An Alabama Creek where, oddly enough, we found superb Paleocene nautiloids in the McBryde Member of the Clayton Formation (N 31.91739°, W 086.68906°).
GREENVILLE, ALABAMA — This is the first time I’ve done fieldwork in the southern USA. The outcrops are of course very different from my favorite desert locations and oddly similar to those I visited in western Russia last summer. I’m learning once again not to pass by the muddy creek or grass-covered hillside assuming that no useful rocks or fossils will be present. Southern geologists Jon Bryan and Peter Harries have been excellent guides here because they know what treasures lurk under the vegetation and on the river banks.
A grassy hillside with beautiful Cretaceous oysters just underneath. We collected the lot by feeling for the fossils with our feet! (N 32.02580°, W 086.76788°)
I thought that creek looked familiar….
Very impressive the way you use all your sensory capacities for data collection. (When psychologists try it, it’s grounds for an ethics investigation.)