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  1. Hello everyone! It's been awhile since I've had a chance to give a fossil hunting update, the Holidays took over in quite a hurry, and coupled together with taking on some new responsibilities, the shorter days, cooler weather and a scramble to get the end of the year work done, it was quite difficult to get everything organized! I'm hoping to be more efficient with my cleaning and preparation this year, and though I have some life hurdles to overcome I think this year could be even better than last one with my fossil hobbies. I'm hoping to add more additions to my echinoid album, and I'd like to make some albums for some of my other fossils sometime this year. Not long after my last trip to the Waccamaw site I once again found myself out there collecting more specimens. I went with a slightly different group for the weekend, where we doubled up and went to the ever popular Holden Beach to look for some more Cretaceous goodies. And in addition, I did get to check out a different Waccamaw site at a different time as well, which had slightly different specimens, and an array of unusual color preservation. I think it was another successful month, and I found a lot of really cool specimens. I even got an opportunity to obtain some neat fossils from a fellow collector and friend in the midst of everything, and I'd like to include some of that briefly as well. While we were wrapping up for the weekend, I ended up trading him some of my Virginian Ecphora shells for some really cool Triassic plant specimens from the Pekin Formation, as well as some grey and black shales from the Cumnock Formation. It's a positive update to my quest to obtain local Triassic fossils I can take on the road to display, and with these acquisitions I was able to do just that recently! I feel like they get overlooked at times, but there are some really cool fossils from the Triassic Basins. I did manage to acquire some other cool specimens as well, but I'll save them for the mailbox scores thread. Here are some of those plant specimens and shales. Most are hard to identify, but there are some partial Otozamites fronds. The shales were a gamble, and I ultimately did end up splitting some, while retaining the last two intact, as they contained visible coal, and are somewhat significant to my home area's history in regards to the Cumnock Formation and all the historical coal mining that occurred. However, I did manage to find this little guy in one shale. I made a post a while back, and my current idea is that it's some form of Metoposaurus tooth. It's badly fragmented, though I have been offered by a friend to try and repair it, which I may take him up on. Although these second hand fossils were greatly appreciated and will serve well as display items, I also attempted to steak out a potential Triassic site right down the road earlier this week! Unfortunately, though it did indeed have Triassic geology, it was a conglomerate of Sanford Formation with a small bit of Pekin Formation mixed in, which did not immediately appear to contain much, at least on the surface. The old Triassic report mentioned it was mostly a mixture, so I wasn't too disappointed; it was still fun to check out a new area. In addition to the hunt for a fossil site, the area was also home to a small copper mine that last operated in the very early 20th century. I had not been exploring there since I was a boy over 20 years ago, so it was interesting to check out again! I ended up collecting some malachite from the spoil piles before heading home, so I at least found a few things to keep on that trip. I'm really grateful the landowner was kind enough to let me check it out. I hope to return there again sometime during lighter hours to look for some copper ore fragments as well. Now, onto the actual fossil tips! I'll start with Holden, as I have less to show off from there. It was fairly tame as far as crowds go, since the Holidays were kicking into gear. Despite a single day to collect, I think I did alright! I made a new friend during that part of the trip, and I was able to collect some nice modern mollusk shells as well, some of which could be used to compare to my Waccamaw finds. I did find an interesting sand dollar of some variety embedded in a stone, but I dropped it in the rapidly rising tide as I was collecting another specimen, so I ended up losing sight of it. To start, these are two Glycymeris americana valves, one from Holden, and the other from the Waccamaw site, as a comparison. These are some of the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids I found that day. I had many more, but it was hard to get them all pictured! On the topic of those echinoids, I found a few really good pathological specimens that day! This is the more extreme of them, with the side being somewhat compressed into the part, and the peristome off axis and off center. I'm not sure if this is something genetic, or if this was evidence of some kind of repaired biologic damage. It's probably my most pathological specimen to date. This was another specimen with similarly placed deformities, but much less extreme. And this one was a really unusual one, with an "elongated" periproct, giving it a more heavily sloped appearance compared to the standard ones. Moving on, this was