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  1. Snaggletooth19

    Big Brook Mosasaurus Tooth

    I just returned from a few days up in NJ where I had time to visit Big Brook (and Ramanessin for a little bit too). I went for a couple hours last Wednesday when I first arrived, then picked up where I left off Thursday morning. It was pretty chilly. About 28 degrees when I first woke up at 7. So I did some other work at the Colt's Neck Inn Hotel (highly recommend) until about 11. Over that time it warmed up almost 10 degrees. But I headed out. The positive to the cold weather was that I was the only one out there. It was also sunny despite the cold, and was otherwise a great day to go out. About 2pm and nearly to the Boundary Rd bridge, sifting through pile after pile of gravel, this beauty rolled across my sifting pan and I could hardly believe it. After a good 5 years and several trips, I finally found my first mosasaurus tooth! It's a bit beaten up and chipped, but I couldn't have been happier. Totally worth my beet red hands. This was my big trip maker and will have an honored place in my special fossil cabinet.
  2. SharkySarah

    Post oak creek finds

    We got a donation at work of a lot of little finds from post oak creek Texas. I’m not familiar with the site at all and the labels for these appear to have gotten wet some time in the past. I looked at the book on Cretaceous sharks and rays of Texas and it made me more and more confused. Would love any help to get these relabeled. If not, they’ll sit for a decade, be thrown out or given away here are my really unsure ideas- 1. Texatrygon sp. or ptychodus sp. 2. Pseudocorax sp. 3. Not enough there ? 4. Not enough there ? 5. Goblin ? 6. Carcharias sp. 7. Carcharias sp. 8. Carcharias sp. 9. Not positive enough to guess 10. Carcharias sp. 11. Hybodus sp. 12. Not enough there ? 13. Ptychodus sp. 14. Too broken ? 15. Ptychodus sp. 16. Too broken ? 17. Fish tooth? 18. Enchodus tooth 19. Drum tooth? Not a vert. The bottom is flat and shiny 20. Small fish tooth 21. Slag? Super shiny in person 22. Stumped here. Bone? Coprolite? Straight shelled cephalopod? Just rocks ?
  3. Mosasaurhunter

    fossil turritella 02

  4. Mosasaurhunter

    Various oysters

    From the album: Georgia Cretaceous fossils

    Because of their fragmentary state they are undeterminable but are most likely in the genus Crassostrea or Ostrea
  5. A little over a week ago I flew to Memphis and then drove down to Tupelo, Mississippi to spend two days collecting at the nearby Blue Springs fossil site, Upper Cretaceous, Ripley Formation, Coon Creek Member. It was my fourth trip there in the past two years. Weather was decent- 65 degrees the first day, 55 the second., a mix of sun and clouds both days. The site was very mucky the first day there, but it dried up for the most part by the second. The first time I visited there, the surface collecting was excellent. Not so much the last three times and this time was exceptionally poor. So, as you can see from the photo, I did a lot of digging. The softer material near the top did have fossils, but normally they crumpled as soon as they were exposed. One particular small nautiloid that was original shell material and mostly gold color was especially heart breaking. As I dug deeper, more intact fossils appeared in the now tougher marl, mostly mollusks with at least some shell material though much of it came off when the rock split.
  6. Mosasaurhunter

