones)

Bruce's Burrow of Something! (this one went to the museum). Great find Bruce!

A typical (or perhaps better than) diversity of fossils from a day of collecting!!! This includes some nice bryozoans to the left of the sea cookies and also the super large foraminiferans below the sea cookies. These are huge for single-celled organisms!!!

We really appreciate George hosting us to this incredible site, I know everyone had a great time and enhanced their Oligocene collections. Hope to see you on our next trip!

Jim Braswell