by Dion Stewart
Whoever said “lightening never strikes the same place twice”, did not know about our CCGMS fossil leader, David Braswell. Two years ago on the 2013 field trip to the same spot, David found a 10″ ammonite, and on this trip David lead the group to the same spot where four lucky participants each found their own large ammonite just within 20 paces of David’s earlier find. Although the locality is famous for its Cretaceous oysters, which everyone found more than they could possibly carry, it will now be known as “the ammonite spot”.
Two of the lucky field trippers were “mineral specimen” guys, who suddenly decided they liked fossils after all. The extraction of each ammonite was slow as they followed David’s exact instruction of digging around the specimen, and stabilizing it prior to lifting it out of the rock where is had been resting for nearly 70 million years. David gave thorough instructions on how to do final rock removal, and helped participants carefully pack the ammonites for the trip home. He also gave tips on how to carefully restore and stabilize the ammonites before putting them on display.
This region of Georgia, just south of Columbus, was a shallow inland sea during Cretaceous times and the fossils reflect a diverse marine ecosystem that even contains a few dinosaur fossils that may have washed into the sea from the nearby shoreline.
In the afternoon, after a half hour ride from the fossil site we arrived at the Goethite-lined geode locality. And now it was the fossil people who suddenly decided they liked to collect minerals. Fragments of the geodes littered the embankments on both sides of the road, and the bright metallic luster of the goethite was seen after a few squirts of water washed off the mud. However, if you wanted whole ones, or even large nodules with small openings into the shiny cavity, you had to dig. The rock wasn’t hard, but that Georgia red clay can still be difficult to cut through even with a big pick and shovel. Many worked for 30 to 40 minutes to get a single whole geode out from the embankment, and after one or two of those, most people were so tired they just said “What a great trip, but it is time for me to find a cold drink and get out of the sun.”
Geologically this small area of clay is surrounded by the Providence Sand Formation that was an old beach and lagoon deposit from the same ancient sea where the fossils used to live from the morning stop.
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