Vertebrates

Amazingly, vertebrate fossils are relatively common there. My two favourite - a nebrius tooth(upper picture) and a piece of croc scute(bottom picture).

They both are probably Miocene.

In fact, there I found not only croc's scutes but also several bones. I read somewhere(don't remember where) that in XIX century some russian paleontologist, found croc skull there. Perhaps my and his are the same species.

Bryozoans

The most abundant remains on the seashores of Schelkino are stones with fossil bryozoans. One of them is pictured below. Excuse me, the photos are not especially good, but I unfortunately am not a prof. photographer. This bryozoans are like the "typical bryos" from Ordovician-silurian and I think they were.

Crabs and crinoids

In Cape Capchik I found a crinoid stem encased in rock. I believe it is or Carboniferrous or Silurian. The most surprising fact is that it was not the only crinoid found by me there. On the third photo is hsown a monolith with very many crinoid fossils. Great find!

Another interesting fossil found by me there was a fossilized insect. It was found literally inches from Scutosaurus skull(again see Crimean fossils 2) and piece of petrified wood. First my reaction was:"O, it's a leaf!", but next I realized that it is or graptolith or insect, because it was found in land deposits, I believe it is an insect.  

                                                                                                                                          

Crinoid(1,2), insect(3) - a white spot is a fossil

More plants...

When I wrote that I found only one fossil plant in Crimea I was wrong. Yesterday I again studied my collection, and found a strange leaf imprint and a piece of petrified wood.

A piece of wood is medium sized, 4-5 centimetres in lenght. I, unfortunately, can't date it easily(in fact, I can't date it at all), because in the place were I found the featured fossils was a mix up of the sediments(see post "Crimean fossils 2"). But I suppose that it is Paleozoic, by the following reasons:

1. There are no Mezozoic fossils in the area, the only one found by me, is many kilometres away, it is also a plant, and shows that it grew in a grassland -  a wood is from forest  .                                                                                     

2.    Nearby were mostly Paleozoic fossils. 

Petrified wood(1,2)

 

                                                                                                      

Crimean fossils 2

Yesterday evening I again studied my Crimean fossil collection. I fouind that I have very many very interesting fossils.

Among them was a well preserved (I have a great imagination, so there are chances that it is simply a rock) partial skull and a cervical vertebra of Scutosaurus. Scutosaurus was a squat quadrupedal anapsid that thrived in Late Permian Russia. The skull was preserved pretty good, and the vertebra ideally fits in it.Permian deposits are uncommon in Ukraine however in some place, the erosion gives way to them.

This wonderful specimen was found in "New World", a VERY rocky place, and there was a cape, that was SO similar to the head of Majungatholus(or Majungasaurus, I really like more the first variant). On this cape I found this thing.

The strangest factor about Cape Majungasaurus, is that there are mixed up different sediments of different time periods. For instance, there I unearthed Permian,            Scutosaurus skull   

Perhaps Carboniferrous, Miocene and Silurian fossils.   

Inostrancevia attacking Scutosaurus

                                                                 

American shark teeth

I have a pretty good collection of Miocene

fossil shark teeth from North America(South Carolina).

Among them are parts of meg teeth, great white,

Isurus hastalis, Hemipristis serra and even Carcharinus obscurus.

They are practically all  black, only some are not.I have three practically full meg teeth. The biggest one is shown on the photo. Another tooth is lateral, and another small posterior. Also in this collection are two huge teeth halves - megalodon and Carcharocles chubutensis.

My strangest tooth is the one shown on the second photograph.         Megalodon tooth("meg")

 It's or Isurus hastalis or Great White. It has no serrations, like Isurus, but is shaped like  Carcharodon(I really prefer a Great White).

There some Hemipristis teeth with funny serrations! One is small, and another is relatively big(4-5 sm).

The most abundant fossils are teeth of Carcharodon and Carcharocles.

Isurus/Carcharodon tooth                                                                                                

Fossilhunting place

A map of the part of Kerchen penninnsula from which the fossils are

And so, from 31.08.2011 to 16.08.2011 I collected fossils on the Azov seashore. Here were plants (some unidentified species), mammals, invertebrates, corals, sponges and so on... I was told, that "Zapovednyk Mis Kazantip" [Russian] was in the Miocene a coral reef, and I proved it by finding many coral and sponge remnants there.

The stratigraphy of the local fossils is relatively simple: practically all are from Miocene - Pliocene, however are some rocks from Carboniferrous (some shark teeth and pieces of coal) and a strange unidentified yet tooth. It looks it's not from Miocene.

 

Modern animals

 

A giant grasshoper and a mantis

 

 

 

The most distributed animals in the region near town Schelkino are insects. Mantis of different kinds(some iris species, and M.religiosa), huuuuuuuuuuuuuge amount of grasshopers: giant species the size of atwo human thumbs put together and small nymphs with medium(thumb-) sized animals.

Mollusks

A piece of shelly limestone with a Cardium species

 

On  the shores of the Azov Sea, the most common "stones" are pieces of shells encased in limestone. Above is the photo of one of these things.Close to the sea the process that formed these "things" can ben seen in action:

1.Shells of mollusks, mostly Cardium, are broken during ab and tide. 

2.Next, water washes sand, that covered the shells, into many distinctive layers.

3.Water of the sea presses this construction, and it turns to stone.

 

A shell of Limnocardium partially encased in vivianite(found near city Kerch)

 

Near city Kerch are abundant fossil shells partially encased in a mineral called vivianite. Again, the most common species are Cardium and Limnocardium

Corals sponges and other reefbuilders

A pair of corals from Miocene of "Mis Kazantip"   The most abundant fossils in Kazantip and other Kerchen penninsula are remains of coral reefs. The corals pictured above are similar to the Miocene corals from Ternopilsk region of Ukraine! This is pretty interesting, because this proves that "central Ukraine" was underwater during Neogene. However there is a difference: in north part of Paratethys Sea, crabs like Daira or Harpathocarcinus are very abumdant, but in this crimean deposits I didn't find any. A sponge. Found in Tatarskaya buchta: see "More info"   Also sponges are widely distributed. On the seashore areas giant ones, like one pictured on this page, often are found, while in the mainland their fossils are very rare.

Plants

Throughout my entire life I've found very few fossilized plants, however some I did. 3 days ago I've returned from a trip to Crimea. Next day I took all my fossils gatheredthere, and found a large piece of chalk with some fossil palms in it. Interesting find!