probably my favorite find from the Holden part of the trip. This is a partial Anomoeodus phaseolus mouth plate and jawbone, which is a fairly uncommon find. I had previously found two teeth attached together, but this one is by far my best one yet. I found some individual "teeth" from these reworked into the Waccamaw formation site as well, but they were very small. I also found a few things I had not found myself since 2022, namely a nice, whole Mosasaur tooth, and a fragment of a Sphenodiscus lobatus ammonite. I found a few shark teeth, but I was honestly so focused on other finds I didn't emphasize looking for them as much as I normally would. I gave a few that I picked up to my new friend I made while I was hunting, as well as a small mosasaur tooth. This is an Enchodus jaw fragment with the base of a tooth I found, this might be the largest jaw fragment I found to date. I haven't found a tooth and jaw fragment attached together yet, but I'll keep looking! A turtle shell fragment I found out there. This is one of the more defined ones I've found, and appears to be from the edge of the shell. This was a cool steinkern I found, from what appears to be a Naticidae snail. This one is a bit heftier than ones I've found previously, and it almost seems to have some of the innermost shell preserved on one section, but this could be some other material. This is one Exogyra costata I found on the beach. I did pick up a number of them, but there weren't as many good specimens this trip for some reason. I took a couple of pictures of the same shell under UV light as well. And the last of my notable finds, this is a Striaticostatum harbisoni, a Peedee Formation Wentletrap Snail that was preserved due to recrystalization! Next to it is a steinkern of another one, which is usually all that is preserved; this is the first one I've found like this. It's broken toward the base, but it lets people see the tiny crystals inside the shell that grew during the process. I also found a second partial one, but it's in a much more worn condition. Now, onto the Waccamaw site finds! This site is slowly growing on me, as well as a greater appreciation for mollusks. It's becoming one of my favorite sites to visit. I've been utilizing a out a book that was published just last year titled Photographic Atlas of Waccamaw Formation Mollusca to identify my finds. It's a great resource for identifying the various mollusks of the formation, of which there are over 1000 different varieties! I found so much this time that I had to cut back on sharing them, though I do hope to do an album on everything when I get time. Starting off, here are some of the paired Lirophora varicosa athleta, AKA Imperial Venus Clams, I found. Here are a couple of pathological valves I found, as well as a sponge damaged valve and a valve with an oddly placed gastropod drill hole. Here is an intact Chama macerophylla, also known as the Leafy Jewelbox Clam. It's less common than the Arcinella cornuta Spiny Jewelbox Clams from what I've noticed. This is a Neverita duplicata, also known as the Shark Eye Moon Snail with some particularly beautiful shell preservation. This is a Naticarius plicatella, an extinct moon snail with an interesting spiral groove pattern along the whorl. Although the aperature (opening) is broken, this is my largest specimen of this snail found at the site to date. Here are two paired bivalves, a Trachycardium emmonsi (Cockle Clam) and a species of Diplodon clam (Diplodonta acclinis?) A Crepidula fornicata, also known as the Fornicating Slipper Snail. This one was unusually thick and large compared to the ones I normally find, around 5.715 cm (2.25 inches) long. Another worn Crepidula fornicata with a couple of Septastrea marylandica coral colonies growing on it. There appears to have been a third between the two but it probably broke off when it was originally extracted from the earth. Two valves from two different Ostrea lawrencei oysters that have a lot of small coral colonies and singular corals. This one is interesting because they were both attached to a relatively small scallop valve, as seen by the impression on their hinges. A really cool Ostrea lawrencei that has a Septastrea marylandica colony over nearly the entire outer surface. I didn't realize that it was covered in coral until I washed it, as the amount of sand and dirt that covered it almost covered it completely! The uncovered inner surface was the only exposed part of the oyster when I collected it. A large oyster, Ostrea compressirostra, that was found paired in the Waccamaw site, a fairly rare find. Unfortunately, the upper valve had a lot of bore damage on one side, but it's still a cool, paired find nonetheless! A Pleuromeris decemcostata, a pretty cool, small species of clam. It almost has a beaded structure to its ribs. In addition, the same Pleuromeris decemcostata under UV light. It's hard to see in this picture, but some of the "beads" in the ribbing have a UV reaction, in a somewhat random order.The Waccamaw stuff has some decent UV reaction, but it's no where near the level of the Florida Pleistocene shells of a similar age. A very small intact Arcinella cornuta, also known as the Florida Spiny Jewelbox. This is the smallest intact one I've found yet, at around 1.9 cm (.75 inches) across. One of my favorite finds from