Paleocene Fossil Hunting in Maryland

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Mark Khosravi

Below is where we inserted into the creek in search of extinct 55 million year old giant clam fossils. Accompanying me on this trip were my brother in law Andy and his son Ben. The following pictures are posted not in sequence but do show the chronological order of how we entered the creek and made our way to the fossil site.

Directions to site:

Henson Creek

Henson Creek is next to a busy road in the suburbs. You can find remnants of many mollusks, including the giant clam. Come armed with ice picks and dental tools to dig at the clay in the stream bed. From the Capital Beltway, turn onto the St. Barnabas Road exit heading south. Take a right on Brinkley Road. Turn left on Fischer and take a right into the community there. Park your car and cross Brinkley to the stream

Below Andy (foreground) and Ben treking into the creek looking to find the mother load of fossils that I promised them would be there

Below Profile view of the creek bank near where we inserted into the creek showing the variuos sediment layers

Above A close up view of the ancient marine sediment layers that forms part of the creek bank and bottom

Above Andy ventures further back into the creek

Above Exposed clay bank and prehistoric sediments. All of those bumpy things on the creek bed are Giant Clams!!!

Below Andy and Ben examine the first of their finds.

Above and Below Andy and his son Ben have hit the mother load and are clearly happy at their discovery

Below a sample of the fossils we found. Shown here are some Ben’s finds an oyster and a giant clam mold fossil. Although there were quite an abundance of fossils only few examples were taken-no need to be greedy:)

Below more examples of extinct giant clams and an oyster fossil recovered by Andy

Night Time Observations

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Mark Khosravi

After a long hot day in the 90’s and high humidityand tonight wasn’t much differnt. What was interesting about tonight was the frequency of snake sitings crossing the roads. I must have seen at least 4 in the course of two hours time as well as one dead one. In fact I almost hit two of them. From what I could tell most were Black Rat snakes one I believe was a rather large garter snake. I would be curious to know if tonight was an unusually active night for reptiles. If so what factor(s) are contributing to their increased activity.

Just a thought

Popes Head Creek 8 Acre Park Excursion

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Mark Khosravi

On my way out from the creek today noticed several very large, mature milkweed plants. On them were a number of catepillars and they appeared to be feeding on them. I hadn’t really noticed them on other milkweed plants befreo usually see the monoarch larva and not hese guys. As it turns out they are not butterfly larva but instead moths known as milkweed tussock moth caterpillars

Queen snake and what I believe may be a juvenile three lined or possibly a longtail salamander-Eurycea genus. The snake was found under a rock along shaded stream bank. The salamander was under a rock but in a shaded tributary of Popes Head Creek.

Queen snakes prefer eating molting crayfish are a very sensitive species to change in their environment. I have sen an abundance of crayfish in Popes Head but don’t often encounter these gentle snakes as much as I did in the past.