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  1. ThomasM

    Central Texas - Ambergris ?

    A couple of years ago, It finally dawned on me that my property outside of Austin is actually an exposed fossilized coral reef. It was that day , I stopped looking up at the oaks, and started looking down at the rocks. Since then, I have found some great fossils, however none as unusual as this one. It was strange to see a rock with color standing out from all others which are almost exclusively white. It was the contrast that caught my eye. I acknowledge many have thought they found Ambergris, just to be disappointed. Thus, I would not make the claim here without first being unable to answer the question, "If not Ambergris, then what is it?" The specimen is composed of so many different layers and veins that I can not come to any normal identification. I look forward to someone with more knowledge and a better eye, posting a more educated opinion than the one I am able to offer. Best to all - TM Central TX
  2. Jared C

    Comanche peak fm. Tetragramma

    From the album: Proudest finds

    My first Tetragramma sp. echinoid, found in a micro exposure of extremely fossiliferous mudstone from the Comanche peak formation
  3. Jared C

    P. anonymous block

    From the album: Proudest finds

    Two possibly associated Turonian Ptychodus anonymous teeth. Found and prepped in September of 2021
  4. Belton. Texas is the southern most boundary of Duck Formation in Texas. This is far as you can go and still find decent size Eopachydiscus ammonites (unless somebody can challenge that). I pulled over the service road and started looking. Few weeks ago I also found some nautiolids on this stretch of road, so I knew there were fossils here. I immediately saw the ammonites sticking out of rock pile. It was totally unexpected. They measure around 8 to 12 inches. Area has lots of road construction so rocks get dug out and coverd almost immediately. Just matter of luck.
  5. Creek - Don

    Inoceramus

    Austin Chalk Formation, bivalvia found near Hillsboro, Texas 180 MM in length and 130 mm width.
  6. My family and I love to explore creeks on the weekends. We've found many fossilized oyster shells before, but this is by far the largest specimen to date.
  7. Creek - Don

