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Showing results for tags 'ecphora'.
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Made a final trip into the woods prior to opening of deer season here. Don't think they'll bother me if I avoid disturbing their game a few days before hunts. We had a lot of rain and shells and bits were everywhere in the creek. Surprising that I didn't spot much in the creek bed, but screening yielded the usual small stuff I find (eight angel shark teeth and a bunch of drum teeth-- tried to stand then flip over--, pieces unfortunately of two cow shark teeth, lots of sand tiger shark spikes, tiny teeth). Nothing big. Picked up an almost intact ecphora, bigger busted ones washed out everywhere along with with scallops (Chesapectins) and frilly oysters. I don't usually mess with shells. Beach has been horrible lately (wrong wind), but may be my only hunting for the next week. Maybe time to go fishing!
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From the album: Calvert Cliffs
Ecphora, probably E.megane, but I'll say for sure when I prep it! Virginia Miocene Collected on private property with permission. -
Last week on a trip to the Tar River I brought home several decent sized Ecphora quadricostata along with an assortment of other gastropods and bivalves. This was on the same trip I found the Gannet ulna. While cleaning matrix from one of the larger ecphora's today, I found this teenie tiny ecphora quadricostata. It is 13.6 mm (.53 inch) long and 11.4 mm (.45 inch) wide. Here it is in a standard 4.35 inch by 3.35 inch riker mount.
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- ecphora
- north carolina
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So to make up for the rain yesterday i walked all day today. I went sharks tooth hunting in the morning and found a huge sand tiger and a nice posterior meg, then a buddy of mine who lives down south was nice enough to ask me if I wanted to hunt down his way. So i scrambled off the beach and headed south. Well I was lucky enough to find a bunch of my FAVORITE fossil the ecphora!!! I was also able to collect a bunch of shell for mom not to shabby!!!
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Hello everyone, I apologize for the delay in making my report, but my latest trip was delayed by an upper respiratory infection. I took this past week off from work, with plans to visit both Matoaka and Flag Ponds, but then the virus hit and so goes the best laid plans of mice and fossil hunters. By Thursday, after four days of long naps and lots of fluids, I decided I was well enough to make the hour and a half drive down. I also thought that some sunshine would do me good. The day was gorgeous, not the normal, swampy heat that my home state of Maryland is known for. We call it, 'the air that you wear.' Surprisingly, the crowd was small. for such a beautiful, sunny day. I arrived at the cliffs around noon. High tide was around 9:30 that day, so while I would have preferred to go earlier, I waited for the tide to roll out a bit. The waves were a bit stronger than I expected, so I am glad that I waited. It was not a day for teeth because I found nothing other than a few tiny lemon shark teeth. But after meeting Igotarock and seeing her report, I had shells on my brain more than teeth this time. Whodaman, I was not feeling up to going all the way up the beach to the second cliff, but I have been eyeing it up for weeks. It is on my list for a cooler day or maybe a day when I can get an earlier start. The material that fell down a few weeks ago at the first run of cliffs is still revealing gems. On my way to the fall, I made the mistake of slipping on the clay ridge at the base of the cliffs. I know that area is very slippery and I try to avoid it, but I stepped up on it for a minute because the sun had dried it fairly well so I thought I was safe and I wanted to look at a very large clam shell. On my way back to the sand, my feet both went out from under me at the same time. Fortunately my bum hit the sand and not the harder clay. I banged my left wrist up a bit and it was very sore last night, but no permanent damage. After sitting for a bit and making sure there was no real damage that would keep me from going on, I made my way to the fall, found some promising chunks and put them in a bucket that I had brought along with some bubble wrap. Tonight, I got out the toothbrush and the dental pick and revealed this,
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New fossil hunter located in Calvert County Maryland. My main interest is finding ecphora shells.
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Who wants to play "name that ecphora! first one up is from choptank formation I believe. I didn't take field notes cause I'm a rookie.
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I have found a few well preserved Ecphora Gardenrae around Calvert Cliffs, Maryland but nothing substantial. I also managed to find some large pieces of Ecphora so I decided to purchase the following large Ecphora Gardenrae, the state fossil of Maryland, from a dealer that is local (Virginia). This was found from the St. James river and is from the Miocene. The second to largest was found along Calvert Cliffs, Maryland and the smallest is also from Calvert Cliffs. Beautiful specimens. Both of the purchased shells are from sites that are now off limits to collecting. Sadly a lot of good sites are now closed.
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Hello everyone. I thought I would share a few pics of three recently found Ecphora quadricostata. I found these back in June on the Tar River in Edgecomb, County North Carolina. They are from The Pliocene Yorktown Formation, Rushmere Member. What makes one of these so special (the largest one too) is that it has a complete spire. Ecphora are very rarely found with complete spires. This one was dug directly out of the formation out just below the water line. The three are also different sizes from very small to a rather large specimen.
