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Showing results for tags 'Late Cretaceous'.
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Need help in identifying problematic fish bone
The Amateur Paleontologist posted a topic in Fossil ID
Hey everyone Hope you're all doing well! While looking through unprepped/untouched blocks of chalk from last year's fieldwork session in the Late Cretaceous of Møns Klint (Denmark), I found one block that showed a little trace of fish bone. I scraped a bit around it with some dental tools, and managed to reveal the whole fossil. And I'm having quite some trouble identifying it... Could anyone help me? I've included pics and details of the specimen below. Pics: Note especially the 'ridges' in the upper half of the fossil Full details: -Location: Møns Klint, Isle of Møn, Denmark -Stratigraphy: Occidentalis belemnite zone, Hvidskud Member, Møns Klint Formation, White Chalk Group. -Age: Upper part of Lower Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous; ~70 million years old -Measurements: ~5mm largest width; ~4mm height -Possible interpretations so far: partial fin element, partial scale. Most recently, I considered it to be the partial scute of a Dercetidae fish (based on Wallaard et al. 2019 and Friedman 2012)... But I'm really unsure... Taken from Wallaard et al. 2019 Taken from Friedman 2012 I'd be really grateful for any help identifying my specimen
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Excellent paper that examines the geology and paleontology of what they call the Kem Kem Group that includes the lower Gara Sbaa and upper Douira formations . I will add that the authors view of the dinosaur assemblage in this fauna does not agree with recent publications from other paleontologists. Great images of croc teeth, dinosaur teeth and claws. It even discusses "that some geographic names are simple errors that gain traction in secondary citations. In a prominent compilation of dinosaur localities, for example, the term “Tegana Formation” was cited for the “Kem Kem beds” (Weishampel et al. 1990). This may have arisen as a misspelling of the “Tegama Group”, a name for Cretaceous age beds in Niger. Although the error was noted (Sereno et al. 1996), it has reappeared in subsequent publications (e.g., Bailey 1997, Kellner and Mader 1997, Taverne and Masey 1999, Weishampel et al. 2004)" Article ...PDF in that article is +100mb https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/47517/
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- douira formation
- kem kem beds
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Another important dinosaur paper that is paywalled. Went the rental route again. The paper takes the first good look at the Skull of the Dromaeosaurid, Saurornitholestes langstoni from the Dinosaur Park Formation. It provided great insight into Dromaeosaurid's and specifically the dentition which we as collectors are most interested in. Similar species are found in Montana's Judith River and Two Medicine Formation. The biggest surprise were the premaxillary teeth, they are distinctive, and teeth previously identified in the Dinosaur Park Formation as Zapsalis abradens can now be identified as the second premaxillary tooth of S. langstoni. The morphology and wear patterns suggest that these may have been specialized for preening feathers. Zapsalis is one of those tooth taxons and brings into question if its indeed valid or just synonymous with Saurornitholestes. The paper makes the following statement "The similarity between the premaxillary teeth of Saurornitholestes and Zapsalis show that the latter is a dromaeosaurid and suggests that the two genera are synonymous. However the differences suggest they are distinct at least at the species level. Pending the discovery of additional Associated skeletal material from the Judith River formation of Montana it is recommended that the two genera be kept separate." The holotype tooth of Zapsalis (right) from the JRF is slightly different than the Saurornitholestes tooth. See Fig. Might just be tooth to tooth variations. https://anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.24241#.XXZqJ1PoYmg.twitter Cranial Anatomy of New Specimens of Saurornitholestes langstoni (Dinosauria, Theropoda, Dromaeosauridae) from the Dinosaur Park Formation (Campanian) of Alberta Philip J. Currie, David C. Evans First published: 09 September 2019 https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.24241 @hxmendoza @-Andy-
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- alberta
- dinosaur park formation
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Late Cretaceous marine sites in China
The Amateur Paleontologist posted a topic in Questions & Answers
Hey Would anyone know of Late Cretaceous fossil sites in China that are similar to 'typical' Late Cretaceous marine sites in Europe/North America? Like places where one can find ammonites, sea urchins, shark teeth and mosasaur fossils... Thanks for any help! Christian -
Hi everyone, I have this partial fish bone from the Late Campanian of New Jersey, 72 Ma. I have never seen this type of bone structure before, but for some reason it reminds me of some type of rostrum (billfish?). It is a little over an inch at greatest dimension. Any ideas are appreciated!