    Central Texas Nautiloid

    Hi everyboy. I stopped by the road cut near I14 and I35 in Belton, Texas today and found these two nautiloids lying side by side. Are these Eutrephoceras nautiloids? I have never found these before. I looked at geologic map, and it's showing up as Weno Limestone and PawPaw Formation. One measures 120 mm and smaller one at 100 mm.
  8. I am wanting to collect micro-matrix near (within 45 minutes or so of) Waco, Texas. How do I go about locating places to collect? I have collected non-micro in some of the creeks in the area, but I'm unsure how to locate potential micro-matrix. I'm thinking I might try the Brazos where sandbars are exposed. The help I'm looking for is not directions to your honey-spot (although, I can't say I would refuse that), but tips on what sort of environments might be productive and how to locate them. My only exposure to micro-matrix is from the Pennsylvanian in the Kansas City area, and I (and my grandkids) have had a lot of fun with that. Russ
  9. I have been experiencing the most unusual predicament for over a month now - I've been finding more artifacts than I have my target fossils. I happen to live in one of the most prolific areas in the U.S. for impressive paleoindian and other native artifacts, and while I certainly have an appreciation for these, it's like "giving pearls to swine" - since my first interest right now is firmly cretaceous vertebrates. However, I am still regularly blown away by some of these artifacts, even though I don't know much about them. So, purists be warned! This trip report is yet another one where artifacts are a regular feature -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While some people my age use social media to doom scroll or burn time, I use it to fuel unrealistic day dreams of huge Cretoxyrhina teeth. A north texas fossil hunter I follow on Instagram recently posted a broken 2.5" Cretoxyrhina tooth they found, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Furthermore, while stuck at home with a cold I caught from the impulsive, freezing creek stomping excursion I took recently, I organized part of my collection and realized that ALL of the 5 non-ptychodus shark teeth I've found at my local Eagle Ford outcrop are Cretoxyrhina mantelli - even my biggest, which I assumed from one glance in the field to be a broken Scapanorynchus raphiodon, due to the super curved root. With my largest tooth being just 1.1 inches (albeit with a broken tip), I figured I could only go up from there. So, Saturday afternoon, after a morning spent rock climbing with a friend, I swung by my new local spot. I found one, tiny beat up blade walking up, not id'able to any species. At my turn around point though, I looked down and saw this: Here it is in hand: Again - I don't know anything about points, but I think this Atlatl point is a "Bulverde", and so 3,500-5,000 years old. More experienced locals like @JohnJ might think differently though. Twenty minutes after seeing this, I hopped to a bank and froze dead in my tracks - sticking out of the side of the bank, I saw THIS: ...and a closer insitu below: After taking a descriptive video of the area, so that I can be sure I won't forget, and inspecting the immediate surrounding for the usual evidence of a camp (charcoal, snail shells, flint flakes, bone, other points, etc..) I gently used my pick to pry it loose. Strangely enough, the exposed portion was the part in the best shape. I suspect it's also a Bulverde While I was very pleased an impressed with these, I still walked home without my target. The interesting consolation prizes made it well worth the effort though. Fast forward a day (to today). My older step brother, Christian, has recently picked up an interest in flint knapping, and he's become very good at it in this short time. It stems from his interests in the local artifacts we've found, and while he's not of the personality to specialize, his focus right now is understanding the local archaeology. We decided then, to kill three birds with one stone today by a trip to my usual middle campanian stomping grounds a little further south today. This creek in particular is probably better known for points, but it has great cretaceous exposures, satisfying both our interests. Thirdly, it has nodules of quality flint, to be collected for flint knapping. The plan was to shoot relatively quickly to a massively tall cretaceous exposure that seems to yield everything except cretaceous fossils. In the creek below this exposure, I usually see artifacts and Bison teeth. For example, it was right here that my friend who I was introducing to hunting found that large "Friday Bi-face". It was slow business on the way up. Most of the way up, we saw several sets of footprints ahead