the Waccamaw site part of the trip, a Pterorytis fluviana, a type of murex with very frilly spires. Usually the spires are broken down, but this one as fairly intact aside from a hole in the side! A Radiolucina waccamawensis, an extinct hatchet clam. It measures about 7.62 mm (.3 inches ). These are pretty interesting little bivalves with a neat crossed structure to them. Some Eupleura caudata, a small species of murex snail. These had some nice shell preservation as well! A Neoterebra dislocata (Eastern Auger Snail) on the right, and what I believe is a Calliostoma tuomeyi (Calliostoma Top Snail) on the left. The Calliostoma Top Snails, like the Cone Snails and the Murexes, seem to vary a good bit and have very subtle differences, which makes it hard for me to identify. Two different extinct Nassa Mud Snails (or Dog Whelks); a rare Ilyanassa porcina on the left, and a somewhat uncommon Ilyanassa scalaspira on the right. A bryozoan-encrusted gastropod shell. I'm wondering if this is a variety of Bryolith (or Plagurized Gastropod), or if it it is simply a colony that covered an empty shell; either way it's really cool. Two Waccamaw Formation Conasprella oniscus cone snails, with a UV light comparison showing the remnants of their color pattern. This pattern can be used to differentiate the different species found in the same place to some degree. Here's a cool Arcopsis adamsi, a type of Ark Clam with an interesting beaded sculpture instead of the coarse ribs of the more common species. Next, a case of miscellaneous micros: on the right are three Biflustra savartii, a species of "Erect Form" Bryozoans, on the bottom left is an interesting and unknown Archohelia coral branch, and the upper left is some unknown, extraordinarily fragile fossil of some sort. It was probably 30-40% larger before I tried moving it to this case; it had a fragility not unlike that of the ill-fated microfossil echinoid I found on the previous trip. Another little case containing an assemblage of various paired microfossil bivalves from the Waccamaw site. The beaked Nuculana acuta (Pointed Nut Clam) are probably my favorite of the micro-sized bivalves. Kalolophus gibbesii, a medium-sized clam related to the modern Kalolophus speciosus, also known as Gibb's Clam. I've found similar clams in Virginia, but this is the first one I found in the Waccamaw Site. An Aurinia obtusa, a type of Volute Snail. This is the most common species from the Waccamaw, I've been told the other two are exceptionally rare. This is also the first mostly whole one I've found in the site. Next is a large Mercenaria mercenaria valve, which I took pictures of to show the progression of cleaning it out for it's inner contents. About halfway through cleaning I discovered a partial Rhyncholampas sabistonensis echinoid, with part of the side plating and the entire oral surface. It's overall in poor condition, but serves as another good example of the rare things that can be found inside other shells. There were quite a number of other things as well, such as whole Lirophora varicosa athleta (Imperial Venus) Clams, barnacles, and more. However, a lot of stuff was attached with a tough sediment, which made extraction difficult. The last image in this series shows the contents found inside waiting to dry off. And the last thing I wanted to share from the site is a juvenile gastropod of uncertain identity I'm thinking it's likely a Pliculofusus sparrowi (A type of gastropod related to the Tulip and Spindle Snails), but also somewhat resembles a juvenile Scaphella precursor (A rare species of Volute). While that's all the Waccamaw stuff from the normal site, that's not all the Waccamaw Formation fossils I found last month! I had a chance to check out a different location of the formation at a different time, and while there were a lot of similar things, there were some things different about this other site as well. Oysters were much more common, I found a few species I hadn't seen before, some varieties of gastropod were larger, and there were a lot of really interesting mineralization colors as well. There were a lot of red, yellow and orange colored shells, likely from iron oxides in the soil. There were also some interesting blue-grey colored shells, which I'm not too sure of the process that made them this way. Some were comparable to the blue shells found in the Bone Valley area of Florida. Here's a really cool and large Anadara lienosa Ark Clam valve from the secondary Waccamaw site. This is the largest Ark Clam I've found from the formation yet. It has some of the unusual orange-yellow iron oxide coloration. Here's a paired Arcinella cornuta (Florida Spiny Jewelbox) from the other Waccamaw site. This one came apart while I was cleaning it but I've got the two halves paired together still. I found some other paired specimens but they had a lot of spines missing. A very big Mercenaria mercenaria (Hard Clam) valve that was in the portion that had the blue mineralization. The outer surface is heavily worn but it has a very dark grey-blue coloration to it. A very hefty and thick Glycymeris americana (American Bittersweet) that has buried in the sediments containing a lot of iron oxides, and has a very cool yellow, orange and red marbled coloration. Two Septastrea marylandica corals from the other Waccamaw site. Both have some