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Hello, I have recently found these pycnodontes at a maastrichtian site in SE North Carolina, USA . It is Pee Dee formation. Would anyone know the speices ? The upper valve is rather flat as opposed to concave and has radiant grooves which I have not seen in my research. The lower valves vary from being almost flat on some to a deep dish concave on others. I have attached two different ones. The first picture of each is the upper valve showing the radiant grroves. Second picture is lower valve. Third picture is the hinge area. Fourth picture is an attempt to show the overall contour. Thanks for any help.
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I try to get out dinosaur collecting twice a year and this year has been very good to me. Here are some quick field shots of SOME of my finds for this fall. I have a big prep job in front of we but I also use someone in Hill City to do some of my complicated work. Sites are in Montana and South Dakota all from the Hell Creek Formation. My Spring trip post have more specifics on the localities. My best find of the trip occurred on day 3 in Montana a complete dentary (lower jaw) with teeth of a Ceratopsian most likely Triceratops sp. The field photo show the jaw with lots of matrix around it to protect the sheath and teeth.. The jaw layed perfectly for me with teeth side up and flat so it made collecting easy. Here is an initial look at the jaw. The bone area in the middle is actually a sheath that is covering battery of teeth. Not all the teeth are covered by the sheath those in the far right are exposed and you can see the center ridge poking out, red circles. Prepping will expose them. Length 25" (65 cm) sorry did not brush it clean before the photo In addition to the one above I found two Hadrosaur jaws in SD from an Edmontosaurus. Both jaws are laying vertically, teeth side in against the wall. Typically they do not have teeth but until the prep is complete hard to say. One was from a Juvie about 20" (19 cm) and the other from a very young animal +13" (33 cm) which is pretty rare for this site. My initial view of the larger one was to expose the ascending ramus ( hinge) Here is the small jaw - preservation of the hinge area was not good but needed to collect it because of size. No teeth present.
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- hell creek formation
- late cretaceous
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This was on several twitter paleo pages, posted this morning by several paleontologists. Comments and photos are that of the of North Dakota Geological Survey's Paleontology protection program. 2014 article https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/21/dakota-ducbkilled-dinosaur-home-bismarck This was the old "Dakota" exhibit. It was meant to be temporary. The arm is the piece on the bottom edge. It was previously displayed with the palm up, and this side was not well prepared and wasn't exposed before. This is indeed a portion of "Dakota" the Dinomummy, which is part of the North Dakota State Fossil Collection. We are currently working on cleaning this specimen for a new exhibit to open Feb 2020 People were confused at exactly what they were looking at here, so we've thrown together a little guide to explain how the bones of the hand relate to the fossilized soft tissue. Yes, digit III has a large 'hoof-like' nail, and much of the hand is encased in 'mitten' of skin. What this means is that the fingers could not really move independently that much, but acted more as a single unit. The tiny pink finger (digit V) is reduced and had no nail. Note: these images are "in progress" images. More work has been completed since they were taken Tail skin
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- edmontosaurus
- hell creek formation
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On Saturday Oct 5, Tyrannosaurus rex celebrated its 114 birthday when it was formally named by H F Osborne in his 1905 paper: Osborn, H. F. (1905). "Tyrannosaurus and other Cretaceous carnivorous dinosaurs". Bulletin of the AMNH. 21 (14): 259–265. hdl:2246/1464. Retrieved October 6, 2008. One little known fact was that Albertosaurus sarcophagus was also formally named on the last page of that paper based on this skull.
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- albertosaurus sarcophagus
- late cretaceous
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Found this yesterday. Not perfectly round, but really close. Very smooth except the “eyes”. There is a pattern of sorts that looks like a crab, maybe. Diameter is the same as a penny.