of us, and by their movement pattern, it seemed they were hunters. However, when sitting down, I by complete luck noticed a great, thin point next to my backpack: (EDIT: I believe this is a "Hoxie" point, and therefore my oldest artifact find. A google search revealed that it would be between 6,000 and 8,500 years old) 20 minutes after this find, we finally made it to the huge exposure. Maybe it's from child hood habits of growing up together, but we were both hit with an impulse to climb to the top. Perhaps it would not be so impressive in a purely aesthetic sense, but the fossil hunter in me thought it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. (Backpack on left shoreline for size reference) From up high, we noticed that some parts of this exposure may be just protruding enough to stand on. What a difficult adventure that ended up being... We carefully descended to the upper third of the exposure, looking at yellow layers, that, much to our surprise, ended up being cretaceous - I'd always assumed that the grey shale at the bottom was the extent of the cretaceous strata on this cliff, and that the yellow strata above it was Pleistocene or Holocene. It was still super difficult keeping our feet even in the more "stable" parts. The ground was soft, steep, and easily collapsed. It felt awesome balancing on that stuff while scanning side of the cliff for marine fossils though. (Christian, below, on a more stable patch) (pointing to the patch we stayed on) We were mostly messing around here until Christian yelled "tooth!". I almost became past tense from moving way too quickly on that soft soil to get to him, but when I finally made it over, I saw perhaps the best Squalicorax tooth I've ever seen. We spent the rest of our time there - half trying not to teeter over, half looking for fossils, and Christian noticed another small Scapanorynchus blade. The irony that I was the only one finding projectile points while he was the only one finding fossils was immense. Squalicorax, not quite insitu- it was shifted a millimetre or two here. The finds were small but the day wasn't - I'm glad I had the opportunity to see this old spot from another angle
  10. My faithful assistant and I have been sidelined with covid. But we felt good yesterday so we decided to explore a creek in Austin, Texas that has some Eagle Ford Shale exposed. It was a sunny, warm afternoon, and a cold front would be moving in at night. At this location we've found quite a few teeth in the loose rocks strewn about. We're hoping to find mosasaur material but we've had no luck yet. Our goal was to get a bucket of gravel to search for micro-fossils. I suspect most of the teeth are eroding from the underside of a large rock slab in the creek. We think this because my assistant stood on the rock causing the edge to break. He fell in the creek, flat on his back, and as he was getting up he noticed some exposed teeth. We collected a bucket of gravel by the rock slab and searched through a small bowl and found several small teeth. The teeth range in size from 1/4 to 1 mm. We also took a few rocks with some small teeth sticking out. It was a fun hunt after being stuck inside for the past week.
  11. My first Metengonoceras dumbli ammonite at the Walnut formation. Although not complete, I've been searching this species of ammonite for many years. Plenty of Oxy's, but never ever found this one. This one measures around 4.5 inches / 114.3 mm.
  12. While I haven't made a trip report in a while, I certainly have been hunting a lot: As I get better at it, I've become more selective about what trips warrant getting posted, but this weekend was worth it even though none of the finds were truly spectacular (to most people, I have a different opinion ) Saturday was spent exploring the Ozan (and possibly Dessau) formations. Like usual, I did far more exploring than actual searching, but I did start off with a nice Scapanorynchus rear tooth, plucked from a gentle current. From here, the cretaceous finds stagnated. After coming across a bison tooth (a constant in this creek), I was stopped dead in my tracks with a large projectile point sitting plainly on the surface. The ID on this one ended up being a "Nolan", dating between 4,000-6,000 years old. Unlike most points, Nolans can be attributed to a culture- the Clear Fork culture. Within 10 minutes, maybe 8 feet away in the same gravel bank, I then saw this: After removing it, I had to take a moment to recover: I'm brand new in my journey in learning about artifacts, so all I knew in the moment was that this was intricate, large, and much different from anything I've found before. Turns out it's a "Castroville", aged between 2,500-3,000 years old. Here are three artifacts from that day. I should mention after