    Caryocorbula

    From the album: Georgia Cretaceous fossils

    Fossilized Caryocorbula basket clam.
  7. Mosasaurhunter

    Turritella fossil 1

    From the album: Georgia Cretaceous fossils

    Shell of turritella sp.
  8. Mosasaurhunter

    Partial Scapanorhynchus tooth

    From the album: Georgia Cretaceous fossils

    The partial tooth of a possibly juvenile Scapanorhynchus. Found in Blufftown formation.
  9. Hello everyone! I've been swamped with work, preliminary home building plans and trying to get my collection more organized, but I still managed to pull of a small hunt at Green's Mill Run in this weekend, as well as a short trip to Aurora back in February. I hadn't really made any strong plans for either trip, but a series of different events eventually let to me heading to the area, and the timing worked out in my favor both times. The Aurora visit in February was a quick one; I got up one Saturday morning with nothing much planned for the day, but when I looked into my surplus storage trailer and saw all the excess Hardouinia echinoids and Exogyra oysters that needed to be donated, followed by receiving word there was some special things going on that morning that could have been a decent opportunity to represent the fossil club I am in, I figured it was a good day to visit. After I made my donation and spoke with some folks, I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon digging through one of the piles that was poised to be relocated soon with a local friend. I ended up finding a few nice things! This is a group shot with most of the things I found that day. Only a couple of really big highlights, I was able to find quite a few Trivia gastropods! These are some of the coolest fossil gastropods from the mine spoils that I've found there, and they're really ornate. I was told the last batch of material had a lot of them in it, so I was glad to have found some before they moved it on. And the other really cool find, a Scaphella gastropod with some trace color patterning! I've only found a handful of these gastropods as well, and the fact that it had some preservation like this was really neat. It's not at the Florida level of preservation, but it's really nice regardless. Moving on to the present, I had previously made a few short attempts to locate a modern echinoid that is almost exclusively found in North Carolina, Rhynobrissus cuneus. However, none of them bore any fruit, and with the cost of fuel and lack of time making it difficult to continue taking detours on my way back from other trips, I figured it wouldn't hurt to see if I could attempt to locate someone that wouldn't mind swapping some things for a specimen. Fortune was kind to me, and a very nice lady was willing to part with one she found in exchange for some of my spare finds in my collection! It also included spines, which was more than I was hoping for. After talking a bit, we decided to meet "in the middle" at Greenville, NC to swap the specimen. Knowing I'd be in the vicinity of the site, I packed my creek gear and hit the road for a very rainy hour and a half drive. These are a couple of photos of said specimen, alongside a copy of the official description of the species that the USNM (AKA the NMNH) printed to give out to various institutions. After wrapping up, I immediately went to my preferred Belemnite hunting spot in GMR. However, I failed to realize how much rain had fallen not just that morning, but the night before! It was just shy of 6 foot on the Tar River, and the water was considerably high and rough in that particular par of the creek, which is narrow and steep. I was a bit disappointed in the turn of events, but rather than call it quits I decided to go to the other spot I have hunted at with friends, which was wider and much more shallow. I can safely say I have now learned my lesson with the height of the river's impact on the site, it was still quite rough in that area too! Still, since I was there, I gave it my best shot and got to work on some areas without strong currents. Ultimately, it wasn't a bad visit! I found a few surprisingly nice things, as well as a few finds that I did not expect. Unfortunately, this particular part of the creek is not very good for any sort of mollusk fossils, including my favorite belemnites! They are a bit rarer, and are highly eroded, but I still was able to find one decent quality specimen. The bivalves and gastropods are also more scarce and weathered in this area, so I ended up with fewer invertebrates than I was hoping for. My preferred spot has a higher concentration of Peedee Formation finds, and there are some nice belemnites that have come out of a small 2-meter area. However, this spot is really good for vertebrate material! I found quite a few cool things there, and there are plenty of large bone chunks to be found, such as these. On to my shark teeth, these are all my Squalicorax teeth! These are some of my favorite shark teeth to find, and most of the ones I've found at this Peedee Formation site are much smaller than the ones I found on Holden Beach. Here are some unsorted teeth I found. I'm still learning shark teeth, so unfortunately a lot of my finds are currently lumped together like this. GMR teeth tend to be pretty worn down, so it makes it hard to identify a lot of the specimens I pick up. These are some miscellaneous things I found; the bottom left is a ray tooth, which I don't find quite as often there. The other two on the bottom are probably Enchodus teeth, the middle one is either a heavily worn tooth of sorts or bone fragment, and I have no idea what the top specimens are, though they looked interesting enough to hold on to. On to some of the more exciting shark teeth I found! these are pretty worn down Otodus teeth, but I always enjoy picking them up even in rough condition. This was a fairly large but worn Isurus (Mako) tooth of some variety, about 3.05 cm (1.2 inches) long. It's got a thick root but is somewhat flat, with the edges of the blade flattening out to almost a shelf of sorts where the serrations would be in other teeth. This is my first Hemipristis serra (Snaggletooth) tooth from the site that wasn't a small chunk, and it's one of the largest I've found anywhere! It's missing the root unfortunately, but is still about 2.41 cm (.95 inches) long without it. If it had the root I'd imagine it would have been at least 3 cm (1.18 inches) long. And speaking of large teeth, this is the largest Galeocerdo cuvier (Tiger Shark) I've found there, at about 2.79 cm (1.1 inches) crown width and about the same slant. It was a suprise to find to say the least, I nearly dumped it back into the creek because I didn't notice it at first! It doesn't beat my largest Holden Beach specimen (3.2 cm or 1.26 inch slant), but it's