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I have been out discovering some fossils and other cool stuff this spring. Lots of generally recognizable material but specifically I dont know what exactly I have here. Hopefully some of the enthusiasts and experts on the forum can help me out?
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- bearpaw formation
- dinosaur park formation
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Very cool article on a Hell Creek Fm bonebed in Bowman, North Dakota A meteor impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a dinosaur, the first victims of Earth’s last mass extinction event. The death scene from within an hour of the impact has been excavated at an unprecedented fossil site in North Dakota. (Graphics and photos courtesy of Robert DePalma) https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/29/66-million-year-old-deathbed-linked-to-dinosaur-killing-meteor/
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- hell creek formation
- late cretaceous
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Hello!! This is my first time here and I was really hoping to get some assistance is identifying some stuff. Several years ago my uncle built a large workshop on his property and had has this huge pile of rocks in his backyard ever since. I am not positive of the whole story, but I do believe that the company he hired to dig for the foundation came across one, or several dinos, and just left the broken specimen in a large pile. I have several large chunks, this is only one piece, with the photos taken from several angles and ranges in an attempt to show the most detail. There are some weird little pink squiggly things that kind of look like worms in all of the larger chunks that I have, those really piqued my interest because I've never seen anything like that stuck in rock before. I have painstakingly attempted to clean some of the larger pieces up; I didn't want to unnecessarily bombard the forum with a ton of pictures, but will happily post more if anybody is interested. I'm kind of totally new to all of this paleontology stuff and any guidance or assistance will be very greatly appreciated!! Thanks for your time!! --Cassie
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Just got back from a trip to the badlands of Montana and South Dakota in the Hell Creek Formation.. Here are some photos of some of the bones I picked up at an Edmontosaurus site. My hope was to collect specimens fitting in a shoebox and I was fairly successful at that which was quite surprise since you dont get to choose what you find. The site is faily large and the area I was collected had about 6 foot of overburden removed a couple of years ago so there was only 12 inches left before I hit the layer. The layer in this area is about 17 to 20 inches thick, white lines. Nothing is prepped at this point, lots of work in front of me but here are the raw photos before beautification Foot Bones - numbers correspond to my finds #1 Juvenile Metatarsal - IV #2 Phalanx II-2 Ventral view #3 Phalanx IV not yet sure which one #3 Another Phalanx IV bone #4 Ungual Digit III... found two close match to each other #4 Ungual Juvie think its Digit IV but I need to verify after prepping
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- hell creek formation
- late cretaceous
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Hi TFF friends, how are you? I would like to have your opinion concerning the following fossil. It's a bone I found a while ago in the Himenoura formation, Santonian (Kumamoto Japan) and I forgot until I decided to clean my drawers. It has a quite distinctive shape and make me think to a sea turtle bone, a paddle or an ulna maybe. What kind of bone do you think it is? Any ID? I am not looking for the ID, I just would like to know what kind of bone it is.
