2024 Fossil hunting in Antwerp, Belgium

[Shellseeker]

1 hour ago, dries85 said:

Looks like a match indeed 😉 Thx!

I had to find one myself in order to recognize yours...  Congrats on an unusual find...

 

[Balance]

First thought on that jaw after clean up was camelid. Did y’all have those up there? It’s small so maybe a lamas or something. Do the chewing surfaces look like large deer teeth?

 

The lock was much more intact than I thought! Very cool find. 
 

Jp

[Notidanodon]

On 5/4/2024 at 8:35 PM, dries85 said:

I also went out hunting with the WTKG (Tertiary and Quaternary Research Group) on Sunday 4/28 in another clay quarry in the Antwerp area. On top of the clay there's a Pleistocene gravel layer with reworked Paleocene to Pleistocene material. In advance the club president told us there was a recently excavated spot ideal for wet sifting. After the obligatory rules and welcome word everyone rushed into the quarry, quite a lot of people this time, even from Germany. The 'new' wet sifting spot got pretty crowded, so i decided to try my luck on the same spot as last time. Did find some not so bad hastalis teeth and a very nice upper Notorynchus but finds came along slowly. 

With only 2 hours left before we had to leave the quarry i eventually decided to try some wet sifting in the crowded area. All of a sudden i started finding one huge hastalis after the other, all in pretty good shape. Got some jealous looks and some congratulations and all of a sudden my pit got a bit crowded. I gave the Germans some pointers cause they hadn't been finding anything all day and eventually 2 of them took home a nice big hastalis at the last moment. 

Back at the car we shared our finds and experiences, always fun to hunt with like-minded people..

 

No in situ pics cause the club doesn't like that, but here's my best finds all cleaned up..

 

Some more great teeth with pretty spectacular colors..

 

The smaller ones, not entirely sure what i have here, but defenitely some good stuff..

 

And here's the whole lot put together..

 

Does anyone have a clue about this one?

Lamna nasus for the last one?

Edited May 14 by Notidanodon

[dries85]

19 hours ago, Balance said:

First thought on that jaw after clean up was camelid. Did y’all have those up there? It’s small so maybe a lamas or something. Do the chewing surfaces look like large deer teeth?

 

The lock was much more intact than I thought! Very cool find. 
 

Jp

I'm suspecting goat or sheep, don't know of any camelids in this area, except for the Antwerp Zoo..

 

Actually they would be too high-crowned for deer teeth..

 

And i guess i got locky 😉

[dries85]

35 minutes ago, Notidanodon said:

Lamna nasus for the last one?

I think you might be right, here's some more teeth from the same locality i also thought to be Lamna nasus. So it wouldn't be unlikely..

[dries85]

On Sunday 5/19 i met up at 9am with my new friend David at one of his favorite spots. And i did understand why when he showed me his finds from last week..

So let's say my hopes were held up high for today. The locality itself was another large plain of dredged up Neogene sands, this time Late-Pliocene material. Which means loads of shells and less different species of Sharks, except for the occasional reworked Miocene shark tooth.

We set up our sifters on a spot densily packed with shell material and started doing our thing. David was sifting with 1cm grid and i used my 0.5cm grid and with so much shell debris 1cm seemed obviously the better choice. Also the fact that there were barely any small teeth in this material.

So David was the one yanking huge hastalis teeth out today. I found a nice piece of whale tooth, some good quality smaller hastalis but i had to work hard for it. Eventually started collecting shells cause the shark teeth weren't coming along..

Here's David doing his thing..

By noon another hunter came to join us, we had the chance to meet @arien(don't know if he's still active on this forum). He's been hunting shark teeth long time and shared some of his wisdom. When he left at 4pm i finally found a large hastalis..

David answered with a bigger one in better shape, but then it was my turn to get lucky..

My most complete Meg so far! Great way to end a day of heavy sifting 😅

 

Here's what i found, seems like these fish cleithra are pretty common in the Late-Pliocene too..

 

And here's David's finds..

 

And here's some Pliocene shells i took home.

Some (half) bivalves..

 

Gastropods of which only one turning to the left 🤔

 

And some larger specimens of Euroscaphella lamberti..

 

So while driving home i couldn't resist paying the river shores a visit before it would turn dark. I searched for about 3 hours and here's what i came across..

 

First shark tooth..

 

Beautiful Gastropod steinkern

 

Recent rabbit vert?

 

Very worn oxyrinchus and Broken hastalis tip..

 

Then a nice tiny hastalis..

 

And another one..

 

Sometimes you have to look up to see beautiful things too, not the best light for searching tho..

 

Eyes down again for a partial hastalis..