a big tooth with nice color. And for the most interesting tooth, some sort of Lamnidae shark that is missing a root, but appears to be possibly pathological! It's about 3.75 cm (1.475 inches) long as is, but it'd probably be at least 4.445 cm (1.75 inches) long if it had a root. Lacking the root makes it hard to say what it might have been, but it's definitely one of the largest teeth I've found in the creek thus far, and one of the most interesting. And lastly, this is the find that kind of caught me off guard the most: It appears to be, just based off of appearances, a specimen of Skolithos linearis. Not the most exciting trace fossil visually, but it's really interesting to me! These trace fossils were a surprise bonus to my fossil hunts in Surry County, Virginia, and I wasn't really expecting to see something of the sort here. The ones found on eroded cobbles in Virginia along the James River are said to be from the Cambrian Chilhowee Group (563-516 ma), but I'm not really sure what the age of these here would be. From the best I can tell online, they seem to have occurred throughout multiple periods of time in multiple places due to different organisms, but these look strikingly similar to the ones I saw in Virginia, albeit with the cobbles more eroded. I took a picture of the larger one next to a Virginian specimen to compare, and I highlighted the burrows with a red circle on the GMR specimen, as they are very hard to see in pictures. The longer circles are of "side section" specimens, and the smaller ones are from the ends of some running through the center of the rock from one edge to the other. The smaller cobble's specimen is a bit more obvious to see, so I didn't circle it. I haven't been able to locate any information on these fossils occurring in the area anywhere online on a superficial level, so if anyone has any insight into it, please let me know! I'd love to know if these are indeed what I am thinking they are, and what age they could possibly be if so. I might make a post on the ID forum some other time if I can borrow a camera that can take better pictures of the specimen. Anyway, that's all for me! I've got a family trip to Holden coming up shortly, and I may have some interesting opportunities to collect some different NC fossils coming up this spring; I don't have a lot of info on it, but it seems promising. I've also got a return trip to Virginia planned before the end of spring, and I can hardly wait for it!
  10. Yesterday was a day to remember! Unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. My youngest Son, once again had a band competition in Tom's River N.J. As it has become sort of a tradition now that whenever he has a competition in N.J., my wife and I drive down early so I can hit up the Cretaceous streams before his school is scheduled to perform. I started watching the forecast last week, and it did not look good, as it called for rain. Being the hard-core fossilhunter that I am, I figured that unless it was hurricane squalls I would be doing some hunting. Well I woke up around 5am, to several inches of snow at my house. That wouldn't have been bad, but the roads hadn't been plowed yet. The first hour and a half were a slippery, slushy mess. Several vehicles were in the ditch along route 81 through the hills and mountains. Eventually the snow turned to rain which was very heavy for the next 3 and a half hour or so. I knew at this point the streams were going to be over flowing. But I also knew that I was stubborn and would still try regardless so for the rest of the ride I tried to come up with a plan. We Eventually got to the stream and my wife dropped me off to do some shopping. Of course she thought I was crazy and asked if I was sure I wanted to do it. I told her yes. As I walked to the stream I was passing by one of the small feeder creeks and I could here the water trickling through. I got close enough to look over the bank and I could see some areas with exogyra oyster fragments and gravel lying in and around the waters edge. I figured if the main stream was to high ( which I knew it was) I would try this creek and make the best of it. I walk to the main stream and sure enough, it was flowing high muddy water. I walked upstream a bit trying to see if the was anywhere that I could possibly dig. I only was wearing rubber boots that didn't even go up to my knees. I knew I would get water in them and I did. I actually found a spot to dig a couple scoops of gravel and got a couple broken Sharkteeth first try. That got my hopes up, but was very short lived. After that I had a tough time trying to get a shovel full of gravel and not mud and debris. Plus the current was so strong it would blow most of the material off the shovel. Atleast I gave it a shot. But I didn't want to waste any more time so I decided to go to the feeder creek. As I got to the top of the bank, I fell on my side and slid down. I didn't get hurt, only muddy. I immediately started looking around and there was alot of the exogyras I spotted earlier as was as belemnite pieces everywhere. I had been told that this is pretty much all one would find in this creek, but I figured it would be better then nothing and who knows, maybe I would get lucky and find a nice surprise. I began surface scanning and found myself picking up every belemnite piece I saw. Then I turned it into a game, let's see how many I can come home with. I actually found a few complete or nearly complete ones with both tip and phragmacone. Surprisingly these were very small ones. I kept my eye out for any worthy Exogyras but unfortunately everything was very worn and broken. Eventually I started sifting and was very surprised to see a very nice sharktooth in my screen first try! This looked very pristine for a stream find. Unfortunately part of the root was broken off. Then in this one area I started finding these small Brachiopods which had both halves. They where pretty neat. Also found was what I believe are some sort of worm tube and some other mystery item that gives me a crab vibe. So I stayed out there a little over 2 hours. My wife picked me up and had stopped at Panera and got me a sandwich. I was completely soaked to the bone. So I changed into dry clothes, ate my sandwich and went to watch my Son perform at the competition. At some point the rain stopped at the sun came out for a bit on the ride home. I know that all of the New Jersey fossilhunters are going to find some good stuff after the waters settles. I wish you all good luck and expect to see some good trip reports! I am tempted to take tomorrow off from work to go back down! Anyways this is what I found......
  11. I believe this mososaur tooth was unearthed in Morocco. Included in the photo are my thumb and index finger for scale.
  12. M Harvey

