Gallery

V I R G I N I A

Williamsburg Spillway:

Chesapecten jeffersonius: Chesapecten Jeffersonius is the state fossil of the U.S. state of Virginia. It is the fossilized form of an extinct scallop, which lived in the early Pliocene epoch between four and five million years ago on Virginia's coastal plain. In 1687, Martin Lister published a drawing of the fossil and then it became the first fossil to be described from North America. In 1824, geologist John Finch gathered a large collection of mollusk fossils, including Chesapecten jeffersonius, from the vicinity of Yorktown, Virginia, and gave them to scientists at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP). Scientist Thomas Say, at ANSP, described the species and named it Pecten jeffersonius to honor Thomas Jefferson.

Isognomon maxillata (Deshayes): Bivalve. Identification based on Glaser (1979, p22-23). These shells are found in the Calvert and Choptank formations. In certain spots along the Choptank, they literally cover the entire ground, and you have to walk on them. These shells are very fragile, and difficult to find whole. Usually they are found as they appear in the image below. This species is characterized by the large grooved ligamental area. This is a view of a front and back of two specimens. Notice the large groves in the ligmental area, the part that attaches to the other side of the shell Formation: Choptank, Age: Early - Middle Miocene ~ 18-15 m.y., Location: Williamsburg, VA and also near Kenwood Beach, Calvert Co., MD

Chama squamosa: Family Chamidae. Anterior and posterior adductor muscles separate, their scars distinct on both valves.

Chama congregata.

M A R Y L A N D

Brownie's Beach:

Assorted Fossilized Sharks Teeth: I think I have one cow shark tooth in here, but the remainder are all gray sharks and sand tiger shark teeth. My friend Edwin has found some little meg teeth nearby, but based on the size of the debris washing in, I wouldn't get my hopes up on finding any of those at Brownie's Beach -- mostly small fossils here.

Dental Plates: After shark teeth, the most common fossils on Brownie's Beach are fragments of ray dental plates. Instead of teeth, the jaws of rays are covered with bony plates, which are used to crush their prey. What you find on the beach are the individual "bricks" that were once fused into slabs of "pavement" that wrapped around the jaws. The rays at B.B. can be divided in to three kinds. The two most common types are called "Myliobatis" (Eagle Rays) and "Aetobatis" (Bonnet Rays). Pictured here are one Plinthicus (Devil Ray) and three Myliobatis.

Assorted Fossilized Shells: One or two of these I'm not too sure about, but the tall spiral shells are turitella parts and the rimmed clams are venus shells.

Assorted Fossilized Bone Fragments: You can also find fossils of land animals. Most likely these animals drowned in a river and floated out to the sea. You can tell the bone fragments from rock because they'll be brown, porous, light-weight, and will look just like the inside of modern bone.

Fossilized Fish Vertebra: Because the two discs are connected (as opposed to being separate), this should be a fish vertebra as opposed to a shark vertebra.

Fossilized Crab Claw: I'm not 100% positive on this one, but I'm guessing that this is half of a fossilized crab claw. There's an inner groove present, but it's definitely not a skate dental plate or a shark tooth.

Fossilized Oyster Shell: Most of the fossils at Brownie's Beach washed up with the tide. This fossil, though, was actually one of the few that came right out of the cliffs (part of the Calvert Cliffs formation) itself. A tree had fallen off the cliff and this oyster fossil was right at the bass of the tree at the roots.

W E S T    V I R G I N I A

Scenic Overlook, in-between Green Bank and Seneca, WV:

Crinoide ossicules (imprints): Crinoids or sea lilies typically grow on the ocean floor. The stem of the crinoid consists of column of many circular disks or rings. The rocks in the photo shows the circular disks from crinoid stems of various diameters. The gold-colored rings on the rock are due to mineralization of the crinoid stems.

Brachiopod Imprints (likely Cupularostrum saxatilis) from the Devonian Era. We found a ton of these ... both as imprints and as the fossilized shells themselves.

Possible Plant Fossil: We're not entirely sure about this one, but Josh found what might be a plant fossil...it has a definite, dark, leaf shape and doesn't match with any of the surrounding rock.

Sandstone Fossils: I'm including this one because the inclusions here are from sandstone, which makes them much older than the other fossils here. However, you still find the same fossil types -- brachiopods and crinoid stems.