that exciting 10 minutes I got practically skunked of both fossils and points for another 2.5 hours before heading home. Funny it always happens that way Today found me in a different part of town - this time exploring a walk upstream of my usual Eagle Ford spot. While I couldn't find the source exposure (darn erosion control wall..), I did find several extremely fossiliferous slabs. It seems like someone came through and beat me to it, getting nerve-wrackingly close to my usual spot. They did miss quite a bit though, and in between the smashed slabs I found dozens of shark teeth - too many to collect, especially as most were very small / broken. Some highlights: A long tooth of some sort next to a Squalicorax tooth. I'm very much looking forward to prepping this and seeing what it is. Also, here's a shark tooth root poking out- I'm optimistic, as I find very few teeth in central texas that aren't small - this would be a decent size for the area. I'll update this when I finish that prep And lastly, a sight that I didn't think I'd encounter soon - a Ptychodus in solid limestone of all places:
  13. Hey y'all, here are two finds from two different trips that I'm having trouble IDing 1.) This Ptychodus from the sprinkle formation ( a tongue of the Ozan here in central Texas). I'm not sure, but I think the sprinkle formation around here is Santonian in age (~86-83 myo). (Please chip in if you actually know - google is so vague here) I have a suspicion, but I don't want to count my eggs before they hatch for this one. Any ideas? 2.) What I suspect might be a Cretoxyrhina mantelli (not sure if I see evidence of broken cusps or not, so I included many photos to help show that), from what I believe might be a permanent Eagle Ford exposure here in Williamson County, central texas (exciting stuff!). The blade seems a bit thin. Any ideas?
  14. I've noticed that despite the seeming abundance of Pleistocene deposits shown on geologic maps such as this one (https://txpub.usgs.gov/txgeology/), finding how or where they expose is much more difficult. On the geologic maps I use, when I hunt late cretaceous fossils, for example, late cretaceous exposures area all classified specifically with their own names (Eagle Ford, Ozan, Del rio clay, etc.). I can then research each individual formation, and it makes narrowing down spots much easier. It seems that for Pleistocene exposures, there are no "formation names" assigned to them. This makes it hard to make my research about them specific. Obviously some Pleistocene exposures must be better than others, and many probably have their own unique identifying characteristics, but I can't research any of that, as it seems all the Pleistocene occurrences on the map are just given blanket names like "terrace deposits " or "high gravel deposits". So, how do I direct my research to be successful for finding productive Pleistocene spots? Are there any Texans too who can tell me how the local geology looks with productive Pleistocene stuff? Any or all advice from anyone would help.
  15. Over the weekend, @Jackito and I finally met up to do some hunting together. He offered to show me around at the spot he recently discovered, a potential Eagle Ford outcrop where I hardly expected one to exist - right at home in Round Rock (just north of Austin in central texas). Previous (largely uneventful) excursions with the hope of finding Eagle Ford in Round Rock had taken me close by here, but without Carter I would have never, ever zeroed in - his intuition and research to get to this spot is impressive. His account of our hunt and his finds are here: In addition to his cool finds, I also found some really nifty teeth that show great promise for this area - four, all from different species, and in total we found (6? 7? something like that). A great day that exceeded expectations. Here's what I saw, in order: 1) A rear Squalicorax tooth, that came out of a shale slab that washed downstream. This little tooth find happened rather quickly, and set a good tone for the day 2.) I believe this is a Cretolamna tooth, since it doesn't seem to have a nutrient groove, and has evidence of cusps. Here is the insitu: 3.) Next came what I believe might be Cretoxyrhina mantelli. It doesn't seem to have a nutrient groove, and its a tough call but I don't think there's evidence of broken cusps. Texturing on the high side of the blade might be wrinkling instead. I'll be putting this on fossil ID for sure. Here's the insitu vs at home in better lighting 4.) My last cretaceous find was a Scapanorynchus, broken nearly in half, unfortunately, but nonetheless cool It was a great day with some cool finds - looking forward to heading out again and exploring some spots with @Jackito and his loyal assistant
  16. facehugger

