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About
Don Relyea's Blog

I like to write about interesting art projects, so give me a heads up if you have new project and I'll write about it.


Don Relyea
email:
don(at)donrelyea.com

• art (215)
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Blogs:
Chris Ashley
Tom Moody
BLDG blog
Walker Art Center
turbulence.org
collisiondetection.net
She Dreams in Digital
kevan.org
2blowhards.com
thinking about art
artblog.net
the generator blog
The Presurfer
Mike Butler
Erik Smartt
patentlysilly.com
angrypirate.com
Chris Jagers
Paperback Writer
lifehacker
Mark Gould
asquare.org
m.d. mcmullin
amovablefeast
accuracy and aesthetics
phawker.com

Bombshell



Agendas Under Fire



110th Assembly


Meret Oppenheim portrait


Image Reconstruction


Ready Made Glitch


Slit Scan 3d Images


Systemic Sky


Slit Scan Photography



Monochrome Generator


Space Filling Curve Art



Hair Particle Drawing

Arts and New Media
Sect of Homokaasu
Roman Verostko
Jared Tarbell
Marius Watz
Juergen Schwietering
MIT Media Lab
eyebeam.org
ARS Electronica
mocoloco.com
rhizome.org
runme.org
core77.com
IAAA
furtherfield.org
Cory Arcangel
Philip Galanter
Roy Stanfield
Adrian Ward
ambienttv.ne
Alex Dragulescu
toxi
generator x
database of virtual art
Blast Theory
Institute for Applied Autonomy
0100101110101101.org
Bathsheba Grossman
Ariel Malka
BLF
Art Crimes
Buff Monster
Hactivist
rtmark
Faile
Mute
Crumb
the Yes Men
Marcel
X257.com
moma
amoda.org
artforum
metropolismag.com
neural.it
EFF
{G2}
Kate Armstrong
no-org.net
mnartists.org
Casey Reas
Vlad_Nanca
digitalsouls
Transmediale
Media Art Net
treasurecrumbs
Art Interactive
Electronic Arts Intermix
artsjournal
MTAA
Suzanne G
onreact
Wooster Collective
computergraphica.com
hardisco.com
inhabitat.com
c505
recyclart
ultra eczema
Kris Davidson
Robert Spahr
drainmag.com
Thor Johnson

Thanksgiving Cretaceous Fossil Hunt in Blanco TX

I went to Blanco, Tx with the family, a buddy Alex, and our next door neighbors to spend part of the Thanksgiving holiday there on our neighbor's acreage. We go to Blanco now pretty regularly and always have a good time. It is in the Texas Hill Country and there is a lot to do there for adventurous kids. We always get to see plenty of nature and usually go on at least one fossil hunt.

In Blanco there are lots of great Cretaceous exposures where the roads are cut and in new residential developments. Generally I go out ahead of time to find good limestone exposures and find good fossils to put out in the open before I swing by with the kids. This way the kids always find something ensuring I will get to go fossil hunting again next time =) Unfortunately it started raining while we were out looking for fossils for the kids to find, so we just grabbed them and took them home with us.

Not shown here is a really nice Baculite Alex found. It is about 8 inches long. I found a nice piece of coral with some crystals on it as well but they are still in the back of Alex's car. We also found a whole bunch of clams.

We also found what we think is the back half of a sea scorpion, unfortunately it was totally exposed and all the segments fell apart when we tried to move it out of the exposure. The other problem with our sea scorpion theory is that they are Silurian Age creatures (over 400 million years ago). Although we found it on the lowest layer of exposure I am unsure it was low enough, only about 4ft below Cretaceous layer (only 144-65 million years ago) . It is still in pieces also probably in the back of Alex's car. We will have to reassemble it and look again.

Being an aficionado of mathematical forms in nature I was excited to stumble on this combination of items. One of the things I really enjoy about wandering around in the countryside of Blanco is the abundance of interesting nature. What we have here is a lower Cretaceous concretion with embedded Turritella juxtaposed with a leaf. I found these items sitting this way and I just had to take a picture of it.

Smashed Heteraster texanus - Cretaceous Period (144-65 mya), Salenia Mexicana (foreground)- Cretaceous Period (144-65 mya), Big snails (Gastropods ) are Tylostoma tumidum Cretaceous Period (144-65 mya), small snails in the back are Drepanochilus (Anchura) Cretaceous Period (144-65 mya).

I have to admit to being pretty excited about finding the Salenia Mexicana, although these are somewhat common in Texas this was my first one. I can't wait to go back to this exposure again there was so much stuff in there we only had time to scratch the surface.

Several Echinoids, mostly Heteraster Texanus - Cretaceous Period (144-65 mya), these were in pretty bad shape from sitting out in the elements for a while so I added them to our neighbor's rock garden. Also more concretions with Turritella and a crushed gastropod.

[/fossils] permanent link