A few years back, shortly before Christmas 2009, a friend of ours, who we had been collecting with a couple of times, asked for my address to send me a small parcel with ammonites. Reading back through the old e-mails I think she actually got them from someone who now has read some of my first blog entries and asked if I was planning to include liassic Scunthorpe ammonites
(that´s you, David) in the book. Small world…
I was quite excited then (who doesn´t like a surprise parcel !) and I´m still very grateful to this (incidentally very camera-shy) friend of ours, because some of the ammonites, while falling into generally the same sort of geology as the North Yorkshire ones e.g. from Robin Hoods Bay, are usually extremely rare at Robin Hoods Bay or don´t occur there at all (or have not been found there). Here they are :
A surprise parcel with Scunthorpe ammonites
They are :
- 3 in left upper corner : Phricodoceras sp.
- 2 in right lower corner : Tragophylloceras sp.
- 1 in left lower corner and 1 in upper right corner : Coeloceras sp.
The larger Coeloceras is about 3 cm in diameter. I´m not aware of any Coeloceras having been found at Robin Hoods Bay, so these would certainly fill a gap, especially since they are early Dactylioceratids. I know there are many other species that have been found in the vicinity of Scunthorpe.
Getting back to the question of whether to include Scunthorpe ammonites in the book…
Scunthorpe is not exactly Yorkshire, not even South Yorkshire, but North Lincolnshire. But I could certainly waive that rule given it´s only a few miles away 😉
My only problem is that the stratigraphy around Scunthorpe does not seem to have been described a lot (at least I do not know any descriptions…).
So I could certainly photograph and describe the ammonite species (if you meet me when I´m in the UK or let me borrow some of them), but – this is where you folks with the local knowledge about these disused quarries come in – I need you to fill in my gaps about the local geology to make sure we have the correct information to go with the ammonites.
So that´s a preliminary “Yes, they´re in”.
AndyS
Yorkshire Ammonites (and other fossils ) revisited 