    Tetragamma Tease

    The last weekend of September, I decided to visit some of my central Texas sites. I had been looking for a tetragamma for some time - the first one I found was collected illegally, totally by mistake, on federal property. And it was far from a perfect specimen. Well, after a few years of being teased by broken tetragamma bits, I found this beauty. I believe this is a tetragamma streeuwitizi - collected from comanche peak limestone. Please forgive the situ pic, motion picture was activated, and the sun was too bright to tell that it was a poor quality image until later. Initially thought was a phymosoma sp., until I got home and realized it was a tetra - totally stoked!!! Pic #3 also shows that my tetra retained one of her (yes, I just humanized my urchin) spines!!! This is a first for me. Thanks to @Uncle Siphuncle for cluing me into the rarity of tetragamma a few years back.
  17. I've had little free time as of late, but I've made good use of some of it by starting to learn how to prepare my fossils. Here's a find I made recently that I finished tonight. It's taken a little longer than i expected, but that's because I would live stream some the prep on TikTok, where I'd prep (with one hand, risky business!) while also answering some questions about fossils and how to get started hunting, etc. This made it slow but enjoyable work. These come from my current best site that I have. The teeth are small, but perfectly preserved, since they come straight out of the ground. I made do with what I have, using a screwdriver pick I found in the garage that must've come with a screwdriver kit. It works just fine. I also found that a good playlist makes prepping even more appealing. Lately I've been getting into Colter Wall and Tyler Childers, and they've made a great vibe during my preps. First - the slab of two Ptychodus teeth, as found (sorry for the quality, it comes from a video) and here it is tonight! Next here's another tooth that I decided to break out of the paper thin slab that held it. This is my largest Ptychodus tooth from this site so far - I suspect it's a Ptychodus mammilaris, and it's slightly larger than the two above.
  18. Found this in austin texas near a creek I think it is fossilized bone fragment possably from larger reptile would be my guess if so. Any input would be helpful so maybe I can go back and look for more pieces if this is what it is or something worth looking into
  19. I recently visited a friend that lived by Austin tx. He had lots of rocks in his yard and looked different from ones where I'm from so I started picking so up I thought were interesting or colorful. So I get home later set the rocks aside and few weeks later i go to move them out the way and one catches my eye. To me it looks like a snake head then another it looks like a lizard head I take closer look at them and out of maybe 30 rocks I brought home I see half that really look like its possable they could be but if so they were somehow really preserved and just didnt seem like a fossil I'm use to seeing just the bones.. these appear to have skin fossilized over the bones and I do see what appears to be bones as well these look to much like real lizards to just be a rock that happens to look like one here are some pics please let me know if I have something awsome here or something else also including my collections from friends place near austin and another near San Antonio but these are from those 2 times. Please let me know if there is something I should get excited about here. Thanks for looking and any comments I will be reading right away
  20. Ima Surchin