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Unusual coloration. Typically these are red, sometimes with buff patches, but not usually all buff. The broken areas show the buff color to be a layer on the outside as there is red showing through the breakage. Collected from fallen cliff matrix in the bay containing index fossils of the Drum Cliff Member, Shattuck Zone 18. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History
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I haven’t been keeping any Ecphoras that I find because I have all I want but this one looked like it could be pretty big. Turned out not to be very big but big enough to be interesting. It was found in a river outcrop with a little bit exposed. Normally small ones can be easily cleaned with a toothbrush and soapy water but bigger ones tend to have cracks. This one had plenty of cracks and rotten spots that made it fragile. It had to be preserved with vinac. Here are some pics during prep.
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Shell Collage Excavated from Drum Cliff Member Matrix, Calvert County, Maryland
I_gotta_rock posted a gallery image in Member Collections
From the album: Calvert Cliffs
Carefully exposed all of these with a dental pick from the lump of matrix in which they were encased. Nothing got moved, just glued insitu. top: Scaphella virginiana center left: Mariacolpus octonaria center right: Ecphora megane bottom left: arcadae indet. sp. bottom right: Glossus sp.- 6 comments
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Went out and found some Ecphora! Now, time to prep! First one: Size:1.7 inches pre-prep prediction: Not great
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Collected on the beach after a storm. This is an index fossil for the Drum Cliff member of the Choptank Formation, Shattuck Zone 18. Choptank is the dominant formation at Matoaka Beach. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
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Nice Spring outing, very green, nice balance of frogs, salamanders, nesting birds (in the creek bank?), with poison ivy growing well and more background construction/ farming noise than usual. Not much has changed in the creek bed, could use a good rain to wash out more. The tooth hunting was slow (probably because I wasn't working at it hard enough). Still, came out with a nice intact(?) ecphora, two broken cow shark teeth, four angel shark teeth and a bunch of drum teeth (or facsimiles thereof; don't usually pick them up unless pretty, but it was a slow day). Some stuff in matrix, unusual for the creek but nothing clearly exciting. The sand shark teeth were small and many broken (guess the kids in the area have been picking these). Picked up a lot of bits and pieces (a few of the smaller ones are in the photo; guessing many are turtle= my default for flat pieces that look like but are not seashells). More to sort through. Small stuff to puzzle over.
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I went to Brownies for the first time last Saturday. It was beautiful as the water was completely blown out by the Nor'easter storm of the day before. There were trees down everywhere along the roads near the park. I didn't find much, just a few tiny teeth because of how the water was blown out. So I went back today and was thrilled to find one shark vertebra & two other vertebrae. One looks like it is from a fish. The third is unknown to me. Do you remember the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Harrison Ford gets into the fight with the guy with the sword & he blows him away with his gun? Well that is how I felt when I came across another fossil hunter & we chatted about our finds & I showed him my shark vertebra. I was so proud until he pulls out a whale vertebra as big as my hand!! I was dying inside, but I also had to laugh because I was so busted. If he is reading this right now, I was awed by your find. I went on to find some nice teeth, shells & two tiny Ecphora.
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After a couple of weeks of us being under the weather from an Upper Respiratory Infection, Mrs.SA2 and I decided to take the dogs and visit one of our favorite places this past Saturday. Despite the forecast for rain, we both had a great day. But, the true measure of a successful day was achieved when the totally exhausted dogs slept the entire way home. As some of you may remember, I'm still playing catch up with Mrs.SA2 as she found 5 megalodon teeth in January. Saturday, I got my 2nd of 2018, about 10 mins after we started hunting. It's a gorgeous little "hubbell" meg with nice serrations and coloring. That gives us 7 megs so far in 2018. In just the few hours we were there, I found teeth from 11 different species of sharks. Here are a few of my larger ones. Mrs.SA2 had her own bag of goodies. I'll post some photos of them when she gets them cleaned up. Along with teeth, we also found a couple of those dreaded Miocene snails called Ecphora. Even more interesting, we found 2 different species of Ecphora about 10 feet from each other. I'm sure @Fossil-Hound and @sixgill pete can appreciate just how dreaded these Ecphora can be. Mrs.SA2 found 3 of them, but mine was the largest and most complete and is the oddball with only 3 whorls. Adding these 4 to her collection, Mrs.SA2 now has 59 Ecphora specimens from MD, VA and NC. The goal is to get around 100 specimens and then donate the collection for study and curation. All in all, it was a great day and Mrs.SA2 was happy. Happy wife, happy life!!!! Cheers, SA2 and Mrs.SA2
