Fossils.....

I have a new lust.




Fossil hunting.


We stayed here during the weekend, and it was lovely. These are some shots from their farm.


The white parts in the rock are oyster beds, and they are only 20mil years old...





What!!!!!! When is 20mil only young???? This is me who freaks out when I walk through castles that are 1000y old!!!!!

WE went fossil hunting at Kiritehere Beach in West Waikato. At first I couldn't find any (despite the fact people said to me " fossils are lying everywhere under the bridge there..." and I still couldn't find them).


So luckily Shane is infinitely more patient than me, and had the first find. After I saw what they looked like, I jumped all over them, throwing rocks to crack them open, and then asking him to put a large rock in the boot. To be honest - they didn't look that cool. Really - they were just clam shells baked in rock.



Well when I get home I find out that my special rocks (that anyone has access to) are actually dated from the TRIASSIC period, which is really ffffffing old!! 210million years. My little buggers are Monotis, and they are very common for the area, which was covered in sediment 210 million years ago, and then NZ did the freaky land moving thing, and up went these sea beds!



So now I love my fossils, and they are pretty and stunning and clever and gorgeous! We have donated a couple of lovely specimens to Jenna's kindergarten, and I have some cool ones to take to school and donate to the rock collection there.

Some I guess I will keep myself, but I admit that I only understand this better since I started "teaching" geology 2 weeks ago - which I know nothing about!!!!!