Fossil hunting!

What are the secrets lying beneath our feet? Georgia Mills went fossil hunting with palaeontologist Jamie Jordan...

Jamie - This is the monster bed that has been excavated out of the main quarry and placed in this safe area for us to hunt through today.

Georgia - Kings Dyke nature reserve in Peterborough. I’m with Jamie Jordan from Fossils Galore and we’ve gone fossil hunting…

Jamie - You never know, you might come across some bones, or teeth, or other prehistoric creatures as well that lived in this shallow tropical sea from the Jurassic.

Georgia - I’m so excited - might I find a dinosaur?

Jamie - You might do. Yeah, you never know. I’ll just get some tools out…

Georgia - Oh yes. Show me your tool set

Jamie - There’s a hammer there. Chisel as well… you got it?

Georgia - Hammer and chisel.

Jamies - We’ll start heading down and I’ll show you how to find them... We’ll be looking for material like this one over here. Can you see how shelly it is?

Georgia - Yeah.

Jamie - What we’ve got here is we’ve got lots of ammonites which are prehistoric cephalopods. They’d have lots of tentacles - a little bit like the modern day nautilus that are swimming around today. As you can see there are hundreds of them just everywhere. Like I was saying, every centimetre of clay is 10,000 years of time. So let’s find you a rock which you can split open… you’ll need a hammer.

Georgia - Ready… [hammer sounds ]. What have we got in here?

Jamie - You’ve got lots more ammonites in there.

Georgia - This is an ammonite hotbed.

Jamie - And you’ve also got a fish poo in there as well

Georgia - Oh, fish bone?

Jamie - No, not quite. Fish poo - also knows as coprolite

Georgia - That’s the classy term for it.