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  1. JarrodB

    Mosasaur Pterygoid

  2. Short hunt at the North Sulphur River Texas. Lots of mosasaur bones.
  3. Fun day on the North Sulphur River Texas. We saw some cool wildlife. Here's my finds. A nice mix of pleisosaur, mosasaur, enchodus, shark, turtle, horse, coprolite and artifacts.
  4. huangeric

    Mosasaur, Plesiosaur or Spinosaur

    Purchased from online. Morocco fossil. Are they Mosasaur, Plesiosaur, Spinosaur or other species? Need help for ID, Thanks!
  5. Fishinfossil

    NJ Cretacous Whose tooth is this?

    NJ Cretacous hunt today, found this tooth in a deep sift. Has a tiny bit of enamel left on it. Any ideas? Its about 1-1/2 inches long.
  6. nivek1969

    fossil teeth in matrix mystery

    I have this piece, which sadly I do not know much about, being that it was acquired at an estate sale and had no info. I have not been able to find something similar looking online, except for maybe a small section of teeth from a helicoprionid shark? The piece is about 6 x 7" and the teeth(?) are about 1/2" in length.
  7. Been a long time, finally got out for a bit and found my 3rd Plesiosaur vert along with some others. Also the first snake encounter of the season. This guy was only a few feet long. 49 degrees with 20 mph winds. Warmer days ahead! Late Cretaceous 80 mya
  8. Fishinfossil

    Mo tooth or dino claw? NJ Cretaceous

    Laying thick in the mud after a torrential rain. I'm certainly not proficient but was thinking Mosasaur tooth with root? Any ideas?
  9. Hey everyone! So, I have recently acquired some fossils and, forever the skeptic and pessimist, I just want to see if they're (likely to be) real or not. Spinosaurus Tooth (Egypt) - Unknown Pterosaur Bone (Unknown) - Mosasaur Teeth (Morocco) - I'm very aware of the fake jaw aspect, I'm just interested in whether or not the teeth are real. Thank you!
  10. I had a fun hike at the North Sulphur River Texas yesterday. I figured it would be picked over but I found a pretty remote spot with my 4x4. The one sawfish tooth I found in a small creek a few days before. Everything else is from yesterday. It was a great day for Cretaceous coprolite (Poo). @GeschWhat The one coprolite is full of fish verts, bones and fins.
  11. LordTrilobite

    Fun with 3D Printing Fossils

    So recently my father bought a 3D printer and we've been experimenting printing some cool fossils for a while now. It's a really cool technology. Though it can take a while to print a piece the results are really quite cool. A life size Archaeopteryx can take a few days to print if you don't keep printing during the night. Finishing up the prints afterwards can also take a bit of time. Cleaning off all the supports and sanding down rough surfaces can be quite the process. Then there's painting depending on the desired result of course. There are actually a lot of nice things that can be found for download on the internet. Though many of these models still require a bit of digital cleanup before they could be printed. So here are a number of the painted, unpainted and half painted results. Most of the printed stuff is dinosaur. Photo of the 3D printer and the just finished print of a juvenile Edmontosaurus lower jaw. And here's the same Edmontosaurus jaw print half painted again with the real fossil in mirror image next to it. I scanned the original bone that I then mirrored digitaly so that I could print out the other side of the jaw. Allosaurus hand claw. Clidastes Mosasaur quadrate bone. Skull of the "Prosauropod" Massospondylus. Holotype right lower jaw of Owenodon hoggi, an Iguanodontid. Download link: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/iguanodon-jawbone-f016ad38ebb647988dafd6bbdc1510d0 1/5th scale Nanotyrannus lancensis skull. The Cleveland specimen. Download link for original file: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/nanotyrannus-lancensis-young-t-rex-7b0967fa27674d959647868686b6717b One of my favourites. The Eichstatt Archaeopteryx specimen. Download link for original file: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/eichstatt-archaeopteryx-b71872ad42794ef7883021f2fa9a8079 The right side skeleton of the baby Parasaurolophus "Joe". Printed at 1/5th scale. Right humerus and pedal phalanges printed at life size. Most of the fossil prints are for my collection. But my dad also wanted a few cool things which I painted for him. Skulls of Dodo and Australopithecus Taung Child. Download link for Dodo original file: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dodo-264b7746a42b41b2845a499de16f8538 Most are painted roughly to look like their real counter parts.
  12. Tripermiblast

    Globidens alabamaensis?

