2026 Day 2 - Tuesday

mark kemp ‘the yorkshire fossil hunter’ with fish finds from day 2

I arrive in time for morning briefing, aware that I’m the only person who enjoyed the luxury of my own bed last night as everyone else is camping onsite for the duration of the dig. However, soon I’m not the only person who hasn’t slept under canvas as we are joined today by Dr Emily Swaby, a specialist in fossilised insects.

Emily was part of the original Court Farm dig as a PhD student. We’re excited that she’s back to help us identify any insects that may be uncovered. Even though we are working on the remains of a marine ecosystem, there is a plenty of fossilised wood around which tells us that there must have been land nearby. The team were lucky enough to find a rare example of a beetle during the 2022 dig – so there may be more to come.

Down onsite the digger is continuing to excavate the first trench, and we are able to continue our work at the other end, maintaining a safe distance from the heavy machinery. Having picked off the easy-to-spot nodules yesterday, today we are using our forks and picks to feel for hardened areas beneath the surface to dig out. Some nodules come away whole, while others have broken into pieces and seem to have channels running through them.

The team is determined to find a really good fish today. I am working on a section which seems to be yielding a lot of hard-to-split nodules with nothing much in them. There are excited cries when someone splits a nodule in half perfectly, only to find that it contains inert grey rock. We are also finding plenty of beautiful patterns of scattered fish scales and small bivalves, but by now we are used to these and we want something bigger and better.

At last it comes, the fish-hunter’s find of the morning goes to lucky Emily Swaby with this beautiful example in two halves. The fish is slightly raised from the surface of the rock, indicating that it’s not been completely flattened and there is some soft tissue preservation present.

Fossilised fish found by emily swaby

Other impressive finds include an ichthyosaur vertebra found by Finch Neville, the first to be discovered on this site.

the first icthyosaur vertebra to be found onsite

There have been some beautiful ammonites today, such as this one with a crinoid star.

Ammonite and crinoid star

And perhaps most fascinating of all is what may be a crocodilian vertebra inside a coprolite (fossilised faeces).

possible crocodilian vertebra inside a coprolite

It’s very hot and even in unsealed bags in the shade, this morning’s specimens are starting to sweat, so Nigel gets them safely back to the cool finds room where they are unbagged and left to dry.

For me, I spend the afternoon slowly chipping away at one nodule which seems rather resistant to my chisel, but eventually starts opening up to reveal layer upon layer of fish scales. In the meantime, Max is working hard to uncover what he hopes is going to win the prize for biggest nodule. There’s not actually a prize for biggest nodule yet, but Nev concedes that he may come up with one if Max’s nodule is deemed worthy. Despite best efforts, it doesn’t all come out of the ground in one piece, and I am just leaving for the day as the team starts to chisel away at the pieces.

Max’s contender for the largest nodule competition

It's been another great day onsite. I’m back again on Friday, so for the next two days Finch will be taking over the blog to share finds and reports.