yellow coloration, and one has splotches of red, all from the iron oxide present in the site. Here's a Crepidula fornicata (Fornicating Slipper Snail) and two Neverita duplicata (Shark Eye Moon Snails) with some pretty cool blue-gray coloration. The rightmost is an especially pretty dark grey-blue! Two worn Crepidula fornicata specimens (Fornicating Slipper Snails), with Septastrea marylandica coral colonies growing on them. They also both have bryozoan colonies and Polychaete worm tubes on them, as well as a lot of boring sponge damage; These were the home of a number of animals, even after their death. An unusual paired oyster from the other Waccamaw site. Due to the larger quantity of oysters in that site, and paired ones like this could be found in a much higher frequency. Here's what I believe might be a juvenile Triplofusus giganteus, also known as the Horse Conch. It's over 3.81 cm (1.5 inches) long. A somewhat rare Trigonostoma elizabethae, an unusual type of Nutmeg Snail. This came from the other Waccamaw site, but I did find a larger specimen at the primary site that I forgot to take a picture of before storing it away. This one has some of the blue-gray coloration. Two neat Ensis clams, also known as Razor Clams, from the secondary Waccamaw site. They're usually broken like this due to their thin, fragile structure. The top one may be a Ensis directus, and the bottom may be a Ensis megistus. An assortment of microfossils from the other Waccamaw site with various mineralization colors. I'm hoping to find a new technique for extracting these, as my current method results in some of these getting broken. And my last find from the site, An unusual bone of some variety; I almost want to think it's a turtle shell fragment, but I'm really not sure. It has some odd, rib-like structuring on the longer outer edges. And that's all I've got for now! 2023 was a really fun year for collecting, but I feel like 2024 could potentially be even better. As I wrap this post up, I'll be getting ready for tomorrow, where I'll be displaying some of my finds from the last two years at a park for an event, after which I'll be heading back to Holden Beach once again for a weekend to unwind from work and hunt for fossils with a couple of friends (I'll save my modern echinoid hunt for another time). I might post an update on that here, or I might wait until I go to Aurora, NC fairly soon. Further out, I've got a trip planned for Virginia once again in the early summer (Super excited for this one!), another extended Holden Beach trip in the spring, and there's a chance I might be able to tag along with a small group to go hunt fossils in central / northern Texas around the time of the solar eclipse, with some stops in Oklahoma and Mississippi! It'll be the first time I've ventured west of the eastern coastal states, so it'll be interesting if I do end up going. It'd require a lot of time off of work, so I'm still working out the logistics of it.
  2. Hello everyone! I've once again made a return trip out to Holden Beach, which is my first trip of 2024. I briefly showed a few of my finds on my last report, but there were a lot of really interesting finds I've found that I'd like to show off. I didn't even realize I had some of these until I was sorting them earlier this week! It was a fairly nice weekend for early February, with it being rather warm during the day, but about the usual winter cold at night. The crowds were elevated similarly to they were in December due to the coverage the beach has been getting online, but otherwise weren't too bad. As usual, the best times to go were in the late evenings and early mornings, though I did try to do some midday hunting with a couple of friends this time as well, who stopped by for a little while. The beach was covered in Peedee Formation sediment chunks from some mid and late December storms, which made for some interesting finds. These are a couple of shots of my finds as I was cleaning them off. I picked up a fair bit of modern specimens as well this trip, which I'll show a little of at the end of this. The first of my main finds is this really neat paired Exogyra costata, which is the first one I've found! I'll have to see if I can work on getting the matrix off of this one, I'm looking into air abrasion to see if I can speed up my process, and maybe make it better as well. These are some Prehepatus harrisi crab chelae I found. This is the largest haul I've found since 2022, and the first I've found since February 2023! The left middle specimen and the one in the matrix have fairly decent fingers and dactyls, which are usually broken off beyond the end of the socket. My friend found a different segment of one leg, which isn't very common. This is a fish skull fragment and a fragmented mosasaur tooth. I didn't luck out with the mosasaur teeth this trip, though my friend found a nice one fairly quickly once she started looking. I did find a decent number of shark teeth this time, which was nice! I haven't been focusing down on these the last few trips, so next family trip we'll be having in the spring I might try to look a little harder for them. This is the first vertebra of this variety I've found since 2022, right after the beach work took place. My current thoughts are that it's from the primitive ray Brachyrhizodus