Fossil hunting weekend to the Jurassic of Luxembourg (BE & LUX)

Saturday at 09:34 PM

Hi everyone,

Two months ago our fossil club the BVP (Belgische Vereniging voor Paleontologie) orginized a fossil hunting weekend to the Jurassic of Luxembourg (Both in Belgium & the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg) during the 13th & 14th april 2024.

The first day we visited the Socogetra quarry in Sampont, Arlon, Gaume region, Luxembourg, Belgium. The layers in this quarry date back to the early Jurassic, the sinemurian to be exact, around 200 million years ago.

While not an extremely rich quarry when it comes to fossils, potential finds are Bivalves like Pinnidae, Greslya, Cercomya and Cardinia.
Currenly there was a temporary exposure where some Gastropods were to be found, which were my personal favorite finds in the quarry.
Besides that there is a chance to find ammonites (though very rare) as well as sometimes shark teeth (even rarer) and Brittlestars (very rare).

The most common finds are crinoïd stems.

Day 1: Sampont, Belgium - 13 april 2024

We met in the morning at a forest road which led to the quarry where we met with the quarry owner who told us a bit about the quarry itself.
I soon met with my friends Tom & Tineke who I hang out with most during our hunting trips, and we were joined by another girl called Anne who was new in our club but who decided to hang out with us the entire day.

While the finds where sparse and not always of great quality we all did go home with some nice gastropods and lots of Crinoïd stems.
But most important of all, we had a fun day with great weather and amazing company!
Some people were lucky enough to have found some decent ammonites.

This was the spot where we started and ended as it seems the best fossils were to be found here.
Full of Crinoid stems and if you started sieving the sand you could find the gastropods.

We first searched the surface.

Lot's of pieces of Crinoïd stems on the sand.

After doing some surface hunting we went to a higher level of the quarry.

Here we found some bivalves (though not of great quality) as well as some partial ammonites, though other members managed to find complete ones.

Partial weathered ammonite

block with Bivalves

Me & Tineke

After finding not really much at the higher level we went back to our original spot but started sieving instead, it was then that we found some of the nicer gastropods.

Cardinia sp.

Saturday at 09:42 PM

My finds of day 1 in Sampont (I'll be posting day 2 tomorrow)

Gastropods & Bivalves

Crinoïd stems

Undescribed gastropods

My favorite find, an undescribed gastropod

Some Crinoïd stems under the microscope

2024-06-30T18:08:57Z

While not an extremely rich quarry when it comes to fossils, potential finds are Bivalves like Pinnidae, Greslya, Cercomya and Cardinia.
Currenly there was a temporary exposure where some Gastropods were to be found, which were my personal favorite finds in the quarry.
Besides that there is a chance to find ammonites (though very rare) as well as sometimes shark teeth (even rarer) and Brittlestars (very rare).

The most common finds are crinoïd stems.

Day 2: Rumelange, Luxembourg - 14 april 2024

The second day we visited the CIMEX quarry in Rumelange, Luxembourg.
Our group met in the morning at the car park of the local mining museum from where we then drove to the quarry.

The layers in this quarry date back to the Jurassic period, the Bajocian to be exact, around 170 - 168 million years ago.

rumelange2.jpg.4dfa3043de12f98fdd9c7dff83c6fe95.jpg

Unlike the quarry of the previous day this large quarry was extremely rich in fossils.
Common finds here are multiple species corals, bivalves and brachiopods but also large gastropods, ammonites and nautiloids can be found here (including the largest species of Nautilus ever discovered: Cenoceras rumelangense) as well as giant Belemnites like Megateuthis.
Though rare, but urchins, crinoïds, starfish and shark teeth can be found as well.
The rarest fossils found in the quarry are the remains of marine reptiles like Ichthyosaurs, Plesiosaurs and Thalattosuchians as well as extremey rare fossils from dinosaurs (an undescribed Thyreophoran).

We first went with a couple of people to a promising looking corner of the quarry which was full of material of the "Calcaire à polypiers inférieur", a fossilized coral bank which was obviously rich in Corals, but also brachiopods, bivalves and gastropods. Someone was even lucky enough to find a shark tooth belonging to Sphenodus.

This was by far the place where I collected the most fossils.
Got some gorgeous Isastrea and Thamnesteria corals, multiple species of Brachiopods and Bivalves as well as a gorgeous crystalized coral geode.

Eventually we split off from the main group and went to prospect the rest of the quarry with our Club chairman Tom to see what else was to be found.

We went to the other side of the quarry were in the first corner we visited we mainly found large gastropods like Bourgetia saemanni in the "Calcaire d’Audun-le-Tiche"

But while some found gorgeous and large gastropods, the fossils were a bit more scarce in this corner, so after a bit of searching an splitting rocks our group contineud to the far end of the quarry as all of us wanted to find one of the a Megateuthis belemnites which could be found in the layers there.

But first we stopped at another spot which seemed promising.

Not as rich as the first spot, but there were some nice corals and bivalves lying around.

And some belemnites as well as a gorgeous urchin with a couple of spines still attached was found by other members.

Also found this cool moth chilling on a rock.

Eventually we pushed on to the higher level, the promised land which supposedly had the wanted Megateuthis belemnites.

While the rest of our group was distracted by some other boulder (not sure what was so special about it) me and my friend Tom pushed on to finds our Megateuthis as we scouted the walls but didn't have much luck.
We were also standing on an oyster bed rich in Liostrea sp. but then I also spotted some smaller belemnites.
So I went down on all fours to look for these tiny belemnites and collected a couple as well a cool looking spiked urchin spine.

The rest of the group rejoined to ask if we had any luck.
And as I was telling them no, I spotted the first Megateuthis of the day! Needless to say I was quite happy!
In the minutes following two more were found by other members

But the hour was getting late and it was time to trek back to the cars.

In the end we had a great fossil hunt in this quarry and everyone came home with some cool pieces.
Someone found a very large Nautilus and even a potential bone (though can also be some plant material).