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Back on October 2017, I was hunting a Texas creek after a flood event and found a nice slab of shark's teeth. I took my wife Susie back to check out the area better. We went upstream to locate where the slab had washed down from. We found a matching location where the teeth had come out of the Eagle Ford formation in a shell hash pocket. The final size of this area was about 1 ft by 2 ft by 2 inches thick. We captured the remaining shell hash matrix in bags and took it home. Over the next few weeks, we used dilute white vinegar solution and ice picks to extract 150+ of these 4 mm to 15 mm wide Ptychodus teeth from matrix. My wife pulled out maybe 60 to 80 of them. In October 2018 communications with Shawn Hamm, I found out that the largest of these teeth were likely from a new Ptychodus species that Shawn was hoping to do a paper on. I then sent 40 of these teeth to Shawn. One month ago, I was contacted by Shawn to donate any more teeth that I was willing to give up for a new professional paper on that species (finally!). I went back through the remaining teeth (now in two clear plastic cylindrical containers) and other fossils from the pocket. I also gave him some of my best of these teeth found from other shell hash pockets nearby. I noted amazingly that over 95% of the remaining 110+ Ptychodus teeth had characteristics of the new species and that there were five different tooth file sets represented. I immediately sent them to Shawn along with other representative shark species. So, he may now have the first associated set of those teeth to study for his paper from the 2018 and 2024 donations. You just never know when an old fossil hunting trip can breath new life into the fossil record and a new understanding. My ignorance of Ptychodus matters in 2017 was replaced by mature knowledge in 2024 that subsequently opened my "eyes" to something I would have never seen before 2024. So, I recommend looking back at your old finds to hunt for new things you might now be able to see with your more mature set of "eyes"!

I have seen this type of trace many times before...each time I wonder. Do you have any ideas? The knife is 3" in length...thank you for your thoughts.

A few weeks ago I was working an exposure of the middle Turonian Kamp Ranch member of the Arcadia Park Formation in North Texas, using a chisel and the natural bedding planes to pull up slabs. I had been there less than 15 minutes and had only found one small, broken tooth amongst shell hash when I found this almost perfect medium sized Cretodus crassidens. I also found some smaller shark teeth including Ptychodus sp., miscellaneous vertebrate material, and ammonites of possibly multiple species. So far this specimen is my largest from the site The first thing I noticed about it was the white color of most of the enamel and strange patterns covering the exposed tooth. It looked like it had been recently exposed and weathered, but since it was only exposed by me pulling up slabs that is not possible. All the other teeth I found there didn’t have this type of preservation but had the normal brown enamel. I have searched for pictures of any other teeth with patterns like this, but so far nothing. I prepared it out of the rock and can see that the patterns occur on both the front and back of the blade and root. It is 35 mm diagonal and 25 mm root width. It was resting just a few millimeters above a large inoceramid shell. The tooth is perfect except that the tip of the left cusp broke off before fossilization. There are certain areas where the blade isn’t white and there are no patterns, but for the most part the pattern covers the tooth. I was also able to rub off a bit of the white with my finger, but it seems that the patterns are embedded in the tooth itself since it is also on the root. Here are some pictures. I am hoping the origin of these patterns can be explained and any links and/or pictures of other teeth like this can be provided. The first three are before prep and the rest are after. Thanks in advance! FIG 1. FIG 2.