 

And a rusty big one..

 

And then the only things still visible in the falling darkness were these 2 huge mammal teeth..

 

Eventually at 10pm it was time to head home back-broken from sifting and walking bent over. Here's what i brought from the river shores..

 

I thought dolphin here, but when i look this one up it appears to be Phocidae. or maybe there's just not enough to ID..

 

Had a great fossil-filled day today, thx for watching!

 

Dries

 

[Balance]

Not too shabby! 
 

Now, you need a lesson from Jack on how to work with David’s good luck. When I start finding stuff, @Shellseeker calls out for everyone to start digging towards me. He’s not shy about it either. 😉😉

 

Beautiful place!

 

Jp

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, Balance said:

Not too shabby! 
 

Now, you need a lesson from Jack on how to work with David’s good luck. When I start finding stuff, @Shellseeker calls out for everyone to start digging towards me. He’s not shy about it either. 😉😉

Beautiful place! Jp

Yes, but in general I return the favor. That has been highly productive for my long term hunting friends because they will tell you I am luckier them they are. 

 

4 hours ago, dries85 said:

Sometimes you have to look up to see beautiful things too, not the best light for searching tho

Thank you for the photo.  Is is nice to see what your eyes see.  I am amazed by your diversity of finds. 

and your last set of photos.  This seems like an enamel cap with missing roots and zero damage . Maybe deciduous. Reminds me of pinniped teeth. 

 

Thanks for sharing..  Jack

[automech]

What fun! Your friend's cow shark teeth are awesome! And, HUGE! 

Your sunset picture would have been prettier without those ugly sticks along the horizon.

[dries85]

18 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

and your last set of photos.  This seems like an enamel cap with missing roots and zero damage . Maybe deciduous. Reminds me of pinniped teeth.

Most likely Mio-Pliocene seal, seals are actually still often spotted in the river Schelde and the North Sea. Here's the closest i've come to an ID..

 

7 hours ago, automech said:

Your sunset picture would have been prettier without those ugly sticks along the horizon.

And then i already cropped out the massive electrical poles, smoking chimneys, huge cranes and container terminals 😅 This is what the area actually looks like..

[Shellseeker]

24 minutes ago, dries85 said:

Most likely Mio-Pliocene seal, seals are actually still often spotted in the river Schelde and the North Sea. Here's the closest i've come to an ID..

NICE on a probable ID !!! That is closer than I normally get.  

[dries85]

In between the busy days at work i managed to build a new sifter stand and also a 19mm grid, it has only one leg which is a 12mm iron pole. Have to try it out still, but no time yet..

 

On friday 5/24 after visiting my father-in-law i had some time to go for a walk in the clay quarry in his backyard. Only did an hour of surface hunting but i came up with some nice unexpected fossils.

It had been raining heavily for 2 days straight so lots of gravel had washed out. In the Miocene layer i found a petite but almost complete Notorynchus tooth and 4 cetaceous earbones! Cool, cause i've only found one from this locality so far in all my previous hunts. l Also found some decent sized but damaged Miocene hastalis teeth, which i gave to my 6yo nephew afterward cause he was the one being most interested in seeing my finds.

In the Oligocene clay i picked up some black bits and pieces of shark teeth, completely different to the Miocene teeth, so worth keeping. On my way out i picked up an almost complete whale? bone..

Here's what i took home after an hour..

 

Eventually on sunday 5/26 i went to the clay quarry again to try out my new sifter. Discovered some flaws, either the pole needs to be stronger, or the external frame should be lighter. And a hammer could be useful to get the pole in the ground 🙄

My new 19mm grid seemed to be the right choice for sifting the still very wet sand, also knowing this spot gives mainly big hastalis teeth. Too bad it started raining again when i just hit a good spot. I tried to ignore the rain as it got heavier and heavier but eventually had to stop searching

when my digging hole changed into a puddle of mud.

Good thing my new sifter is easy to take apart so i hurried back to the car..

Here's what the new sifter delivered after a 3 hour try-out..

 

After 5 minutes of driving the sun broke through the clouds again and with still half a day of hunting time left i decided to go for the river shores.

My timing wasn't great, a bit on the late side, and i also noticed the tracks of my fellow hunter around. Let's hope there's still some good stuff left..

 

Started out well with some mammal teeth..

 

Partial fish vert..

 

First shark tooth, a very worn Galeocerdo sp.

 

Raja clavata stingray dermal spine..

 

NOT a Raja clavata stingray dermal spine, but a stonecast of a gastropoda, Calyptraea chinensis..

 

More pieces of shark tooth..

 

And then the nicer find of the trip, a small C. Carcharias..

