GMS Field Trip

GMS Field Trip
Cretaceous Fossils in Mississippi
Saturday, May 23, 2015

After a quick lunch (following the Tennessee fossil field trip here), we headed for the next stop on the epic trip at a creek in Mississippi. We were met there by Roger Lambert from the North Mississippi Gem & Mineral Society and his son Matt. They led us to the best areas of the creek to collect and helped identify our finds. The water felt great and it was easy to screen for fossils there. Exogyra oyster fossils (and sand samples!) were abundant. Shark teeth were a little more elusive, though several nice specimens were found. Lizabeth McClain found a rare piece of fossilized shark cartilage.

My most unusual acquisition that day was quite a coup. By what can only be described as pure, dumb, cluck, I spotted a unique specimen laying on the ground by the cars. It wasn’t much to crow about, but it would be a nice little feather in my hat. I was in a stew over it because I had to be sure it didn’t belong to someone who may have laid it there. I brooded over it for a while, then hatched an eggcellent plan. I didn’t want to ruffle any feathers and get egg on my face for taking someone else’s find, so I decided to wing it and see if it was still there at the end of the day. Later, after I scrambled back out of the creek, there it was, sunny side up, still nesting on its perch; hence it was unclaimed. But, there was a tough old bird standing right next to it! Walking on egg shells to avoid getting her hackles up, I asked, “Excuse me – is that your rubber chicken?” Even if it was hers, she laid no claim to it, so it is now mine. Of course, the yolk was on me. After I got it home I noticed a decidedly fowl smell had come to roost on my poultry little prize. Faster than a speeding pullet, it now has free range outside my house!

Lori Carter
On behalf of Charles Carter, GMS Field Trip Chair
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Click here for more information about the May 2015 epic trip