    While collecting at a location in SE Virginia which produces a mixture of material from the Eocene Nanjemoy Formation and late Miocene/early Pliocene Yorktown Formation, I was shocked to find what I believe to be a cretaceous Globidens sp. anterior tooth fragment. My only explanation for this would be that it must have been redeposited into the Eocene beds and finally exposed with rest of the material. The texture is classic Globidens. The only other species with a slightly similar texture found within these formations (though still markedly different), would be Squalodon sp., however if the tooth were more complete it would clearly prove to be hollow with a conical interior consistent with squamates like mosasaurs. The fragment is approximately 7/8" x 1/2". This is the first bit of possibly cretaceous material I have found from these exposures, so it would be quite interesting if the general consensus is a Globidens sp. Your thoughts would be much appreciated! Thanks, Ash
  13. Made it out to the North Sulphur River yesterday and found a couple of interesting pieces of bone. One was a small jawbone that may be mosasaur but may be small enough to be from some type of fish, not sure. The other piece was one of the largest that I have found but is an odd shape and I am not sure if it may be from a mosasaur, most of the material from this area falls into that group? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
  14. Hi everyone! New member here. I am very excited to make my first post. So I came across a vendor today with some cool stuff, but I wanted to run some photos by the forum members first to see: 1) if you think they are real or fake. 2) how much would you expect to pay for a piece like that. Thanks for the help! Item #1 - Mosasaur Jaw To my eyes, this item looks legit as the teeth don't seem to be floating above the jaw with composite all around it, or teeth pointed in different directions. BUT...I know fakes are good and I am relatively new to educating myself to fakes vs real. Item #2 - Another Mosasaur Jaw (top and bottom) Also looks pretty legit to my newb eyes. But I am worried both top and bottom jaws in that position are too good to be true. Item #3 - Croc Skull? My gut reaction is fake...mostly due to the matrix looking like it was smeared on like cream cheese. Item #4 - Plesiosaur Skull and Neck It's apparently from goulmima southern morocco. Sadly I don't have more pics, as I didn't want to handle it and move it around. But I was able to get down low and see that it does have it's teeth. I just couldn't a good picture of it. :-\ The closest comparison I could find was this plesiosaur head/neck from an archived auction house website image. But the matrix around it seems the same.
  15. Had a doctors appointment a couple of weeks ago and as I was driving home I drove over a bridge that sparked my attention. I saw the access was fairly easy to the first couple and sand bars, and being dressed business casual I needed easy. I always keep my rubber boots in the back of the FJ and made my way down for a quick look. The area is Texas Cretaceous Eagle Ford so I knew the odds were good, but I have hunted other creeks in the area and been skunked. I was there for about 15 minutes and about to head back when I spotted a familiar sight. There was a large Ptychodus waiting to be picked up. i headed home and looked at google maps to see if I could find any other access. I found another spot that also looked promising and a couple of days later on the way home from work, I again threw on the boots and hit the couple of accessible piles and was surprised to fine several more Ptychodus teeth and a beautiful large Cretodus. This is weekend though it was cold and rainy, my son and I hit the area again this time spending a little over an hour or so and found a few more broken teeth as well as a large X-Fish vert and a small mosasaur vert. I am certain this creek is going to turn up some great material after the next rains. I am attaching ictures of the finds from the couple of hours I have had to hunt this spot.
  16. Hey guys! Saw these two rooted mosasaur teeth. I was wondering if the roots are a composite or have been composited to the tooth. I saw so many that were composited,it’s unreal... They look pretty good to me especially the one on matrix but I just wanted to make sure. What do you guys think? Regards.
  17. Just a little heads-up if anyone sees these. They're currently for sale at a commonly-used site. The jawbones are actually quite nice, but the teeth all appear to be added afterwards. In my opinion, none are original. Although both are nice decorative pieces, I wouldn't buy them unless they were pretty cheap. Most people will know this already, but posted for the benefit of newbies.
  18. Hi all! I found this in the North Sulphur River this weekend in a large gravel bar. My first thought was that it was a Globidens Mosasaur tooth, but I’m just not sure. It’s approximately a half an inch diameter, has striations on the underside, and a hole in the center. The top side has been flattened, which if a tooth I am assuming is the chewing surface? Completely fossilized. No enamel. I would appreciate any input! Thank you so much!
  19. Believe it or not, it was 80 degrees for a high today in the North Texas area. This warm weather made we want to explore the NSR and a new creek that I had discovered on my last visit. There were several deep pools of water in the creek, so this warm weather would help in case I decided to take a swim (not on purpose) while hunting fossils and artifacts. I noticed on my last creek crawling adventure here, that once I hit the first deep pool, the persistent fossil hunting human tracks in front of me disappeared. I wore my waders and headed into the pool hoping for hard bottom and not mud. As I had hoped, on the other side of the pool, the only tracks I found were coyote and hogs. I begin to find small pieces of bone and a few vertebrae and artifacts that were mostly pieces and parts, but they had been worked on by someone. Several others pools of water were challenges but I only got a little water in my waders and at 80 degrees it did not feel too bad. Here are a few pics of the finds and sorry if you are still dealing with below zero weather were you are!
  20. Hi, What are your opinions on this tooth? Overall the crown of it: Thanks
  21. Hey! I have kind of an odd question. I am purchasing a fossil for a friend as a birthday gift -- between a tip of a mammoth tusk, or a section of mosasaur jaw with teeth. What makes this unique, however, is that we are traveling to the British Virgin Islands (from the United States) for said birthday and I would like to be able to gift the fossil on the birthday instead of waiting until she returns home as we live in different states and I would only be able to ship it to her house and not be there. I am concerned, however, about bringing the fossils with me on the trip as I have heard nightmares about customs causing long hold ups or seizing fossils. Does anyone have any advice on this? Thanks!
  22. ThePhysicist