    Stones or Fossils?

    New at hunting so I have no idea what I have. Location: Nolan County Texas
  21. Yesterday was attempt number two at finding exposures of the Eagle Ford formation. My first attempt a month ago found me deep in the city of Austin, searching for the Bouldin Flags member of the Eagle Ford. I had to move upstream to avoid a large homeless camp, and found myself on the Austin chalk instead, where I found a large piece of a Parapuzosia sp. ammonite ( that trip is below) While definitely a memorable hunt, with a cool fossil to show for it, it was technically still a mission failed - the Eagle Ford still eluded me. So yesterday, i decided to try again, this time scoping out a spot where I believed the Eagle Ford might be permanently exposed, right here in my own town of Round Rock, which is just north of Austin in Williamson county. Getting there took me to a park I was already familiar with, to my surprise. The plan was to use the park as an access point to take a long walk to where a creek ran through a tiny section of Eagle Ford, as detailed by the USGS map.The park itself also sits on Eagle Ford, but google maps didn't show any bodies of water that could expose it, save for the creek a mile or two down that I was expecting to walk down to (using the park as a place to park) The thicket was atrocious. I was walking through a dense, horrible wall of greenbriar and poison ivy. Fortunately, my observation is that poison ivy hardly ever causes a reaction in me - perhaps I've plowed through so much that my body is used to it, lol. To my surprise, I rather quickly stumbled upon a tiny little stream - too small to have shown up on the maps I was using. Remembering that this area should also be Eagle Ford, I decided I might as well scope it out. The one, tiny gravel bank it had produced two cool finds immediately - one smooth ammonite section, followed 30 seconds later by a smaller complete ammonite. From glancing, I think my second one is a Mortoniceras sp. This was the the only gravel bank here, so I decided to beat my way back to my car and find a different way of accessing the creek shown on the map. I would park at a nearby neighborhood instead. Getting there, I was surprised to recognize the neighborhood of my friend who I fish with. I called him and asked if he wanted to hunt with me there. He had work coming up, but an hour to spare, so we set off into the creek. Under a bridge, I poked around and found a mammal bone protruding out. Pulling it out revealed some great colors on one side. "Did...did we just find an actual old bone under this nasty bridge of all places??" - and to that I answered maybe! We decided to set it by a pillar where I wouldn't forget it on the way back. Surprise surprise - I forgot it. Blockhead of the year. I'll be back to retrieve it and try and figure out if it's anything besides a modern livestock bone soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the summary of yesterday's fruitful scouting hunt
  22. Yesterday was attempt number two at finding exposures of the Eagle Ford formation. My first attempt a month ago found me deep in the city of Austin, searching for the Bouldin Flags member of the Eagle Ford. I had to move upstream to avoid a large homeless camp, and found myself on the Austin chalk instead, where I found a large piece of a Parapuzosia sp. ammonite ( that trip is below) While definitely a memorable hunt, with a cool fossil to show for it, it was technically still a mission failed - the Eagle Ford still eluded me. So yesterday, i decided to try again, this time scoping out a spot where I believed the Eagle Ford might be permanently exposed, right here in my own town of Round Rock, which is just north of Austin in Williamson county. Getting there took me to a park I was already familiar with, to my surprise. The plan was to use the park as an access point to take a long walk to where a creek ran through a tiny section of Eagle Ford, as detailed by the USGS map.The park itself also sits on Eagle Ford, but google maps didn't show any bodies of water that could expose it, save for the creek a mile or two down that I was expecting to walk down to (using the park as a place to park) The thicket was atrocious. I was walking through a dense, horrible wall of greenbriar and poison ivy. Fortunately, my observation is that poison ivy hardly ever causes a reaction in me - perhaps I've plowed through so much that my body is used to it, lol. To my surprise, I rather quickly stumbled upon a tiny little stream - too small to have shown up on the maps I was using. Remembering that this area should also be Eagle Ford, I decided I might as well scope it out. The one, tiny gravel bank it had produced two cool finds immediately - one smooth ammonite section, followed 30 seconds later by a smaller complete ammonite. From glancing, I think my second one is a Mortoniceras sp. This was the the only gravel bank here, so I decided to beat my way back to my car and find a different way of accessing the creek shown on the map. I would park at a nearby neighborhood instead. Getting there, I was surprised to recognize the neighborhood of my friend who I fish with. I called him and asked if he wanted to hunt with me there. He had work coming up, but an hour to spare, so we set off into the creek. Under a bridge, I poked around and found a mammal bone protruding out. Pulling it out revealed some great colors on one side. "Did...did we just find an actual old bone under this nasty bridge of all places??" - and to that I answered maybe! We decided to set it by a pillar where I wouldn't forget it on the way back. Surprise surprise - I forgot it. Blockhead of the year. I'll be back to retrieve it and try and figure out if it's anything besides a modern livestock bone soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the summary of yesterday's fruitful scouting hunt