wichitaensis, but there is some question if it came from an angel shark. An array of turtle scute fragments, some of the largest ones I've found there. I'm not sure if there is any specific identification for these, although I've been told that a lot of them are from softshelled turtles. Some I've found from previous trips look almost like box turtles or something similar. A horse tooth fragment. My friend came back again the next weekend and found a really nice intact one. Most of my finds are similar to this quality. These are some steinkerns I found. The first picture is a bivalve of some variety, and the second one is of some partial ammonites. This is a really interesting rock or phosphate nodule that has a shark tooth embedded into it! I've never seen a tooth in matrix quite like this from the area. It's far from perfect, but a really interesting piece regardless. On to some of the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids from this trip, this one was a particularly tall and narrow specimen, which is fairly interesting. There are some really interesting variations I've found over the last couple of years, but narrow ones or tall ones like this are probably the least common variations I've found, and the fact that it is both is really neat. This is a really interesting pathology I found, on the opposite side from my last one! This one unfortunately had some damage on the anterior end from the dredging pipe, and it started falling apart once I got it home and washed, so I had to stabilize the broken area with some strong adhesive. Here are some of my favorite echinoids from this trip. I didn't total up all the ones I ended up keeping, but my grand total of lower grade specimens I've collected to donate between this trip and my December one is 322. This last specimen is a broken one, but it is really neat in the fact that it shows the void of material present in most of these echinoids. This one obviously broke differently, but in a lot of specimens that are broken from the dredging process it tends to be in this area devoid of material. There are some small Scabrotrigonia bivalve molds on the aboral surface matrix. This is a large rib bone fragment of some variety. I've always understood them to be sirenian ribs, due to their dense and heavy nature. This is probably one of my best finds from the trip, a whole but small ammonite steinkern! I misidentified it as Sphenodiscus before, but after talking with some people I'm thinking it's a much rarer scaphitid ammonite, perhaps a Discoscaphites(?). It did break while in transport, but I was able to get it back together the best I could with the loss of material surrounding the break. This is a chunk of Peedee Formation sediment with a bunch of small gastropod steinkerns throughout, as well as two sizable Scabrotrigonia bivalve molds on one side. I saw a lot of these molds this trip, but these were some of the nicer ones. And speaking of trace fossils, this is another really good find from the trip! I picked up a lot of Exogyra costata oysters, but I didn't check them all very thoroughly while out on the beach, and didn't notice this until I cleaned it at home. It appears to be a bioimmured gastropod of some variety, existing as an impression on the oyster. These are some other bioimmured mollusks on Exogyra oysters I found. One is likely some variety of Turritellidae gastropod, while the other might be a type of Cardiidae bivalve. This is some material that contains what I believe could be trace fossils of burrows, but I'm not too sure. It also resembles the shape of some branching bryozoan fossils that are common in the area. This little chunk of material contains two unusual steinkerns! I'm wondering if the cone shaped one is from a type of limpet, but as far as the gastropod one goes I have no idea what it might be. There are some odd round shapes on the surface of it that are visible much more clearly under my new UV light. I wonder if it's a type of turban snail or whelk. And lastly, this is a chunk of Late Cretaceous Peedee Formation material containing a bunch of what I've always considered to be Heteropora bryozoan fragments and Exogyra fragments. However, the most interesting part of this cluster is the presence of appears to be a Biflustra bryozoan of some variety. I've seen them in Pleistocene material quite a bit, but never in the Cretaceous stuff. The surface detail shows better in the UV light. And as a bonus, these are just some of my nicer modern mollusks and a sand dollar I collected that weekend. Holden Beach is really good for modern specimens, and I've found quite a number of them there over the years. When I eventually start an album of my finds from my travels and work on my Waccamaw Formation collection, I might try to have a side-by-side comparison of them with their modern equivalent, closest relative or direct descendant, just to show any potential appearances they might have had before becoming fossils. And that's all I've got for now! I was considering going to Texas this spring with some friends, but I realized that was going to require too much time off of work to pull off, so I'll have to pass for now. I don't have anything planned before my family trip back to Holden in April, as well as a Virginia trip in May/June, but who knows what the future has in store.
  3. OIB Tim