    unknown invert

    This is embedded in hard calcified sandstone layer of the upper Eutaw fm. I have been collecting from the site for years but have never encountered anything like this. The paleontologists I have shown it to are also stumped. The cell structure is similar to a pelecypod, but this is no bivalve. The shape is reminiscent of an egg but fairly sure it isn't that. The diameter is 12 cm. I know that photos cannot capture all the details. Any guesses?
  13. Snaggletooth19

    ID Help with Big Brook Vert

    Hi all, I found this at Big Brook in NJ (late cretaceous) a few months ago during one of my trips. I recognize it as a vertebra, but not like any shark or fish vertebra I've found before. Any ideas?
  14. Hello everyone! I found this recently in the Cretaceous of Monmouth County, New Jersey by splitting open a Wenonah concretion (which usually contain bivalves, gastropods and ammonites from time to time). I came across this in one of them and really have no idea what it is. Does anyone happen to know? -Frank
  15. Hello, everyone! Below are a few finds from the North Sulphur River and Post Oak Creek, and I’d love to get some help with identification. The ruler is in centimeters. 1. This first picture includes two mammal teeth (top two)(fossilized or no?), ???, and a small bone that appears to be fossilized. these were found at Post Oak Creek. 2. This bone was found at the North Sulphur River. 3. Nautilus found at NSR. Could anyone help with identifying the species? 4. Jaw fragment? Found at NSR. 5. Coprolite? It appears to have fragments of bone(?) in it. Found at NSR. 6. I found this tooth at NSR a while back, but someone recently IDed it as Latoplatecarpus (mosasaur). I can’t find too much literature on Latoplatecarpus; could anyone give me more information on this tooth and the animal it comes from? Thank you!
  16. Hey guys! reposting this with better description and High res pictures with a better camera and measurements. Found this near a natural spring on a hill cliff side in central Texas on the surface after clearing trees from land on the side of a hill kinda of cliff like and eroded. the specimen is hard and heavy, lots of porus holes(see pics) did the lick test and seems like more of a a fossil thank a rock but Im a newbie. i did some recon on the geologic data base for rock type and time period in my area and added that in the images. it tells a little bit about the geological makeup here. Im kinda on the border of two of them. any thoughts are much appreciated and thank you all so much for your time.
  17. Deborah S.