 

Broken oxyrinchus..

 

Polished.. shark tooth..

 

A not so bad hastalis..

 

Some colorful broken tips..

 

And a slice of marble..

 

A piece of porcelaine with a left foot..

 

And a last partial oxyrinchus..

 

Then dark clouds were nearing and it was time to head home. Right in time cause 5 minutes later the rain started pouring so hard all the cars on the highway just stopped driving and everyone waited till it passed by. A nice moment to look back on a great fossil-filled day.

 

And here's my river shore finds..

 

Dries

 

Edited June 6 by dries85

[dries85]

Hey, i went out hunting on 6/2 with my man David. There was a roadcut construction site we wanted to visit for a long time. As we knew the actual site wouldn't be freely accessible we decided to meet up early at 7pm to wander around the huge piles of mixed Neogene material they put on the sides.

I actually arrived at 6pm to check out a nearby part of river shore i hadn't investigated yet. It seemed to be the heavy metal department at first sight..

 

At second sight a bovine tooth..

 

And bone..

 

And a Gastropod i haven't seen before..

 

Time to head back but not without already checking some piles of sand with Pliocene shell material..

 

No shark teeth yet but then i spotted David already doing the same 😏 So no time to waste, we took our sifters and started investigating the huge piles sand. Too bad we didn't have a clue where they came from, lots of fossil shells everywhere tho and eventually the first shark tooth of the day..

 

This seemed like a pile that needed further inspection, possibly Late-Pliocene, but probably just a mix of everything. This Raja clavata stingray dermal spine with the actual spine still attached seemed to prove the suspicion of relatively young material.

 

And eventually we both did a nice surface find..

 

Time to get the sifters out, resulting in only this big broken lower hastalis..

 

With nothing else turning up at that spot we decided to head on and came across another promising pile with some awesome eye finds..

Notorynchus primigenius upper and lower 😀

 

And this damaged thing..

 

Oh wait..

 😯 Turned out to be one of the thickest hastalis teeth i've ever seen..

 

Time to do some sifting here with David finding a nice hastalis too..

 

Time to move on to bigger piles tho, loaded with shell material..

No shark teeth to be found, but beautiful Pliocene shells..

 

Eventually we would settle for a spot where this hastalis was sticking out and did about 4 hours of sifting.

 

David found a great Meg crown and i found some pretty interesting smaller teeth like Physogaleus, Galeocerdo and Somniosus. Here's me doing my thing..

 

Eventually a security guard politely asked us to go away 'for our own safety', which ofcourse we did. We had a great time tho with some cool and interesting finds..

 

Shark teeth 

 

Keasus rhenanus gill rakers, tiny dolphin tooth and (fish) bones?

 

Ray teeth Myliobatis sp. and Aetobatus sp.

 

Stingray dermal spines of Raja sp.

 

And some shells and verts and stonecasts..

 

On my drive home i couldn't resist another quick river shore hunt, this time at my usual spot. See next post cause this one is getting too big...

Edited June 16 by dries85

[Shellseeker]

Fantastic,  Just waiting for your next post.  Thanks for taking us along... I am addicted to your photos and adventures.   

[dries85]

So when i arrived by the river shores the tide was still quite high so i first searched the higher parts to return by the lower areas on my way back..

 

Started out with some mammal material..

 

Followed up by some worn shark teeth.. 

 

Another small mammal tooth still to be ID'ed..

 

One more broken tooth and a better hastalis..

 

Best shark tooth of the day would be this Isurus oxyrinchus..

 

Another Raja spine..

 

A left foot that needs a decent pedicure..

 

And when i almost arrived back at the car i met my 'friend' as usual. Gotta admit he has the same great sense of timing when it comes to river shore hunting. I congratulated him with the nice angustidens he showed off on facebook last week and he politely didn't want to admit he found it here. I know my Antwerp teeth by location when i see them tho..

Great find anyway, too bad it wasn't mine 😆 He was so kind to put this bovine tooth ready for me on a rock also..

 

Then it was time to head home and clean up the days finds. 

 

A great fossil-filled day actually and i very much enjoyed meeting the like-minded people in the field.

 

Thx for watching!

Dries

 

 

[automech]

That was awesome! Did you know those piles are "guarded"? Would you be able to obtain permission. in the future. to look around there?

[dries85]

7 hours ago, automech said:

That was awesome! Did you know those piles are "guarded"? Would you be able to obtain permission. in the future. to look around there?

@automech Honestly we did expect it, but we didn't know. Hence we met up in the early morning on Sunday and kept (mostly) to the piles laying aside and i gotta admit the actual construction site and huge pits were beckoning at us. And obviously getting sent away politely only happens one time..

