Welcome to Old Beach fossil site. Here a community of vertebrate animals existed many millions of years ago, in the earliest part of the Triassic period. Their bones were recovered in great quantity from the conglomerate lens that is visible below this sign, a lens that was deposited as the floor of an ancient stream channel.
The stream probably rose in low mountains far to the north-west and flowed over an extensive flood plain above which consisted of a few low hills clothed with maiden hair trees (Ginkgo) and early pines. On the plains near the streams grew a few giant club-mosses (Clyastrobus) and where the soil was moister close to the streams ferns (Cladophlebis) and seed bearing plants with fern-like foliage (Dicrodium) grew in profusion.
Insects lived on and near the plants and were probably preyed upon by fish and one of the amphibians. Small crustacea with a shrimp-like body enclosed in a bivalved shell swarmed in the streams and provided food for the fish and indirectly for the amphibians and reptiles. Some of the streams dried up from time to time leaving clay pans with scattered skeletons and bones of the animals that had lived in and near the stream.
Subsequent floods picked up bones and clay fragments and swept them downstream to be deposited, as the flood waned in deeper parts of the stream channel. There they formed a gravel of bones and clay fragments, now lithified to a clay pellet conglomerate. Such a clay pellet conglomerate is exposed in the rock face below the sign and has yielded the bones of many different animals.
Your task is to answer a few simple questions:
1. How many millions of years ago did vertebrate animals exist at this site?
2. Name two types of amphibians which could have been found here within the clay pellet conglomerate.
3. Study the rock directly below the sign. Describe what you see (colour, texture, size etc.)
Once you complete the Earthcache requirements you can post your find without delay, as per the guidelines. You will also need to verify your find by sending me an email providing answers to the questions. This can be through the message centre or via gemmasiemensma@gmail.com
Thanks for visiting this Earthcache. I hope you enjoy it.