Hi,


This (Strathfield excavation) is not a fossil site ... i.e. nothing has
been found there, but I'd be pretty certain nobody has looked either.

It is as I mentioned before, a large current excavation into fresh Asfield
Shale - many metres deep and must be for a place intending to have
multi-level subsurface car parking.

I've got the address more accurately now. It is at Parramatta Road on the
corner with Cooper Street, and the excavation extends back from Parramatta
Road towards the next parallel street which is Hilts Street.

Being quite deep and narrow I strongly suspect the developers will be very
OHS-sensitive about anyone going there though .. however I've noticed that
it doesn't work at all on weekends, when inspection of the shale would be
quite easy if allowed. Over half of the excavation has by now been
concrete lined and is useless, but the bit at the Parramatta Road end is
still chewing away merrily and breaking up great chunks of shale, as you
can just barely glimpse over the top of the fence.

In a different area of Sydney, the quarry at East Wahroonga which produced
a small fishmany years ago is reached from the northern end of Clissold
Road ... walk east from there downslope along a dirt track leading down to
Lovers Leap Creek. I presume the quarry is long defunct and I have not
been there for years but it used to have lots of shale spoil still around.
There used to be a crusher operated there. The "kid" who found that fish
later went on to become a geologist, by the name of John Love.

Another feature of interest near there is polygonal jointing of the type
seen at West Head and around Gosford, and a convenient example is
immediately north of the retirement village (old school site) on the
eastern side of Grosvenor Street.

Besides labyrinthodont footprints at Berowra people at Maroota do say that
somebody local there has them under his house of something like that
(presumably a known/recorded site?). They have also been reported at
places north of Broken Bay and someone thereabouts only quite recently
mentioned to me that he is soon going to search again for tracks or
anything interesting along the coastal exposure at Kincumber. Photos I've
seen from thereabouts could be 'something' but didn't look terribly
convincing.

Regards,


John Byrnes





~~~~~~~~~~~

At 11:25 AM 1/28/2007 -0000, you wrote:

>Hi Jill
>
>Thought I would through in my two cents worth here, having spent a
>while looking for fossils in and around Sydney.
>
>Firstly, good fossils are few and far between and its a matter of
>checking every excavation that you can and its a then a matter of
>odds, luck and ability to identify the right signs. I always carry
>around a hard hat, fluro vest and boots so that if I see a site I can
>put on the fafety gear and ask if I can look around. You get a lot
>of knockbacks but sometimes you get lucky, especially if you are only
>asking to look at rock dumps and not work face areas. Turning up at
>knock off time often worked as well.
>
>A lot of operators are paranoid about OH&S or that you will find an
>aboriginal relic and have their site closed down.
>
>Some actual sites I'm aware of and are probably not listed elsewhere
>include:-
>
> - A friend of mine was shown fish fossils from an oval excavation at
>a school around Epping, I'm pretty sure it was Epping Boys High.
>
> - I found fish fossils and some cartlige shark fossils at the cnr of
>Pennant Hills Rd and the M2 during its construction.
>
> - I found another nice complete fish at Baulkham Hills in brick
>quarry leftovers and some Unios nearby in some rubble being dug up to
>lay a water pipe
>
> - I also found a large piece of conifer at Leighton Pl, Hornsby at
>an excavation for a factory
>
> - other plant fossil locations are numerous but few of the specimens
>would make it into a display cabinet.
>
> - A work friend found a fish fossil at Horsley Park in Western
>Sydney while digging for a fence post.
>
> - I've heard that Labyrinthodont footprints were found at Berowra
>during construction of a home and were not formally identified untill
>15 years after they were reported to the museum.
>
> - The Hornsby Heights Quarry is a shale lens in sandstone and had a
>mortality layer of fish near its base. Much of it is still there but
>buried under about three meters of huge boulders, put there by the
>Quarry mamager to stop people comming in after hours. The odd fish
>was found at other levels in the quarry. It is now part of a public
>reserve.
>
>Great fossils will be dug up and destroyed or reburied in Sydney
>tomorrow but almost no one is looking. It is up to us enthusiasts.
>
>Do you have a copy of the old Fossil Club publication "Finding
>fossils in Sydney" Compiled by Peter Watson ? While it is small it
>gives a good overview.
>
>
>Regards
>Paul