LIVE FROM WATCHET, SOMERSET - 13th to the 19th of July
Last update: 10.10pm, Friday 19th July
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the first edition of UK Fossils LIVE. We are in Watchet, Somerset and have a whole series of trips taking place within the seven days. These events will be published on a day to day basis on this page, (probably updated every evening) and later the locations visited will either be added or updated on ukfossils.co.uk. It is hoped that future live will allow anyone to join us on trips around the UK. After the long journey from our Suffolk base, we arrived and have set out the planned places to visit during the week.
LOCATIONS COVERED (10): PHOTOS TAKEN: (550)
SITES TO REVISIT: (4)
Watchet, Kilve, Quantoxhead, Blue Anchor
NEW SITES TO VISIT: (6)
Aust, Doniford Bay, Croyde, Fremington, St Audries Bay, Radstock
DAY 1 (13th July): Watchet Trip
An afternoon/evening walk from Watchet base. Beach conditions are generally quite reasonable for this time of the year. A slab of fish scales was first found, a few shells and whole ammonites collected from the shingle along the tide line. A slab of the triassic beds at Blue Anchor was also uncovered and split to yield a few fish bones.
DAY 2 (14th July): Kilve Foreshore, Doniford Bay
A forth visit to Kilve after three successful trips in previous years was made. Once again for the third year running, Ichthyosaurus vertebra were found. One larger but flatter bone and another smaller one. Shells were additionally collected but no decent ammonites found.
Beach conditions at our second location today, Doniford Bay were very poor and only one large slab of the white ammonite beds were found. Many small white ammonites were collected from this one slab.
DAY 3 (15th July): Croyde, Fremington, Watchet
Two new locations were explored looking at the Devonian shells and Carboniferous Limestone fossils. The first location Croyde, looking at the Morte Slate (Devonian) along the foreshore from Croyde Bay to Baggy Point. Many shells were found and a peace of bark. Possibly a few seeds as well. Fossils from the rocks at Croyde are not common and generally poorly preserved.
The second location, Fremington which was accessed via Fremington Quay, contains a short low lying cliff line along the river bank. Many rocks and boulders are scattered along the bank mostly from the Devonian age. However occasionally boulders of Carboniferous Limestone can be found containing many shells and fossil wood. During the evening a second trip to Watchet took place. A well preserved ammonite around 5cm was found.
DAY 4 (16th July): Saint Audries, Quantoxhead
A new location in the morning to Saint Audries to examine the blue lias. Unfortunately no finds were made due to no recent cliff fall and a covered foreshore.
During the afternoon, a revisit to Quantoxhead after previous successful years took place. The foreshore was silted up and no Bones were found. However at the west end of Quantoxhead, amongst the larger boulders with many ammonite broken parts and large molds, a small nautilus was found, it is around 4cm and is positioned on the side in a heavy bolder. It is unknown at present if the nautilus is complete, it will take some time for cleaning to take place. There may also be a second smaller one in the same rock, but it looks likely that the second is broken. A number of other shall s including a few pectin's were found.
DAY 5 (17th July): Aust (Bristol Channel)
A visit to the famous Triassic Bone Bearing beds of Aust, along the Bristol Channel. There has been very few cliff falls for sometime, there are very few rocks from the bone bed available on the foreshore. However a number of fish bones were found including a few teeth and rocks were taken back to be split. Brachiopods were collected from a few odd carboniferous limestone's lying along the beach which have been deposited from further down the coast.
A Third visit to Watchet was made, a small ammonite was found.
update:
Some of the rocks were split back at our watchet base and a small leg bone was found along with many coporites and other smaller bones. We still have a number of the slabs to split which will be done back home.
DAY 6 (18th July): Radstock, Blue Anchor, Watchet
Most of the old coal quarries in Radstock and surrounding areas are now filled in or over grown. However we visited a disused quarry and under the surface of the growth, once cleared is the plant beds from the Carboniferous coal seams). Large slabs can be revealed and then split. Some 7 different species were collected together with a number of seeds and smaller leafs. The trip was most successful with a large number of finds brought back.
During the evening a forth trip to Watchet was made and we continued to Blue Anchor. Another good condition vertebrae was found towards the Blue Anchor end of Watchet, it is yet to be identified. After reaching Blue Anchor, several blocks of the Trassic Bone beds were found and fish teeth and other fish bones were collected. Shells and a small ammonite picked up on the return back from Blue Anchor to Watchet.
DAY 7 (19th July): Minehead
And this brings us to the end of UK Fossils live from Somerset, it has been a fantastic week of events with many good finds, of course the photos you see on this page may look either poorly preserved or only part, but these are the raw fossils as found and have yet to be split, cleaned, preserved and identified which will take many weeks with our continued backlog of finds. Eventualy though, together with most other locations, these finds can be fully displayed on this website.