  23. Today was a memorable outing, and our net results were the best I've ever had for a single day in Austin. This morning started quickly. My step brother, Christian, was already knocking on my door at 9:30 - yes, that may be late in the morning for everyone else, but it's a full hour before I'm usually fully awake. I guess that's the trade off for late nights! Yesterday we made plans to spend our day today hunting a spot that I was used to scouring but had not visited in a while. That was not the only motivation for choosing this particular spot though. When I originally discovered this area, there were lots of associated large bones in the creek. After finding one of those water stained vertebrae, I decided "wow, that's huge! Not fossilized though.Looks bovid. Must be cow...eh " *toss* Looking back at it, I was (and am) kicking myself hard enough to break a toe. I never even thought to look for a skull, to just be sure, and the more I think about it, the more the odds fall in favor that the bones were bison, and I completely disregarded a very interesting Pleistocene skeleton. So, this was going to be an attempt at redemption - I had observed many bones downstream during successive returns (still met with more, "eh, must be cow"), but this time we were going to do something about it. The locality is cretaceous, so we'd hunt cretaceous material on the way up, keeping a look out for those "cow bones", until arriving to the site where the bulk of the skeleton used to be. At least, that was the plan... After parking by a small business (which hasn't towed me a single time- shout out to them), we made our way on foot over to a bridge, which we then started descending. The creek is on public land, but there's no parking or easily accessible points down to it. Once down at the creek, we wasted no time and took a turn left - the direction I've always gone. Christian was immediately impressed by the enormous size of the Exogyra oysters, which are abundant here. He's not an ardent fossil hunter, meaning he's never had the intent to go do it on his own, for example, but he is impressed by fossils and has a wickedly perceptive eye. We worked our way up the usual spots - it was his first time here, but probably my sixth or seventh. I pointed out to him where I made my best finds - the mosasaur tooth, the plesiosaur caudal rib, a bison tooth, etc, but in the end we didn't find much there. The "bison" skeleton was nowhere to be seen anymore, and while we found other cool fragments of definitive Pleistocene bone, none were identifiable further. One find of note however, was a echinoid that Christian spotted. I don't know how the dude does it, but he finds echinoids everywhere, it's like a superpower of his. No matter where we go or what we're doing, if it's outside, he'll spot an echinoid somehow. (Below - an interesting mushroom, which I believe to be Ganoderma sessile ) The real party started once we made it back to the bridge that we started at. Our plan was to scout the left side of the creek, the part I've never hunted before. We rounded the corner, and upon seeing the steep banks, it was clear that we had to walk across some deep creek crossings. I took point, and seeing that the water came almost to my stomach, Christian decided to settle for what he had found and instead poke around under the bridge again while he waits for me to finish scouting. Immediately after finishing my first deep crossing, and as Christian was starting to walk away, I found my first proper arrow head, ever. Previously, this creek had produced some rudimentary stone tools, one of which we even found earlier on this excursion. But they were nothing like what I had stumbled across here, sitting proud and jet black under a centimetre of water. I yelled back for Christian to come check it out - if there was any motivation for him to cross the creek and continue to scout with me, it would be this. Apparently though, he was probably a cat in his past life, because even this, found 5 minutes into this scouting run, was not convincing enough. Besides, it had started raining, so he still decided to poke around under the bridge. From this point on, I decided to make haste. I wasn't a fan of being in the rain either, but it certainly wasn't enough to stop me. I made my way down, crossing through water a few more times to avoid climbing the steep banks, and eventually came to some great looking exposures with many small, tight river bends in the creek that accumulated lots of gravel.By this time, the little cloud burst had cleared, and things were nice and cooled off. I took a video to show him for when I got back, but before that video I accidentally took a picture of the beginning of the exposures: On the walk back, I found a palm sized piece of chunkasaurus, and the mother of all Exogyra, with both parts of the shell still present, I imagine it's Exogyra ponderosa, but I know that there are some other big local Exogyra species as well, so I could be off. Scouting was successful, so I continued walking back in earnest. When I got back to the bridge, I quickly showed Christian the tid-bits I was returning with, and asked if he had any success. "Oh, you have no idea..." he replied. He then held out his hand, and we both just crumpled into another dimension. The hype was unreal. In his hand, and as the product of just thirty minutes, were two Ptychodus mortoni teeth, another echinoid, a piece of Enchodus(?) tooth, and a new shark tooth I couldn't quickly identify.It's shape is suggestive, so I'll be putting it in Fossil ID first, in the event that I'm wrong.They were small, but none of us cared - this was in AUSTIN! Three shark teeth in 30 minutes is absolutely bonkers! Furthermore, Neither of us had ever found a fish tooth, and that top shark tooth looked new for both of us. He was as stunned as I was. This was the same bridge gravel I gave minimal attention to all 6 times I've been here, and we both walked past it or spent time there already, before he really started looking as he sat around waiting for me in sheer boredom. Apparently, all he had done was assign himself to small (as in a few square feet) patch of gravel at a time, giving the smallest rocks the most undivided attention, picking up anything darkly colored. Needless to say, we both had new drive to stick around longer, now using this technique to hunt, but funnily enough (I guess I'm bad luck, lol) we both couldn't find anything else for about 40 minutes. That was until Christian then decided to uncover the next crazy trip maker of the day, a small Ptychodus mortoni still in matrix!! At