Favorite Posts of 2014

Tomorrow is the last day of the year 2014. Overall, for me it was a great year. Also, this is the first year of my blog's existence- LavaofOceanDawn's first birthday is coming up on Feb. 12!!!! So, in order to commemorate this wonderful year, I am going to choose my top 5 favorite posts of this year!

                            Beach Bling on Sanibel (Part 2 of My Shelldventure on Sanibel)

 

Intro to an Internship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Searching for Shark Teeth

 

Tuesday Morning on Sanibel (Sanibel Saga #7)

 

Some Shellart

 

ANd those were my top 5 favorite posts. What were your favorite posts?

I hope that y'all had a wonderful year too. So I wish you guys Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Fantastic New Year!

Bye,

Yaroshelllava :D

Snow-white Seashells

In the absence of some snow-white snow, or just some snow, I have decided to look through my collection at the snow-white seashells that I have. Hope that some snow will come soon!!!!!!!

 

Let's start with some Wentletraps. These are all Angulate Wentletraps, except for the one that is perfectly vertical in the center. That one is a Humphrey's Wentletrap- it is more stretched out and the ridges are not as sharp-looking. I'll do a post and the wentletraps soon!

These here are Pennsylvania Lucines. I found a bunch of these in Fort Lauderdale on the East Coast of Florida.

The Sailor's Ear or Channeled Duck Clam. The hind-ends of this shells is flared so that the siphon protrudes.

The White baby's Ear contains a foot tat cannot be withdrawn into the shell, due to the shell being rather flat.

The Florida Spiny Jewelbox live cemented to reefs and debris at medium depths. But Florida Spiny Jewelboxes detach when still young and live freely among the sand and rubble.

The Buttercup Lucine isn't perfectly white, you can see the beautiful yellow on the inside of the shell, but I just had to include it! Both these shells and Pennsylvania Lucines can live in depths of up to 300 feet.

 

 

These are Dosinias. These mollusks have strong hinge ligaments that stay attached long after the mollusk dies. That is why you can often find double Dosinias on the beach.

 

And finally, before I go, here is a seashell pendant that I made today.

 

Bye for now!

Yaroshelllava :D

Shellebrating the Twelve Days of Shellmas!

I bring to you some shelliday cheer with the twelve days of Shellmas!!!

 

On the first day of Shellmas, my shelling buddy gave to me one Scotch Bonnet,

 

 

Two Channeled Whelks,

Three Shark's Eyes,

Four Baby's Ear

Five Chestnut Bonnets,

Six Atlantic Thorny Oysters,

Seven Florida Ceriths,

Eight Banded Tulips,

Nine Calico Clams,

Ten Bubble Shells,

 

Eleven Apple Murices,

 

Twelve Lettered Olives,

 

And an Osprey that wasn't in a tree!

 

And that is how I spread my shelliday spirit!

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D

 

Fossil Friday

Today, since it's a Friday, I decided to show to my fossil collection. Let's start with shark teeth!

This is my biggest shark tooth- about 2.5 or 3 inches long. I won this in a lottery at a local gem/mineral/fossil show! I know for certain that it's not a Megaladon, but otherwise, I'm clueless. If you guys know what kind of tooth this is, please comment! :D

Next is my second biggest tooth. Now, based on other people's knowledge, I will hazard a guess that this is a Great White tooth. It's only 2 inches long, so it's too small to be a Megaladon's. I found it in Oak Island, NC. The waves were about 6 ft, and super rough that day.

And here are all my shark teeth. I'm rather bad at IDing my shark teeth, so I 'm not even gonna try. However, here's a fun fact for you guys. You notice that while most teeth are black or grey, several are yellowish. The color of fossilized shark teeth depends on the color of the earth that they were fossilized in. So the black teeth became fossilized in black soil.

Here is a Stingray Barb. I have a few of these.

And here are Stingray Dental Plates.

Two of my porpoise teeth.

And finally, some fossilized snail shells ( I couldn't resist- seashells are impossible to leave out of anything!)