    Shark tooth ID

    Was walking Holden Beach today and found my first shark tooth. Was pretty excited about it considering I have been looking for anything black and shiny. Anyway does anyone know what kind of shark this could be from? Thanks in advance
  4. From the album: My Echinoid Collection

    Hardouinia mortonis Peedee Formation Maastrichtian Age, Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma) Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA Self collected in September, 2023 A bit of an unusual find, this Hardouinia mortonis specimen had a significant amount of crystallization occur within the internal cavity, where the sediment settled and left a pocket. It's not too terribly uncommon to find these specimens with a layer fine crystals in these pockets, and I have found a few broken ones with such layers from the area. However, this one stood out because it was mostly intact, and the crystals began to form in what was likely a small crack, which ended up splitting it open over time as they grew. I have been calling it my "geode" echinoid. I am not sure what kind of crystals they are. They are usually very small and grey, forming a "film" over the walls of their cavity. I think it's either a type of quartz, or a type of calcium carbonate. The entire test of this one seems to have a slight degree of mineral replacement to it, mostly noticeable on the oral surface (there is some dense crystal filling the peristome and the features surrounding it).
  5. Echinoid Express

    Periarchus sp.

    From the album: My Echinoid Collection

    Periarchus sp. Castle Hayne Formation Late Eocene (41-33 Ma) Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA Self collected in September 2023 A highly unexpected but exciting find, I came across this chunk of Castle Hayne material while searching the beach for Cretaceous Hardouinia mortonis specimens. The tide and surf was particularly strong due to an offshore tropical cyclone, which made it difficult to find the Cretaceous echinoids, but was bringing in large stones and other things. As best as I can recall, this is the first Castle Hayne formation material I've seen on Holden Beach. The chunk is fairly hefty, and is at least 30.5 cm (12 inches) long. There are a number of Periarchus fragments in the material, and there is one other visible specimen that is only missing about ten percent of the test. I am unsure of the species due to the periproct being obscured. I have little doubt that there are probably more specimens in the center of the material. The chunk also has numerous bryzoan fossils.
  6. Jayme

    What we have so far

    This is our collection so far of our favorite finds. All found at Holden beach. Pics consist of shark teeth, mosasaur teeth, horse teeth, sloth tooth, barracuda teeth, stingray teeth, sawfish teeth, enchodus teeth, enchodus jaw fragments, scute, ivory, mouth plate for puffer fish, shark vertebrae, mosasaur vertebrae. We accumulated this in 10 months and they were the best 10 months. My next goal is to start searching creeks. I'd love to dive too. Lots of different adventures to look forward to.
  7. Jayme

    Possible whale bone?

    I live in holden beach nc and I found this back in 2022. Im super curious if anyone knows what this is. I'm no expert by any means but i was curios if this could possibly be part of a whale bone? Any help with an id would be super appreciated.
  8. Jayme

    Help with ID

    I live in holden beach NC and I found this back in 2022. I've been told its possibly a skull fragment. I'm hoping for some help with an id. Thanks.
  9. HammyWrangler

    Shark Tooth ID, Holden Beach

    Holden Beach, NC in the middle of Myrtle Beach, SC & Wilmington, NC if you went along the coast. Conflicted on this ID due to the possible serrations on tooth and cusps. Is that wear/damage or legitimate serrations? Additionally, I'm having a difficult time determining if Serratolamna or Cretalamna had serrations? Anyone else have an accurate ID with these photos?
  10. Jayme

    I found this tooth at Holden

    I found this tooth at Holden beach. Need some help with an id. Thanks so much.
  11. Jayme

    Tooth found at Holden

    I know this tooth is not a fossil. I found it at Holden beach. I have shared it on every reddit and facebook forum and page I could. I have been unable to receive any definitive answers. I've had people say it's everything from a dog tooth to a fox, bear, to a sperm whale. If this is not appropriate to share because its not a fossil. I apologize. Please let me know and I'll take it down. I know there are a tremendous amount of well educated and experienced people on here. So my hopes were this would be a great place for a possible id. Thanks so much.
  12. Echinoid Express

    Hardouinia mortonis (Weathered)

