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Piggybacking off of the fantastic trip report @Jared C wrote about our Eocene excursion, I thought I'd go ahead and publish an account of the solo expedition I embarked on several days prior. Some of you who are familiar with my past endeavors in the fossil rich creeks and constructions of North Texas may know that dinosaur material has been a huge goal of mine for a while now. The Woodbine offers a shot at fulfilling such a dream, though dinosaurs are still very difficult to come by. Luckily, the uniqueness of its environment means that a day without a dino is by no means an unsuccessful one as a plethora of other strange and wonderful things can be found in their stead. After an early start, I set out with a sizeable list of new sites in the Upper Woodbine. There were some mild successes to start, but to keep things concise I will only speak of the final and most productive spot. By now it was midafternoon and the winds were howling at full force. After floating about, examining various chunks of oyster hash, I at last reached a stopping point. Before me was a massive boulder, the size of a car, with a fantastically complex arrangement of debris cemented to one face. From afar it was just a greyish mess, but up close I could pick apart the various oyster shells, driftwood, Thalassanoides, etc. This mixture of debris and later considerations led me to believe that I was gazing upon an ancient storm deposit. Oyster shell hash Up until this point, I had been unsuccessful in finding any sign of vertebrates. I laid myself upon the slanted body of the boulder and got my face as close as possible to its heavily ornamented surface. Like a visual puzzle of sorts, it was very inviting to look at. Intuition told me that there had to have been something of worth hidden within the noise. Phosphate and carbonized wood It took a bit of time, but sure enough I eventually found a tiny pebble of phosphate lost in between the fissure to some branching burrow. The familiar sheen immediately reminded me of the jet black teeth I had once pulled out of the basal Atco conglomerate. With a little more wind in my sails, I continued perusing until I was met with something much more substantial. First phosphatic Cretodus semiplicatus of the day I had found a beautiful Cretodus semiplicatus. To those whom the Woodbine is foreign, such a find may seem pretty lucky as Cretodus is usually a rarity in most places. However, the marginal marine deposition of the group means that coastal predators are represented in very high numbers, so much so that C. semiplicatus is often the most common taxon of large shark to be found. Contrast this with the deeper waters of the slightly younger Bouldin Flags Fm in Central TX, where the same species occurs in much smaller numbers (though admittedly the individual sizes of the teeth are often considerably bigger). Anyways, I got to busting it out which proved difficult. The high density of durable oyster shells halted my progress greatly. Somehow I managed to extract the tooth as a clean chip without it poofing away into a million fine particles. From there, I began finding a large quantity of phosphatic bone material. Most were reptilian in nature and either obviously belonged to turtle or likely belonged to a croc. Sadly, the resilient nature of the matrix and fragility of the bones made a clean extraction more or less impossible... for me at least. Croc vert likely Terminonaris cf. robusta T Turtle elements Random ammonite fragment As my walking continued I began finding some occurrences of sandier depositions that were much easier to dig through and even richer with phosphate. What surprised me most, however, was their appearance. C. semiplicatus in situ In my eyes, those pictures above look as though they could have been taken along the shores of any sandy beach saturated with seashells. The soft sand was so loosely packed, the slightest pressure could disturb the granules and send them drifting away. As I scanned, I couldn't help but imagine the tropical storm or hurricane that must have taken place here 96 million years ago in order to create this flash-frozen formation. The wind suddenly felt of an ocean breeze, and the cloudy backdrop like a Mesozoic sky in recovery from absolute chaos; Alone, I wandered the shore. A couple of croc teeth. Likely Terminonaris cf. robusta To round off the day, I found some beautiful, though damaged, croc teeth. Like the critters asleep in this dune, it seemed I had lost track of time, so I made my way home. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have a bit of micro matrix to go through, but as of now, these are the species of vertebrates found: Cretodus semiplicatus Cenocarcharias tenuiplicatus Meristodonoides rajkovichi Pseudohypolophus mcnultyi Some nice pycnodont teeth were found Mostly Haimirichia amonensis, but I will take a closer look later Terminonaris cf. robusta I really thought I saw a dino tooth sticking out of the sand when I first spotted this. Actually it is an inarticulate brachiopod ( @Tidgy's Dad enjoy!) called Lingula subspatula. Thanks for reading!

Hello all I just got back from the fossil fair at Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines, where I tried once again to find more unusual Kem Kem stuff, with quite a lot of succes this time. One of the things I got, was a set of 28 shark teeth, very uncommon in that concentration from a location where they only rarely occur. Mainly because all 28 of these teeth came from the same box, which makes me think they might be associated. Now I do have some questions about that. - Could someone in easy terms (I don't know much about shark tooth terminology) explain the difference between Haimirichia and Cenocarcharias teeth? I suspect the set is Cenocarcharias, but one tooth from a different box looks slightly different, and I hope it might be my first Haimirichia tooth. - Does anyone know how to compose a partial shark jaw? I would like to display it, but Carcharias teeth tend to all look the same position to me.I would love to eventually compose the entire jaw, but no idea how to start this project. Questions about some other pieces I got: - Has anyone invertebrate fossils from Kem Kem that are not from the Oum Tkout Pond location? Asking since I got a crab claw, which is the very invertabrate fossil I've seen from the terrestrial layers of the Kem Kem beds. So far I only saw indirect traces of them. - Does anyone have a fish tooth from there that reaches 33 millimeters? I got a very robust one now, that doesn't resemble Aidachar, the most common fish to find teeth from (apart from lungfishes). I'll probably have more questions later on. Thanks in advance.

On Wednesday, November 30th, I took yet another trip to my micromorph spot in the Graysonites wacoense Zone of the Grayson Marl Formation, Washita Group of north Texas (Lower Cenomanian, ~97mya), laterally equivalent to the Waco Pit in the Del Rio Fm. further south. This time I focused mainly on looking for shark teeth which was a massive success, and I ended up finding a few new species to add to my faunal list for this location as well. The first find of the day was this nice small lateral Cretalamna catoxodon (Otodontidae) shark tooth, the most common shark species at this site: Ex situ: My second Haimirichia amonensis (Haimirichiidae) from the site: Ex situ: Cretalamna catoxodon (Otodontidae) with a broken root: Cretalamna catoxodon (Otodontidae) with a broken crown: Ophiura graysonensis (Ophiuridae) brittlestar arm fragment: Pagurus banderensis (Paguridae) hermit crab claw, new for the site: Ex situ: Crateraster "sp. A" Blake & Reid, 1998 (Goniasteridae) starfish fragment, an unnamed species close to C. texensis, new to the site: Ex situ: One of three similar fish vertebra: Small Goniophorus scotti (Goniophoridae) urchin: Cretalamna catoxodon (Otodontidae) tooth: Ex situ: Another C. catoxodon (Otodontidae): Ex situ: Squalicorax sp. nov. (Anacoracidae) shark tooth, an unnamed species known from the Grayson/Del Rio Formation of Texas: Cretalamna catoxodon (Otodontidae) with a chipped crown: Ex situ: Goniophorus scotti (Goniophoridae) urchin: Another of the same undescribed Squalicorax (Anacoracidae): Ex situ: Graysonites wacoense (Acanthoceratidae) ammonite nucleus: Shark vertebra: A couple more Ophiura graysonensis (Ophiuridae) brittlestar arm fragments: Enchodus sp. (Enchodontidae) fish fang: Ex situ: Most common fossil at this site, a progenic dwarf Mariella bosquensis (Turrilitidae) ammonite: And finally an ex situ photo of a few Parasmilia graysonensis (Caryophyliidae) coral: