Argentina & Africa sites - Finding Fossils

yes

Do both UK sites have parking & toilets right near the beach?

Stonebarrow & Black Ven

What are the two areas called at Charmouth?

plan/planning

Which part of the UK Fossil Collecting Code of conduct was listed twice?

Jaramillo Petrified Forest NP

Santa Cruz, Argentina

• largest petrified trees in the world

• very remote

Jaramillo items

food, water, & gas

Jaramillo rules

NO COLLECTING! (national park)

• just see fossils in situ

DON’T GO IN WINTER!!!

• aka our summer

• Best time: Oct. - Mar.

Jaramillo time period

Late Jurassic: 150 mya

Ice Age

• this site is 140 km away from Jaramillo

• a glyptodon & sloth were found here

Qhemegha (South Africa)

Qhemegha - fossils

• Sauropodomorphs — cow-sized Sauropod relatives

• Theropods — predators

• Mammal fossils — smaller mammal-like reptiles

• Pseudosuchians — extinct relative of crocodiles

Qhemegha - time period/formation

Late Triassic: 214 mya

• lower Elliot Formation — used to have vast river systems

Qhemegha - speakers

• Roger Benson — Museum Macaulay Curator

• Jonah Choiniere — professor at the University of Witwatersrand

• Meng Jin — Curator

• Sginyane (“Sgi”) Ralane — community pioneer

Qhemegha - transporting fossils

they left the bones in the matrix & plastered the rock

• pedestaling

Qhemegha - why so many dino bones?

During the Jurassic, when the Atlantic Ocean was being formed, major climate events took place that only the dinosaurs could survive.

Qhemegha - layers of rock

• Late Triassic — oldest

• End-Triassic Mass Extinction — 201 mya

  • studying the fossils to figure out what species were around just before the event & who went extinct during it

• Early Jurassic — 200 mya

Pleistocene & Cretaceous

What time periods are fossils found from at West Runtun?

false

It is okay to dig in the cliffs at any of the UK sites we discussed, just don’t use a hammer.

ammonites

What is the main type of fossil found at the Charmouth areas?

Lake Turkana, Kenya

area is known as a “cradle of human life”:

• evidence that hominids lived here 4.2 mya

Lake Turkana - speaker

Dr. Jason Lewis

• paleoanthropologist at the Turkana Basin Institute

• understand early hominid behavior through the fossil record

Lake Turkana - conditions

• continuous laying down of sediment preserved the fossils

• geological activity brought them back up again

• very dry like a desert

Lake Turkana - fossil

pig mandibles — useful bc this species changed a lot over time

• if they find a fossil, they can figure out the species & what time period they lived in