Mission Apollo

The message on this coffee cup

really encapsulates how I'm feeling at the end of July...

(and not in a cute, sexy way)

     Yes, yes, this Florida summer is just as it should be:  blisteringly hot and punctuated by outbursts of dangerous lightening.  I was reading a post on The Fossil Forum and the originator of the thread invited everyone down to south Florida to dig on land sites with him.  I was tempted...but only for a second.  I imagined myself laid out on the sand like a piece of raw meat in a frying pan, trying to remember, through a haze of heat stroke, exactly what I was supposed to be looking for.

Pass!

     Yet, when I found myself on the Tampa side of the state this weekend, I blew past my Orlando exit and continued down I-75 to Apollo Beach.

I needed some fossils in a bad way!

     A couple of years ago I spent a summer scouring Apollo Beach while I waited for the waters of the Peace River to recede.  Apollo Beach is an ugly, bizarre place but the small strip of easily accessible sand yields some great little fossils, "little" being the operative word.  I've made no secret of my disdain for 1/4" screen when I'm digging in the Peace River; the tiny stuff frustrates me and my search for that big perfect meg (that I still haven't found!).  However, after my recent visit to Apollo Beach, I'm rethinking my feelings about "micro" fossils.

     Look at this tiny incisor; smaller that a squirrel, bigger than a mouse.  Maybe a Pleistocene rat?  It has beautiful sheen and color and I can't wait to buy a magnifying glass so I can actually see it.

And I believe this is the smallest alligator osteoderm ever.

     I'm currently reading Florida's Geological Treasures by Iris Tracy Comfort and she writes, "Because of the ample supply and...ease of collecting and storing, many collectors have...begun to specialize in microscopic material."

     I'm not ready to commit to a microscopic fossil collection (sounds like a migraine in the making) but I can now see the allure of the tiny fossil.  Next time I'm in the area, I'm going to scoop some of the beach "slurry" into a bucket and take it home for closer inspection.

Armadillo scutes, Apollo Beach, Florida