Getting permission to enter this kind of huge construction sites is pretty much impossible tho, even for the official clubs. Especially since some of this sites turned out to be polluted by PFAS from the nearby port industry contractors don't feel like people digging around in their business..

Antwerp, and it's desastrous ring road, is actually one big building site these days. It's just coming across the right spots at the right times, the one more freely accessible than the other. I try to pass by them during working hours to ask permission which is more likely to get at the smaller occasional private construction sites.

In the quarries and on some other sites in the Antwerp port area it is tolerated most of the times, but not actually legal. So fossil hunting is still quite a challenge and an adventure every time, which keeps it interesting..

 

Thx for enjoying anyway!

 

Oh here's some of David's finds from that day..

 

Dries

[automech]

Well, you definitely have your work cut out for you. But have been rewarded greatly. Continued luck and, safety!

[dries85]

 

I'm still out fossil hunting on a regular base, but a bit behind on my trip reports tho.. Anyway here's what i came across on a river shore hunt on the 7th of June. I arrived early and searched for about 6 hours..

 

I started out with a small mammal tooth, i think deer..

 

And a Raja clavata stingray dermal spine..

 

First recognizable piece of shark tooth would be this partial GW..

 

Gastropod steinkern.

 

And a bunch of broken shark teeth..

 

Under the waving reeds i found this quite nice Carcharodon hastalis..

 

After finding another Raja spine..

.. I had some time left to walk further than i usually do, exploring a part of river shore i hadn't investigated before..

 

Remarkably more human waste here, I hope the guy got out in time tho..

 

The shells i'm finding are Late-Pliocene and Early-Pleistocene, whole lots of them actually but no shark teeth here..

 

Then i seemed to have hit up a layer of seventies kids toys with this un-armed cowboy 🤠 

And a pretty cool ride without wheels..

 

Time to head back to more sharktootish areas..

 

With a good part of hastalis..

 

A 2cm tooth or spine i don't know yet..

 

Yet another C. carcharias! Great find cause i actually only found my first GW ever in januari '24. It's a small one so i guess it deserves a close-up..

 

The next shark tooth would be a very small one too, luckily someone already marked the spot 😏🤣

 

And a Raja spine to close off the day in a modest way..

 

Had a good long hunt out in the sun, here's my finds cleaned up..

 

Does someone have a clue about this one? Fish tooth or spine maybe? It has a tiny enamel tip..

 

Dries

 

[Al Dente]

11 minutes ago, dries85 said:

Does someone have a clue about this one? Fish tooth or spine maybe? It has a tiny enamel tip..

It’s a fish tooth.

[automech]

Great haul! The car reminds me of (showing my age) the Batmobile from the old TV show. I guess you didn't pick it up. 

[Shellseeker]

18 hours ago, dries85 said:

I'm still out fossil hunting on a regular base, but a bit behind on my trip reports tho.. Anyway here's what i came across on a river shore hunt on the 7th of June. I arrived early and searched for about 6 hours..

Thanks again for sharing.  Having done much of it, I realize the extra time it takes for photos and trip reports,  time possibly taking from additional hunting or sleep.  I appreciate your efforts.  

Also, waiting for you to ID that fish tooth.. I have never seen anything like it. 

[dries85]

7 hours ago, automech said:

Great haul! The car reminds me of (showing my age) the Batmobile from the old TV show. I guess you didn't pick it up. 

@automech Batmobile was my first thought too, my grandma used to have one quite alike in the toy box too. And i didn't pick it up as it was filled with muck and honestly i have more than enough 'interesting stuff' laying around the house already 😅

 

6 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

Thanks again for sharing.  Having done much of it, I realize the extra time it takes for photos and trip reports,  time possibly taking from additional hunting or sleep.  I appreciate your efforts.  

Also, waiting for you to ID that fish tooth.. I have never seen anything like it. 

@Shellseeker Well as much fun as fossil hunting can be on it's own, it's even more fun when you're able to share the experience with like-minded people. So it's definitely worth the effort! Thanks for the appreciation!

 

Still in the dark about this fish tooth, have found some smaller, much alike specimens before tho. Just never payed much attention to them.

@Al Dente would you happen to have some more information on these?

[Shellseeker]

1 hour ago, dries85 said:

would you happen to have some more information on these?

Here is a possibility:  at least for a fish descendant ,,, @ThePhysicist

 

No  experience or knowledge,  just used Google Image to find something that looked similar.

 

 

[Al Dente]

2 hours ago, dries85 said:

@Al Dente would you happen to have some more information on these?

Not sure what species these belong to.