jamesp
Cave Dweller 
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
|
Post by jamesp on Jul 14, 2013 23:35:46 GMT -5
This is one big pile of ancient ocean bottom sitting on top of super flat Florida. Full of fossils. But rock hunters not allowed. It is raining and water is pouring out what looks like a 12-16 foot pipe. The machine is a giant.   I am guessing 400-500 feet tall. Claims have been made that the mine has greatly effected water feeding the Suwanee River. These mines are under great scrutinization by enviro folks. |
|
|
|
Post by helens on Jul 15, 2013 0:39:15 GMT -5
And you haven't been there picking through the pile yet? O.o.
|
|
|
|
Post by vegasjames on Jul 15, 2013 1:23:40 GMT -5
That runoff has to be going somewhere. Have you tried sifting through the mud from the runoff outside the mine grounds to see if you can collect some fossils?
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
|
Post by jamesp on Jul 15, 2013 7:24:13 GMT -5
Must be 100 miles of gravel roads paved with the small solids Vegas. I just stopped and drove thru a couple of public roads
to see what access was like. A lot of public access to graveled roads many covered w/fossils. It was raining and I was on a 12 hour
trip home so I only checked things out. Many fishing lakes and public hunting areas to calm the public. Huge settlement ponds were
heavily posted. Road gravel is awesome for fossils in Florida.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
|
Post by jamesp on Jul 15, 2013 7:36:36 GMT -5
Check out these #2 gravels in Zephyr Hills Fl. One of my favorite silicified coral locations. Phosphate mines are common here too. These gravels have pieces of well dewatering screens ground up with them. Some weird corals and sponges, some silicified. Or go to the gravel yard and buy a few hundred pounds of native gravel for $3.     |
|
grayfingers
Cave Dweller
Member since November 2007
Posts: 4,575 
|
Post by grayfingers on Jul 15, 2013 21:02:36 GMT -5
Fossil gravel. . . cool.
|
|
Geoff
spending too much on rocks
Please add 1074 to my post number.
Member since December 2012
Posts: 446
|
Post by Geoff on Jul 15, 2013 23:10:23 GMT -5
Thats cool. Funny that you guys have such cheap gravel. It's a premium here in Anchorage.
|
|
|
|
Post by jakesrocks on Jul 15, 2013 23:18:29 GMT -5
Try the channel dredging piles near Jacksonville. Open to the public, and loads of shark teeth and other fossils. Also a bit further north at the Kings Bay Navy base in Georgia. Same shark teeth and other fossils, but the area is loaded with eastern diamond backs.
|
|
jamesp
Cave Dweller
Member since October 2012
Posts: 36,612
|
Post by jamesp on Jul 16, 2013 0:46:31 GMT -5
My family is from Amelia Island Don. The dredgings from the King's Bay sub passage are delivered via 16 cylinder/36 inch pipe to build Amelia's beach. Whale vertebrae and sharks teeth by the manys.
I found a pile of gravel in Zephyr Hills that was loaded with vertebrate land animal bones. That was a freak pile full of mammal teeth, ribs ,hand and foot bones, ribs. Never pass a dirt road there without checking fossil quality.
The example above was a dead giveaway due to the yellows, browns, and grays. Black is almost always mammal bones.
As you walk around the turn in the creek, coral is the gravel. Not visible in the photo due to the water velocity in the narrow gully pushing the coral to where the creek widens around the turn.
Georgia has the cheapest gravel Geoff. Mining gravel(limerock) in Florida is devastating their sensitive aquifers. Georgia about leads the country in granite, marble and kaolin. Rails are being designed to carry Georgia granite gravel to Florida. The granite is like infinite in supply.
I don't think there is much rock in Florida that is not w/out fossil Bill. And when the rock crushers get at it there will invariably be a fossil that is the size of the gravel(#2,4,5,6,7,8 typically). One road was covered in #4 and was loaded w/echinoids with the 5 star pattern in perfect condition. They just snapped out of the matrix in perfect condition. The crushers are thick plates with springs that vibrate at high rate.
|
|