    From the album: My Echinoid Collection

    Hardouinia mortonis Peedee Formation Maastrichtian Age, Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma) Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA Self collected approximately between 2001 and 2005 A forgotten specimen of mine I recently found in a box of old seashells, this is a heavily weathered but mostly complete specimen I found as a young boy. While I've been a fan of fossils for quite some time, I both did not completely know the true nature of these sea urchins around the time, nor did I typically treasure things that had imperfections when I was that young. Now, I can safely say that this is a very special specimen; this may be one of the first fossils, if not the first fossil, I have collected myself. As a sidenote, my younger brother managed to find a nearly perfect specimen sometime between 2007-2010, which was a source of my envy for over a decade until the beach replinishement project!
  13. cas720

    Found on Holden Beach, NC

    Found this tooth on Holden Beach, NC last night. Was wondering if it’s even real and if so, what it’s from? Thanks!
  14. Echinoid Express

    Hardouinia mortonis

    From the album: My Echinoid Collection

    Hardouinia mortonis Peedee Formation Maastrichtian Age, Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma) Holden Beach, Brunswick County, North Carolina, USA Self collected in April 2022
  15. harpercm3

    Personal Collection

    Here are some of the cool things I have found over the years!
  16. Rticehaines

    Prehistoric teeth?

    I found this today. It appears to be 2 teeth, one of which is covered. Any help indentifying would be appreciated
  17. dentist312

