What’s it like to search for fossils in a quarry?
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Today, we drove to the city of Hagen to meet the GeoKidz at the parking lot of the quarry Hohenlimburg to go on a guided excursion, hunting for fossils. We were quite a big group, about 15 kids with their parents, armed with mallets, chisels, and big backpacks to put the found goodies in. The region is sitting on a huge Devonian limestone reef, and where once was water, we can now find fossils. The quarry is still working, and after there have been recent detonations, new fossils and quartz pieces lie on top; you don’t even have to hammer and dig that hard. Come with us on our trip and see what we’ve found!
At the parking lot, our tour guide did the roll call, collected the money (EUR15 for adults and EUR10 for children) and explained the rules (keep 3 meters distance to the precipice and 3 meters distance to the rock walls, because they are not secured; no running; no throwing rocks) and told the kids about the Devonian time and what kinds of fossils and quartzes they could find. Then, she told us that each human being uses about 1 kg of rocks every hour (in the form of cell phones, bricks for houses, medicines, glass, roads, etc.). After lots of ah’s and oh’s, the children got to take a photo with a big excavator, standing in its ginormous shovel.
We all had put on our bicycle helmets and sunglasses or goggles on for safety. The tour guide showed the kids some samples crystals, fossils, and quartzes, and then told us that there was not going to be much shade (we all brought along drinks). It was a nice, very warm May day, and of course we were all sweating pretty soon. Luckily, we had used sunscreen lotion twice this morning. We would need it! We drove with our cars up the hill and parked at a designated area.
From there on, we set out on foot, with a gorgeous view over the quarry. An excavator was making a terrible noise all at the bottom (it was just a single one, but the acoustics were so great that it sounded like a whole horde was excavating downhill!).
There was a little lake at the bottom! It had rained a lot in the previous weeks. We were glad we didn’t wear rubber boots, though. It would have made us feel even hotter. High boots or safe shoes were mandatory, though. A lady and her daughter came with shorts, which was very daring, because you could easily skin your knees on the sharp rocks. Most of the mud had dried up already, but still, my son’s boots were so dirty (and had been torn, old ones, anyway) that we threw them into the trash as soon as we arrived home again. We got so dusty and dirty!
We walked downhill, collecting rocks, hammering on slate pieces to break them apart, and moving slowly from one heap of rocks to the next. Lyons Cub, grandma, and mommy had heavy, geological hammers and special chisels with a protective plastic rim, so as not to knock on our fingers with the hammers. Of course, mommy managed to do that, anyway! For the tiny rocks, we had little chisels.
The hardest thing was to carry the heavy bags filled with stones uphill again to the parking lot 😉 But our loot was definitely worth it… Of course, we didn’t find any pretty semi-precious stones like those we bought at the precious stones fair in Cologne last year. However, we managed to detect a handful of corals and some nice quartzes and other mineral stones, shimmering in white, green, yellow, and pink. This is a small part of the things we three found:
And since my son got a new student microscope for Easter, which we use to observe insects in amber, we took pictures with the microscope of the fossils and quartzes. That makes them look much better!
Mommy found a heart rock 🙂
The rock above looks like a hamburger 😉
What a cool and educational trip! Now, if we just knew what all those things are… If you recognize one of the rocks, feel free to write its name in the comments!