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So I was rooting again around in the garage and found a couple plates I had bought a few years back and never tracked down an ID for. Tentative provenance was Paleocene from Montana. I found this article recently and was wondering if it could be one of the genera/sp described or one of the other genera mentioned in the discussion section. Trapa, Trapago, Fortuna, Quereuxia. STOCKEY, R. A., AND G. W. ROTHWELL. 1997. The aquatic angiosperm Trapago angulata from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) St. Mary River Formation of southern Alberta. Int. J. Pl. Sci. 158: 83-94. Can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240563741_The_Aquatic_Angiosperm_Trapago_angulata_from_the_Upper_Cretaceous_Maastrichtian_St_Mary_River_Formation_of_Southern_Alberta I also was looking at the USGS pub 375 https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0375/report.pdf My plates have a number of leaflets and fragments with very little venation visible and in a pale gray and a light pink color in a very fine matrix.....Many of the leaflets have small teeth... Plates: Crenulations Leaflets and partial venation Anyone have any expertise in these? Looks like the authors were indicating more study is needed in this area of aquatic plants--that was 20 years ago. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! Regards, Chris
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Hello TFF, I got a couple items from the Late Cretaceous of NJ that seem to be pathological. The first one, an Anomoeodus phaseolus tooth, seems to be very wrinkly and so I deemed it a patho. That is more of a verification as I haven’t seen a pathological one before. The second is an Ischyrhiza mira rostral blade that has a third carina on one of its faces and a slight flattening (flattening better seen in person). This is also a verification as I just didn’t expect to see a patho rostral. The third one is a bit strange. It is definitely a fish tooth. There are prominent growth cracks on the surface & no striations, which supports Xiphactinus. However, the base doesn’t look exactly elliptical (Xiphactinus) or bulging like in Enchodus. But it does look more like X-fish than Enchodus; it just seems as if one side of the base got flattened out, leading me to think that it could be a pathological Xiphactinus. The base also seems to be somewhat hollow (other than the matrix infill). @non-remanié Thanks guys! Anomoeodus phaseolus:
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- late cretaceous
- new jersey
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Hi everyone, I got this interesting peripheral turtle shell from the Late Campanian Wenonah formation of NJ. It is not reworked and seems to be IDable. It also has some interesting shark predation marks on the top of the first pic. It is about 2.75” X 2.25” @non-remanié Thanks for any help!
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- late cretaceous
- new jersey
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Step aside Sue, the T rex. The attached article finally describes the largest T rex discovered from the Frenchmans Formation of Saskatchewan, Canada after being discovered in 1991 Abstract Here we describe an extremely large and relatively complete (roughly 65%) skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex (RSM P2523.8). Multiple measurements (including those of the skull, hip, and limbs) show that RSM P2523.8 was a robust individual with an estimated body mass exceeding all other known T. rex specimens and representatives of all other gigantic terrestrial theropods (Paywalled) https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.24118#.XJQsTuqqy7k.twitter An Older and Exceptionally Large Adult Specimen of Tyrannosaurus rex W. Scott Persons IV, Philip J. Currie, Gregory M. Erickson First published: 21 March 2019, https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.24118
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- frenchman formation
- late cretaceous
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The First Definite Lambeosaurine Bone From the Liscomb Bonebed of Upper Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation, Alaska is presented in this paper. Nothing spectacular just from a cool place Article https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/197034.php Paper https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41325-8?fbclid=IwAR0RTstNFgb9CWp6GdNEmGxb52k-44JZ5WfQMds2KgmFjY_mQc8wLF0BoP8
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https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-03/ou-rrb031519.php https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app64/app005682018.pdf
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- africa
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Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs Were Not In Decline Prior to Mass Extinction
Scylla posted a topic in Fossil News
Modeling ecological niches and climate gives a different estimate of dinosaur diversity prior to the mass extinction. Implies that differential fossilization accounts for the apparent decline https://m.phys.org/news/2019-03-dinosaurs-asteroid.html- 1 reply
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- climate models
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https://phys.org/news/2018-12-horned-dinosaur-crittendenceratops-arizona.html
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- ceratopsid
- late cretaceous
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Maybe 2018's last fossil hunt in Japanese late cretaceous
David in Japan posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Hi TFF friends, how are you? I am great, thank you for asking Yesterday I had I went to my favorite late cretaceous spot after an almost 3 month long forced break. So I decided to hunt all day long and went to few different spots with quite a good haul ( for me at least). First I went to an old Quarry in Kumamoto were the middle part of the Himenoura formation is visible. I hunted there few times in the past years and found a lot of ammonite's aptichii, Inoceramus and plants fossils. One year ago, the site was black and there was no sign of vegetation but as time goes, vegetation grows and I had to go through a meter tall vegetation to access to the place. It was a good occasion to have a look flowers : and struggle with "バカ”'s seed, litterally meaning idiot in japanese (called beggar's ticks in english). Here is a picture of the formation at the quarry. I have been able to find there nice Glycymeris amakusensis and a very unusual plant fossil.
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- japan
- late cretaceous
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From the album: New Jersey Late Cretaceous
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