    Shark Tooth at Holden Beach ID

    Hello! Was walking along Holden Beach, NC on vacation and saw this tooth. My daughter was super excited so we started researching, but wanted to get some help from the experts! We found it on top of the sand on the shell line. We're at the airport now and it's packed so all I have are these pics in a hand. I can upload more with reference later if requested. Thanks I'm advance!
  18. Hello all! I've been getting ready for the Aurora Fossil Festival (and working on my new display cabinet), and have been going back through my Holden Beach finds. I wanted to share a compilation of my visits to Holden Beach, North Carolina from 2022 to 2023. I have gone 5 times since the replenishment project occurred there: April 2022, twice in October 2022, February 2023, and April 2023. While I was mostly picking up the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids, I found a little bit of everything out there. There was so much that I couldn't include everything, so I stuck with the best of my finds. It's truly amazing what all can be found washing out down there! I am still fairly new to fossils in general, and I'm far from confident in my ability to I.D. a lot of things. That being said, I have tried my best to identify what I could. Any corrections or advice is more than appreciated! I can also take additional pictures if anyone wants a better look at anything here. Here are all my sharks teeth. I am not great with the I.D.s on all of these, but I do know the names to a few varieties. I have tried to group them together by what little I know, and by appearance if I'm unsure. Lots of great white and crow shark teeth were to be found. April 2022, October 2022 and February 2023: This one in particular is my favorite shark find of 2022. It's the largest Great White tooth I've found, and aside from a small chip off of the side and the tip it's in really good shape. It's right at 6 cm (2.36 Inches) long, but I have no doubt it would have been longer with the tip undamaged. (April 2022) April 2023: A modern Sand Tiger tooth snuck in as well. Now for my absolute favorite tooth, my only mostly intact Megalodon tooth that I've found to date. This one is right at 9.52 cm (3.75 Inches) long in it's current condition. (April 2023) On to my Hardouinia mortonis, this is a group photo of my best finds from all trips. The Holden Beach ones get fairly large compared to some of the quarry finds I've seen! I have several well over 5 cm (~2 Inches) in diameter. These are specimens with minor pathologies. The apical disc sometimes is "dented" on these specimens, and I've found a few with "peanut" shaped petals. (Various trips) This is a specimen with a more moderate pathology. the whole shape is unusual, and one petal is turned at about a 20-30 degree angle towards the posterior. (February 2022) These are some of my current "project" echinoids. Due to being found on the beach, they tend to be saturated with salt. while I try to manually remove some matrix periodically I give them a good soak in water for a few days, then leave them out to dry and see if salt crystals are still forming. Sometimes it takes a few tries to completely rid the salt. This batch has some Hardouinia mortonis of some pretty varied shape. (Various trips) These are mostly Mosasaur teeth, though there may be a few crocodilian teeth snuck in there as well. I'm not exactly sure which species of mosasaur these are, there are some distinctly different shapes to some of them. (Various trips) I found plenty of Mosasaur teeth without roots, but only one root without a tooth! The kind folks at Aurora helped me identify this, I wasn't sure what it was. (April 2022) I never got this one identified, but it's definitely a piece of some jaw with a tooth root. Perhaps also Mosasaur, but I'm not sure. (April 2022) Of course there was also plenty of Exogyra to go around, and way too many to photograph! This is a small cluster of them in the matrix, and the largest intact specimen I found, at around 10 cm (~4 Inches) long. (Cluster from April 2022, large one from October 2022) (*EDIT 6-18-23 with proper I.D.) These are Cretaceous Prehepatus harrisi crab claws. All but one came from the April 2022 trip (the darker is from February 2023). These are Pleistocene Equus teeth I found in April 2022. There was a much smaller fourth fragment as well I didn't photograph. This is one of my favorite finds: a Pleistocene Odocoileus antler fragment. It resembles a modern White-Tailed Deer antler fragment! (April 2022) A very large bone fragment from April 2022. Not sure what from, almost looks like a vertebra. Around 9 cm (3.54 Inches) long. A Rhombodus binkhorsti tooth, my only one found. (April 2022) Other Ray teeth and barbs (Various trips) My first and only Pycnodont mouth plate fragment (April 2023). Some sizable shark vertebrae. (Various trips) Some Sawfish rostral teeth and a few select Enchodus fangs / jaw fragments. (Various trips) Some Sea Robin skull plates. (Various trips) Some turtle carapace fragments, and possibly a Crocodilia Dermal Scute (Various trips for the turtle fragments, April 2023 on the scute) This is an interesting bone fragment that, according to the folks at Aurora, might have signs of a shark attack or feeding due to the triangular groove on it. (April 2022) Plenty of steinkerns to pick up! (Various trips) While I found a few isolated casts of ammonite chambers, this is by far the largest and best one. I'm not exactly sure what species, but after reading my NCFC book I'm leaning towards Sphenodiscus lobatus. (October 2022) Unknown vertebra, pretty heavily worn. About 4 cm (1.57 Inches) long. (April 2023) My Sirenia vertebra. (Thank you @Boesse for helping me confirm this!) (April 2023) The folks at Aurora have said this is likely a young Mastodon molar fragment. I've seen even smaller fragments with a similar shine and color that might also be some kind of Proboscidea tooth fragment. (April 2022) A fragment of some unknown echinoid. It doesn't resemble Hardouinia to me, it almost looks more like a fragment from something in the Spatangoida Order. I'm not 100% sure on it though. I wish there was more of it to look at! (April 2023) And last but not least, a couple of Sirenian rib fragments. (April 2022) Bonus pic: These are my favorite Hardouinia mortonis specimens. I had someone at work etch me out the plaque on a laser.
  19. Hello everyone! I've found quite a number of interesting things at Holden Beach, North Carolina since the replenishment project last year. Most of the stuff I've found I was able to identify fairly easily as I started to learn more (A big thanks to a large number of people on this forum, I did a lot of browsing here over the last year), but this vertebra is one thing I haven't pegged down 100% that I've been curious about. I found it back this April one morning, barely exposed in a tide pool. The area currently has things from Cretaceous to Pliocene washing out, but I think it looks fairly young as far as fossils go. The spinous process looks like it was broken off more recently, possibly due to the replenishment project; it wasn't a very gentle procedure for any of the fossils or seashells! I've heard from a couple of individuals that it may be a worn down manatee or dugong vertebra, which I am leaning towards myself, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to get additional opinions on it before the upcoming Aurora Fossil Festival. My phone camera is iffy with focusing, so sorry if the labels look to be somewhat blurry! I've included a couple of bonus pictures from the day I discovered it (I dropped my poor phone in the tide pool while I was snapping shots of it). It looks to be around 11 cm (4.33 Inches) across the transverse process, around 7 cm (2.755 Inches) long overall, and around 7.8 cm (3.07 Inches) wide on the body.
  20. Hi all, I'm new to fossil collecting and would love to know any leads on any of the items here. I think I know what some are (I believe there is an enchodus fang, mososaur tooth, bone, etc) but am looking for some confirmation. All have come from Holden Beach, NC. Thank you!
  21. Raptor285

    Fossil Identification Please

    Requesting fossil identification please! Thank You !
  22. iExploreAndMore

    Vertebra?

    Hi all. I found what I believe is a vertebra, but can't be 100% sure and what it may be from. I found in Holden Beach, NC today buried in a foot of water near low tide
  23. DamnYankee68

    Holden Beach odd find

    Found this on the beach. Not sure what it is, but thinking it is neat.
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