    Please help identify bone

    This bone was found on top of gravel in a southern New Jersey stream bed (Mantua township) where Cretaceous fossils are often found. It's a couple of miles away from the Rowan Fossil Park. This stream cuts through the same 8 inch green marl layer they find their fossils in and close to Ceres Park where Cretaceous fossils (including a dryptosaur) are found. I've found recent while tailed deer fossils in this same stream bed as well, though. I've also found 2 pieces of crocodile scute and other Cretaceous fossils Rowan identified for me pre-COVID. Please let me know what you think. I can attempt better pictures, if needed, but all I own is a cell phone camera.
  18. The idea that sensory pits were present in Theropod dinosaurs is not a new one, but for some reason I can't find any information on them and chat GPT says the presence of these structures in dinosaurs lacks fossil evidence. Below I present sensory pits in the jaw of an alligator and in the jaw of Albertosaurus. These pits are also known to be present in the jaws of some birds. In birds and crocodilians these sensory pits are believed to be used to detect vibrations in different substrates ( water for crocodilians and wood/soil for birds) in order to enhance prey detection and capture. My idea for sensory pits in Theropod dinosaurs (the ones that had them) is that they may have been used to detect prey in rotting logs or in shallow burrows. Why would large theropods have them? It is generally believed that young theropods were obviously alot smaller than the adults and probably ate things like insects or small vertebrates. I believe it is very likely that young Theropods used these sensory pits to help them locate these small animals that would be in substrates like wood (rotting stumps?) or soil. It's possible they were able to detect vibrations in the ground from approaching animals as a defense mechanism while they slept. It seems probable to me that these sensory pits may have been retained into adulthood by animals like Albertosaurus, etc...and lost by others. Of course these are believed to be present in piscivores like Baryonyx and Spinosaurus as well, which probably would have used them to enhance their fishing abilities. I intend to do some research into this and see if these sensory pits appear to be more common in juveniles ( where available) and how wide spread they were among Theropods in addition to the implications for feeding habits, etc in these animals as they aged. I would be interested in hearing some of your ideas about this.
  19. Geo-Reinier

    Unknown fossil

    Geology: Seaford Chalk Formation Period: Cretaceous Location: Caversham, Berkshire, England
  20. I finally finished out sorting my GMR matrix and I have a few small shark teeth and the like that I’m interested in! 1) 2) 3) 4) Reptile hopefully? 5) hybodont? 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) I shared this with Dr. Shimada, who thinks its Cantioscyllium or Plicatoscyllium? 12) 13) Ray crusher plate? 14) Catshark? 15) 16) 17) 18) 19) 20)
  21. Frightmares

