Hello Central Alabama !

[Willie Zappa]

Hello Central AL Md'ers & Treasure Hunters. I've noticed some of you are near Hanceville. I live in Trafford which is about 5 miles from Warrior. I enjoy metal detecting, fossil hunting and just getting out and enjoying being outside. Between Top Hat and Hanceville there's a rock quarry that has lots of fossils. Mostly little 4 inch backbones in granite that is probably fish, but also there's a fossilized "3-Foot-Long Earthworm" . It's in a tractor-trailer-sized rock in the ground, and part of the worm fossil is worn away, most likely from cars parking on it or driving over it. But there's enough of it (two feet or so) to tell it's definitely an earthworm.
I'll try to check out when some of you are getting together to go metal detecting and maybe I can tag along. It may be mid-Feb before I'll be able to get away.
Lot's of luck to everyone 'til then. --Jim

 

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[chefrider]

Hello There Willie Zappa, glad to have you on board. You are probably not to far from Nana40. The group of us, who are presently unamed, would be glad to have you along.

 

[DixieHunter145]

Hey Zappa,

I am one of the members of the group Chefman mentioned. I'm located in Hanceville so your not that far away. Welcome aboard!

 

[TimC (North Alabama)]

Yeah, me too! I'm just above Hanceville in Cullman.

 

[Nana40]

Welcome to Tnet, Jim. That fossil sounds like a doozy!

Nana

 

[hsvboy]

I live in huntsville just above cullman

 

[Willie Zappa]

Sorry about the delay in responding.
Thanks for the warm welcome from everyone. I would like to go to some good places to MD with nice people such as you all are. I'll shoot for some time later in
this month.
Yep, that is one heck of an earthworm. I was piddling around at the rock quarry that day, I started out metal detecting and started noticing fish backbones in some of the granite. As I looked around a little more I saw some rock slabs about 3 feet in diameter that had around a dozen of the 4 or 5 inch backbones in each one. So there
were probably about 12 large flat stones with fossils that might weigh a ton or so each. Then I saw the worm. The end of it is so well fossilized it's obvious what it is.
There was a truck there that someone had driven into the water and burned. My nephew is a policeman so he called in the tag number, and yep...it was stolen.
As the police waited on the wrecker to come get the truck.. I had to take them over to the 3-foot-worm. Everybody That saw it said, Wow...that's a worm alright.
If you are standing at the remaining water at the quarry facing away from the water, the worm is northeast about 250 feet.
Once again, thanx for the great welcome! I'll be visiting TN every chance I get.

 

[possumheaded]

Hey and Welcome!
Is the rock quarry you speak of where Catfish Cave is? If so, that's a great place.
Good to see another Alabamian on here.
Ed

 

[Willie Zappa]

Hey PossumHeadEd ! How's it going ?
I've never heard of that cave you spoke of, but I'm sure that some of my family members that live in Smokerise have. My nephew that still lives there told me of
scouting out every crack & cranny around there.
This weekend I'm going to SilverStar (for the first time) with my nephew and some other family members, I'll ask him about it.(Catfish Cave).
Perhaps sometime next week some of us can meet and go detecting.
I'm looking forward to it. So far I haven't found any good places that I might
be able to get permission.
I'll catch up a little later, good luck to everybody 'til then.
----Jim

 

[possumheaded]

That cave is in a quarry right off of 31 between Top Hat and Bangor Cave.
Good luck at the Silver Star.
Ed

 

[Willie Zappa]

I did ask Jny about Catfish Cave, He mentioned Bangor Cave. Maybe in a week or so we can get some "Big Flashlights" and check some of these places out. I'm just about sure there are Bobcats around here, so a few handguns might be a good idea.
If we can't get a gun...then I've got another good idea, you go in first, ha ha.
I looked into the front of a cave in Smokerise, the ground was clean where some
animal had been living there, so I didn't go into it. It could've been one of those
wild wierd looking PossumHeadEd things ! Ha ha......just kiddin, I couldn't pass up
that one.

 

[alabamadan]

When I was in High School there was an old cave in the Rock Quarry. It was on the left side of the quarry as you came in and went all the way through the hill, coming out on a road about a 1/4 mile up. That was in the 1980s before the quarry opened up again and started working. It has since closed again.