 

Now you may wonder where I find my fossils? Most of them I find locally- at Flag Ponds Nature Park, I wrote about one of my trips there in this blog post. This is a state park on the Chesapeake Bay. Another park to visit if you're looking for fossils is Calvert Cliffs. We went there once but the hike was far too long for us ( me and my brothers were pretty young and got tired). Also, a small portion of my fossils I find on my lovely Oak Island, NC. This year is the thirteenth year that my family and I have vacationed ont he island and it's lovely!

 

Well that's it for today!

Yaroshelllava :D

Seashell Transformation Tuesday!!!!!!!!!

The good thing about Tuesday, is that it isn't Monday! Another good thing is that now because of Instagram we have this thing called #transformationtuesday. I've been wanting to do this for a while and today I had some time, so here is how seashells grow and transform!!!!!!

Now we all know that seashells come from egg casings that look like.....

 

..THIS! (Fig shell egg casing)

Or like this! (Horse Conch egg casing)

Or like this! (Whelk egg casing)

Then after the mini shells hatch out, this is what they look like!

These are Whelk babies. So teensy and cute, right? As you can see that mollusks already have their shells. The shells are made out of calcium carbonate.

And now, here is how big a whelk shell can grow! This is a Knobbed Whelk. They are right-handed mollusks and are found usually further north than the similar looking Lightning Whelk that is found more south. Also, the lightning Whelk is a left-handed shell. For my post on left-handed vs. right-handed shells click here

 

And here is the "transformation" part. From just-hatched baby whelk to this nice, 8-inch Knobbed Whelk. I found it on Assateague Island, by the way. :D

 

And now, I took some more "transformation" pictures of my other shells.

 

The Lettered Olive. This shell is pretty abundant and it lives most of its life buried in the sand, with only its siphon stretched out above, over-ground.

The Colorful Moon Snail or Gaudy Natica or Colorful Atlantic Natica. I found the bigger shell at Bowman's Beach on Sanibel Island!

The Lightning Whelk. If you compare this shell to the Knobbed Whelk above, you will see how they open up to different sides. The Lightning Whelk is one of the very few left-handed shells.

These are my beloved Horse Conchs. The baby one is just super tiny! But the juvie one isn't much larger- no more than 4 inches long, when these shells have been known to grow up to 20 inches in length! I am still searching for my grown, adult Horse Conch.

And lastly, the Turkey Wing! They can be found from North Carolina down to Bermuda and Brazil!

 

And I will end our seashell transformation Tuesday on that note!

See ya,

Lava of Ocean Dawn :D

Shellart on Sunday

Today I had a free day so I decided that I do some shellart, that I had been wanting to do for the past week or so.
I started with some shell plaques...

 

 

These one was my first one today. I took a piece of cardboard and used a hot glue gun to cover it in pretty origami paper and then to glue on shells. I have a supply of "craft shells" for projects like this. My "craft shells" are complete and broken, old and new, but they are slightly worse than my "collection shells" (the ones that I organize into boxes to keep), so they go into my craft supply.

 

Then, I made a second shell plaque. I started the same way as the first one. Then I made the flower in the center out of Disk Dosinias and a Chestnut Turban. The yellow chain at the top of the plaque is a Whelk Egg Casing.

 

After my two shell plaques, I got into a holiday mood. So I made this Christmas Shell Tree out of various Ark shells and a Scallop on top. Lastly, I made sparkly balls out of silver and gold paper to be ornaments.

 

Having completed my Christmas Shell Tree, I made some shellangels. I used Mossy Arks as the wings and yard for the red bows.

 

And now, I want to show you guys some other shell crafts that I did about two weeks ago.

 

First, I crocheted this Pearl Oyster or Clam! Did you know that not only oysters and clams can make pearls, but conchs and whelks too? Yes, they can!

 

And also, I made this print of a Horse Conch. Then I decided that the white edges of the paper looked bare, so I made a shellframe!

 

I hope that my shellart will give you guys some shellspiration! Have fun!

Yaroshelllava :D