this point I was reduced to a blubbering fool, and had to explain to Christian the gravity of his find. Now more than ever I had a fire under me to at least pull one shark tooth from this spot today. After another 10 minutes, my hard work was rewarded! ......with one of the tiniest shark teeth I've ever seen Some seconds after taking this picture, I noticed an echinoid just to my right, and plop! There went the tooth. I couldn't find the tiny tooth again, but it was alright, because it's sacrifice made for a sweet consolation prize Some minutes later, while I was standing up, I saw yet another echinoid, but this one was different to the others... and what a great little sea urchin it ended up being. It still had some texture on it, and despite probably being too water rolled to suite the taste of an echinoid aficionado, it was more than enough for me, as this was the first echinoid I've ever found with it's little bumps preserved. (spot the echinoid) My last find here I almost missed - it was an ammonite chunk of a species I didn't recognize. The chunk is incredibly water rolled, but still note worthy because of those distinct suture lines that I'm not used to seeing. So, while we walked away with no bison material, we at least had new perspective on on old spots, and I'm sure this place will produce many more fossils and memories in the future. Entry Actions
  24. I've had quite the busy weekend..Saturday I returned from a two week trip to Ohio, and today I started the first day of the new semester. Due to the upcoming school schedule and two weeks without a hunt, I made sure that Sunday would be a day for a thorough, long hunt. One nice bit about being away for so long was that I had lots of time to think about new localities. There was about a three day stretch where I spent multiple hours of each day researching and investigating. I've been juggling my focus between Cretaceous to Pleistocene stuff, and after a while I settled on a possible spot (which was very close to my usual stomping grounds actually) that seemed it could offer the best of both. The search: I was amazed by how inaccessible this place ended up being- the plan was to park just under a mile down trail and split off into the thicket to reach a creek. Needless to say the plan failed - the thicket was completely impenetrable, until I found a tiny game trail a little further up. I blundered my way through until I came to the top of a vertical exposure that I had to maneuver (tumble) down , to get to another game trail that ran lengthwise along the bank. This continued for an additional 20 minutes, and my rock hammer became more of a grappling hook, but I finally made it to the water, scratched up and filthy. I took a shade break at the bottom of one of these exposures, and made my first keeper find - a beautiful coral of some variety tucked into the bottom of the cliff. (Above- my backpack at the shade spot under one of the exposures) (Above: First find! A detailed coral) Further downstream, I found an exposure of bright blue shale - it was an odd sight, and unfortunately the photo doesn't show it's brilliant hue at all Nearby, there was a pretty piece of iron pyrite embedded in shale, worth making it into the collection bag It was a nice feeling to hunt in a spot where I'm almost positive no one else explores. The location was so secluded and difficult to reach that it seemed very unlikely those rocks had even seen a person in years. After those banks turned up dry, I Indiana Jones'd my way up the exposure I came down from to try and find another access point further upstream... and I did! The approach this time was much easier, as this game trail seemed to be quite active. This was where things started heating up. I apparently had reached the end of the natural area, because in the distance I saw an apartment complex that was backed up to the creek. Several kids were playing in it over there. I turned away and immediately had that strange, powerful intuition that "there are things here somewhere" Indeed, after 5 minutes, in a corner that was riddled with rusty bullets for some reason, I saw a brown strange fossilized tooth I've never seen before. Below is the insitu I was hyped! It had beautiful colors and was still positioned in a piece of the jaw! It looked so odd that I assumed it was mammal, optimistically a carnivore. I couldn't be more wrong though - after some head scratching on the Fossil ID section, and the intellectual prowess of @Al Dente, it turned out that the tooth is cretaceous - from the large bony fish Hadrodus hewletti . I had never even heard of it (which, let's be honest, isn't saying much), but some of the experienced locals and other hunters hadn't either. In addition, the only other reference I could find to Hadrodus hewletti (from a google search) was on a single speciman discovered in the Mooreville chalk of Green County, Alabama in 1979 - the same speciman used to ID this tooth in the first place. So, I guess that makes this find pretty rare! I hope so, especially if it could even be of scientific interest. I made my way up, poked around a bit, and decided to to head back to the precise spot where I found the tooth again. At this time I still thought it was mammal, so I was keen to inspect the exposure high above in case there was more. There wasn't, but low and behold, in the same corner, a great looking Scapanorynchus was staring out at me. Even on it's own, a great shark tooth like that, especially from Austin, where they can be notoriously elusive, is a trip maker. Below is the insitu The day was coming to a close. I had spent about 6 hours trekking and exploring this new area, in Texas afternoon heat, and it made a fantastic adventure for the last day of summer holidays
  25. Jared C

    Pleistocene carnivore tooth

    Hey ya'll I found what I suspect to be a mammalian carnivore (or omnivore) tooth today - it's fossilized, so it ought to be from the Pleistocene, but I found it while hunting cretaceous fossils in Austin (central texas). It's still embedded in the jaw bone. Based on a few brief images from google, I have an outlandish suspicion of what it might be - but I'll leave the actual ID to you guys
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