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Mrs. SA2, @MikeR & I guided a trip for 12 along the lower James River in Virginia this weekend. Started out with very iffy weather Saturday morning with 2 foot swells and white caps from an unfriendly westerly wind. She and I were both quite busy tending our boats even when on the beach so we didn't get many photos. Mike was busy helping the folks with IDs and stratigraphy, so he didn't get many either. There were some taken though. Later in the day we did find a very nice, large Eastover Formation slough (upper Miocene). @Fossil-Hound Mrs. SA2 said she "had the feeling" as we approached in the boats. Not to disappoint, the slough produced at least 10 Ecphora between the different members of the group, most were whole or almost whole. @Daleksec still has hold of the lucky horseshoe and found about 6 foot of whale jaw. (After initial inspections last night it appears to be 3 foot of both sides of the lower jaw / mandible. Lots of further work is required.) I will post more photos of Saturday in next couple days. Today was much nicer on the river and we hunted a section of beach with the Rushmere Member of the Yorktown Formation (Upper Pliocene) in the bottom 2 - 3 feet of the cliff. It's very shelly and it too produced large #s of Ecphora. @Fossil-Hound, I'm not exaggerating when I say the group got over 20 on the day, cause I found Mrs. SA2 7 by myself, she found a couple, @Daleksec had 4 or 5 and other members of the group had some too. Here is a photo of my 1st of today, lying there waiting to pose with 2 of @aerogrower's custom scale cube. We were testing out the metric one to make sure Ray put some magic in it. Here is a photo showing the Rushmere Member exposure at the base of the cliff. We had about 600 yards of exposure today. Paleo pick for scale. Here is a photo of my last Ecphora of the day. @Fossil-Hound, calm down. YES, it really is "that big!" @MikeR can vouch for it, he saw it and photographed it, with his brand new metric scale from @aerogrower. Obviously, I have some prep work ahead of me. Speaking of the world famous @MikeR, ladies and gentlemen - here he is coming back to the boat with his bucket of trophies after a few hours in the sun! One of the nicest, most knowledgeable guys you would ever want to meet. I'll post photos of all of Mrs. SA2'S Ecphora from the weekend, @Daleksec's jaw and his gorgeous ~2 inch hastalis with red hues in the next few days. Gorgeous tooth! Cheers, SA2
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So I decided to venture outside of my comfort zone of Calvert Cliffs and head over to the Potomac at Purse State park. Low tide was right around 5pm so i decided to head over around 1 and walk for a while. I figured that since I was going late in the day that I would have lots of company on the beach. Well I was wrong on on having company on the beach and on the amount of time I would need to preform a good search. I got to the parking lot and empty I quickly got on my gear and made the mile hike down to the beach. I was very happy to see that there were no footprints anywhere the water was low and super calm. I decided to head to the north first and was very happy to find 2 crocodile teeth because not many are found at my normal stomping grounds. I then decided to fill up a bag of shells for mom because she loves shells and there was an abundance at this beach. I then turned my attention to the south and was rewarded with a pristine otodus and a nice paraorthacodus clarkii a nice cretolamna and some other fantastic teeth my knowledge of the paleocene is not as it is on the miocene. Well i walked all the way to the point when i noticed the sun starting to disappear and realized i still had a 1/2 mile walk back to the trail and another mile back to my truck. I could have spent another 4 hours searching well i will know better for next time. I have also included my past couple of trips along the cliffs my best finds from over there were a couple of stunning ecphoras, a few megalodons, and a hadrodelphis that is my first all in all february has been treating me very well.
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Well it is with bittersweet feeling that I'm leaving Maryland this coming Monday for a new job in Utah. This morning at 4:45 am I hoped into my car and drove to the Cliffs one last time to say goodbye. The tides were exceptionally high and I didn't do as well as last time but still had a good trip and found some stuff. A group of kids on a science trip ran into me at Mataoke cabin beach. Their guide had them gather around me as I had a hand full of Chesapecten nefrens and they were all oooohing and ahhhhing. I accidentally dropped a large tiger tooth that I found a few yards away and quickly picked it up. Their guide exclaimed, "Wow I can't believe you just found that tiger tooth!" The kids (especially the boys) at this point could care less about the large shells and where fixated on the tooth. Then they started looking all around my legs for more teeth. I wasn't about to tell their guide that I had found it a ways back and ruin the thrill of the moment so Injust gave everyone a coy smile and said, "Just keep looking and you're bound to find some good teeth." The truth was that was the first tooth I ever found at Mataoke and I never go their for teeth just for shells. :-) Pictures coming soon! PS - Sorry for the pictures and poor lighting. My canon is packed away and so is my nice measuring board. :-( Here's the loot! I'm not positive if these are all Chesapecten nefrens. I'll have to ID them all later but for now I'll call them C. nefrens. Some of these are matching pairs. Pro-tip: If you can get to Bayfront Park by roughly 5:45 am then the Beach Patrol (teenagers with green shirts) shouldn't be there yet collecting money. This was beneficial as I didn't have to cough up $18. I just found out those over 50 can get in for $10. What gives?! Just because I'm a young man doesn't mean I should be punished for it! Very high tides today. Overcast with high tides. This is going to be fun... and wet... Ecphora popped right out of the matrix. I believe this is from the St. Mary's formation because this was found in some rubble that fell from the very top of the cliffs and I know for a fact that's the St. Mary's layer. Golfball sized Ecphora in the Matrix. Please be complete... And... it's missing the bottom stem... Other than that it looks good. I'll keep it. View of a large baseball sized Ecphora. This one isn't worth extracting as that would take hours with special tools and super glue. What a heart breaker. Someday I'll find one this size that won't be so brittle. Here are a bunch of Hammer and Bonnet Head shark teeth with a few Requiem. There's an Angel shark tooth up top. I find fewer of those than cow shark teeth! Some large ray plates. The one in the middle might be the largest plate I've ever found at Bayfront. A collection of newly acquired Ecphora gardnera and Turritella. I don't usually keep bones but this one has some neat dimensions to it. Small C. nefrens are usually not kept but these have beautiful color to them. Not a bad day for Makos. Three of my best Makos from the trip. Not my best trip but certainly not my worst either.
