In order to post on these forums, you must be a registered member of this site. Membership is free and open to all. Use the register link to apply.
Here are two links to posts dealing with how to post pictures on Black River Fossils forums.
1. How to Post Pictures on Black River Fossils Forums by ditchweezil
2. How to Post Pictures on Black River Fossils Forums by Daryl
A while back I was amazed and impressed at how the folks from the Netherlands go collecting at a place called "Mill". I'm not exactly sure what type of mining operation takes place there, but the pit these folks collect in is a giant mud puddle, with a big pipe that spews a muddy slurry mixture of mud which apparently contains some fossil material along with gravel etc. By the pics posted here at BRF under Netherlands trips, you'll quickly see that the method of collecting requires some sort of screen. Now, most of us have built ourselves a screen of some sort, I have a few box screens that I use all the time. But this place isn't a an oceanside beach, or river, or stream. These folks though have constructed a portable screen using a stretcher of some sort with wheels, and the method of collecting is to periodically dash in the "stream" of mud pouring out of the pipe, collect what you can, then pull it out to one side and begin searching through the muddy mess in the screen - no fresh water to sift with. To see what I'm talking about, go look at the trip reports labeled "In the Mudstream 26/10/07" and "What a start for 2008". Doing a lot of beach collecting I'm always amused at the variety of "sifting tools" that folks construct out of all sorts of things; snow shovels with coffee cans bolted to the bottom as scoopers, rakes with screen wrapped around the tines, etc. I had never seen a stretcher though! Ingenious!
This might not be dangerous like diving in the murky rivers with gators (which is either hard core or crazy), but how many folks in other hobbies go to this sort of extreme?
How about you?
Daryl.
Hemi, your first account brings back memories of something my buddy and I almost did ourselves - repell down a cliff. A few years ago there we thought we saw the remains of a whale jaw along Calvert Cliffs. We had already found some of the teeth that came out of a pile of material that fell from the same spot. The suspect jaw was located about 40 feet up the cliff face, or about 25 feet down from the top. It's probably a good thing for us that there weren't any trees for us to tie up to, otherwise we might have gone through with it. The funny thing is though that we joked around about who was going to repell down, while the other kept an eye on the rope etc. How would we have shared the jaw?
I heard a few years ago that someone saw what looked to be a nice size Meg sticking out of the cliffs (again along Calvert Cliffs). This person was certain it was a tooth, but didn't want to repell down the cliffs for it (I'm sure it's illegal to do that anyway). Instead, this person decided to bring a gun (.22cal or a CO2 BB gun I believe) and attempt to shoot around the tooth to make it fall out. From what I hear, the supposed tooth turned out to be a shard of bone. Man this sounds dumb, dumber than my idea of making a super long "pole" out of PVC or bamboo so I could reach stuff sticking out of the cliffs way up high - which I never did make because my friend thought I was nuts.
Not that there's a contect or anything, but I think your rat pee story is in first place so far.
Hi Daryl,
Yes the collecting in Mill is quite extreme, but it is one of the best places in Europe to find sharksteeth in good/perfect condition. This way of collecting is quite save, before people were trying in with the regulair screens, this is much more dangerous because you are getting too close to the stream from the pipe, which also contains big stones or whale bones.
Although it must be very cool to tell people about going down the cliff with a simple rope to hunt for fossils. But do remember this, you maybe think you are only risking your life, but you are also risking that due to your actions a nice fossil location will be shut down and no longer open to all the other collectors, who collect the 'normal' way.
Greetings from Norway!
Martijn