    Aguja Formation Vertebra

    I found this vertebra in some Aguja Formation micro matrix. It measures 4mm by 3mm. It's cretaceous in age from Brewster County, Texas. It looks very different from any fish vertebrae that I've ever found. It does seem to have a bit of damage. I'm thinking maybe reptilian. Possibly lizard? What do you guys think?
  22. I was very pleasantly surprised (actually more thrilled to be honest) when I heard about the discovery of the northern tyrannosaurid dinosaur Nanuqusaurus hoglundi from the Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation dating 70.6-69.1 Million Years ago in what is now the U.S. State of Alaska. Image Credit and Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260757717_A_Diminutive_New_Tyrannosaur_from_the_Top_of_the_World At first thought to be only 5-6 meters (16-20 feet) in length based on the currently catalogued specimens, it's now believed based on currently undescribed remains to be 8-9 meters (26-30 feet) in length fully grown (compared to the 12.3-12.4 meters (40.4-40.7 feet) in length it's cousin Tyrannosaurus rex could reach fully grown). Image Credit: Artist Nathan Rogers Image Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z5w900 Fiorillo, A. R., & Tykoski, R. S., 2014. A diminutive new tyrannosaur from the top of the world. PloS one, 9(3), e91287. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0091287 Druckenmiller, P. S., Erickson, G. M., Brinkman, D., Brown, C. M., & Eberle, J. J. (2021). Nesting at extreme polar latitudes by non-avian dinosaurs. Current biology : CB, 31(16), 3469–3478.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.041 https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00739-9?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982221007399%3Fshowall%3Dtrue The Tyrannosaurid Nanuqusaurus is also unique as the northern most tyrannosaur known from Western North America (at the time the continent of Laramidia). Adapted to the colder climates of the region, it shared its habitat with a vast diversity of plants, small mammals, and other non-avian dinosaurs including hadrosaurs such as Edmontosaurus, the pachycephalosaur Alaskacephale, the Ceratopsian Pachyrhinosaurus, and a large currently unnamed genus of troodontidae. But it's confirmed geologic range is only during the early Maastrichtian (70.6-69.1 Million Years ago) of the Cretaceous period. Images Credits and Sources: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260757717_A_Diminutive_New_Tyrannosaur_from_the_Top_of_the_World Fiorillo, A. R., and Gangloff, R. A., 2001. Theropod teeth from the Prince Creek Formation (Cretaceous) of northern Alaska, with speculations on Arctic dinosaur paleoecology. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 20(4):675-682 Image Credit: Artist Nathan Rogers Image Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Z5w900 The question I have is why this is? Did anything major happen to the habitat of the Prince Creek Formation between the Early-Late Maastrichtian? Did Nanuqusaurus live up to 66 Million Years ago to the latest Maastrichtian of the Cretaceous period?
  23. Amateur Paleontologist and His Dog Uncover Rare Titanosaur Fossil in France Geeta Pillai, BNN, March 4, 2024 Dog Walker's Bone Find Leads to Near-Complete Fossil Titanosaur Skeleton Newsweek, February 14, 2024 Yours, Paul H.
  24. You may or may not know that I have been obsessing over finding a mosasaur vertebra and tooth. I am lucky to live in Texas where fossils are plentiful in some areas but the most productive mosasaur area is still 6 hours drive from me. So I don't get there often and the few times I have.....no verts or teeth for me. I am not complaining (too much) because I have found other great things in the North Sulphur River, but not the mosie vert or tooth of my dreams. I am lucky to have friends who hunt there regularly who feel sorry for me and give me verts and even a lovely big tooth. But I DIDN'T FIND THEM. I do know that mosie stuff can be found in Central Texas where I live (thanks to @Jared C and his amazing adventures) I know they can be found (although very rarely) in our local creeks and such. So of course I keep an eye out while hunting but with no real hope of finding them. But I hope anyways! Which brings me to today....which I count as part of my birthday weekend (birthday was Friday, but you know.....weekend still counts! ). Went out on a little fossil hunt to a new site that a friend told me about...lots of baculites (which are relatively rare here in Central Texas) and lo and behold.....I FOUND MY VERT! And not two feet away....a little tooth! Mother Nature decided to gift me not just one, but TWO of my bucket list fossil finds today! Granted, they are pretty busted up and the tooth is not complete, but WHO CARES! I FOUND A MOSASAUR VERT AND TOOTH practically in my own backyard!!!! Turns out this little exposure is Ozan Formation and I can't wait to get back out there again....after a good rain! And, to top it off, found a complete ammonite in addition to some lovely gastropods and about a billion baculites. It's no mosie in situ, but I'll take what I am gifted. Thank you Mother Nature!!!
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