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A few weeks ago I went to one of my favorite secret spots at Calvert Cliffs where I had recovered some Ecphora's in the past (all fairly beat up). That day I recovered a pristine Ecphora in the mud. I carefully extracted the shell nearly 1.5 inches wide and 2.5 inches in height and proceeded to clean the shell in the nearby surf when to my horror a particularly strong wave knocked the shell from my hands and I watched the shell dash to pieces in the surf. I quickly recovered all the pieces I could find but alas I have give this gastropod the name, "Humpty Dumpty." It appears that despite numerous patches with superglue and careful removal of dirt and sand, I simply do not have all the pieces of the puzzle, so without further ado I present my best attempt at preparing and restoring of this once proud shell. The picture with most of the shell exposed and the opening really doesn't look to bad and I might keep it because these are not easy to find from the location I was at (at least not whole).
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Acquired by purchase a while ago from a collector from Surry, VA. The site is no longer available to the public.
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From the album: Gastropods and Bivalves Worldwide
3.5cm. long. From the Miocene at Calvert Cliffs, MD. Recieved on a trade with Fossil Hound. -
Had a phenomenal trip down at Calvert Cliffs on Wednesday with my three month old daughter strapped to my chest. This trip makes up for my failed attempts in March where the sandbars where at an all time high and made it difficult to find anything. The sandbars pushed up from the storms a few months back even helped me to get to some hard to reach locations. Here's some finds and a scouting report for May of the cliffs. Also recovered a nearly perfect decently sized Ecphora gardenae that is still undergoing some preparation work. I'll take a picture of that and post it later along with some very large clams with Ecphora burrow holes. The blood red Mako as found in the sand. I rarely sift as the waves and storms (from the weekend) are constantly exposing the fossil record. Some of the nicer specimens of the day. Two makos on the left, snaggletooth bottom right and top middle. Cow shark with eight blades top right, and a decent sized tiger shark top middle. Recovered more Chesapecten nefrens that I could carry out. This is just a fragment of the shells recovered and layed out neatly in the trunk of my car. Some of the C. nefrens where about 5-6 inches in diameter and impressive to find intact as there were so many large shell fragments. These should make for some beautiful display pieces and gifts once they are cleaned up. Notice the right fins of the C. nefrens are larger than the left fins. This is a noticeable characteristic of this fossil scallop. Approaching the cliffs. The tides where up much higher this time but the waves where very gentle. This photo was taken around 7:00 am. The vegetation overgrowth should help to keep the cliffs from falling. Another shot of the blood red mako. I'll take a closeup of the other Mako later as it's a green-yellow cream color. Somebody found this stranded snapper turtle and carried him 3 miles back up to a freshwater pond. What a nice guy and what a cool looking turtle. A bunch of teeth, turritella, shark vertebrae, ray plates, makos, sand tiger, tiger, requiem, ecphora gardenae, crab claw tip, Megalodon root, and snaggletooth teeth collected by a local collector and myself combined from this trip and a recent trip. Matoaka cabins beach shore. The winds here were very strong and kicked up a lot of dust with some impressive waves. I had to protect my newborn in my chest as I braved the winds. Image 8: Female blue crab that appears to have deposited her eggs and passed away to be washed up on the shore. This is a good sign that the bay is recovering from over-crabbing. Crabs are vital to the bay's overall health as they are scavengers and eat decaying fish and other decomposing critters on the bottom of the bay. Male blue crab. You can tell it's a male by the "state capitol" on the underside. Perhaps his mate was the female that just layed her eggs.
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Acquired by purchase from a collector from Surry, VA. The site is no longer available to the public.
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