    NSR Mosasaur Bone Structure 2

    From the album: North Sulphur River

    This mosasaur bone mineralized in a way that more details of the finer bone structures are preserved. This sample shows osteocytes, which are rings seen around holes where blood vessels used to be.
  23. ThePhysicist

    NSR Mosasaur Bone Structure 1

    From the album: North Sulphur River

    Closeup of mosasaur bone. This specimen has mineralized in such a way that the crystals form in planes, so that they reflect light at a given angle creating a glassy flash. This phenomenon is not captured in the photo.
  24. Paleoworld-101

    New Zealand marine reptile vertebra

    I've got this very worn vertebral centrum from the marine Conway Formation near Oaro (Late Cretaceous; about 79-73 Ma) on the south island of New Zealand. The only two logical candidates are plesiosaur or mosasaur from this formation, both of which are known here. There are characteristics of both groups seen on this bone which is tripping me up a bit. One end face seems a bit concave and the other more convex which is a mosasaur feature, but then there also looks to be two distinct holes on the ventral side (see photo three) which could be the paired foramina that are characteristic of plesiosaur vertebrae. So i am left scratching my head! What do others think? Front face Dorsal view Ventral view (note what look like paired foramina) Lateral view
  25. I went fossil hunting at the North Sulfur River (NSR) in mid December with @believerjoe and Cathleen, @cgmck a local fossil hunting buddy of mine who is a semi-retired environmental geologist.. I’d been trying to work out a time to go hunting with Joe for close to 6 weeks. He had extended the offered sometime after I had met him at the Ladonia Fossil Day event on October 20th. He offered to take me to teach me how to spot mosasaur and bone material in the NSR. We are both on the Dallas Paleontological Society Facebook group page and crossed paths on there quite frequently so we were acquitted on there and on TFF. We set 12/15/18 as the tentative date, but rain kept threatening to delay our hunt. Up until Friday evening, 12/14 I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to hunt. If the water was too deep it would be pretty murky, making it hard to spot fossils. Saturday dawned bright, clear and chilly. Water levels were huntable. It would be in the mid 30s when we were to meet at 8:00. We would be walking through a lot of water. I have rubber boots I usually wear in the wet and cold weather in creeks, but I knew the water would be high. I’ve hunted the river when the water was high like this and it prevented me from going up the river and creeks I wanted to go up. So I opted to buy myself a pair of hip waders before the trip. I found these for $25! They were 50%. The shoe size is a man’s size 7. They said they ran big for men. Men’s shoe size 10 is bigger than women’s 10 so I took the risk and they fit fine. They were comfortable and worked great. Anyway, I packed my hunting gear in my car and then a backpack with another pair of socks to keep my feet warmer when walking in the cold water, extra leggings, gloves and hat to put on once I got there. I didn’t do my hair. I was planning on wearing the hat. I threw my favorite ball cap in the pack too. When I got there I realized I’d left my backpack with the extra clothing for warmth at home! I was going to be a bit chilly. Especially my feet. My boots aren’t insulated. My hair was going to be all over the place with the wind. We met at the Ladonia Fossil Park and then transferred our stuff to Joe’s pickup truck. Joe drove us to a place he likes to hunt. We got out, put on our gear and walked down into the creek. Joe didn’t think the water was going to be too deep in the creek so I opted to wear just my boots rather than the waders. First step into the creek there was a rudist fragment that Joe pointed out. It was kind of big and we were going to be walking a long way. So, I opted to leave the rudist there. I walked maybe 30 feet and found a piece of turtle shell. Yay! My first piece of Texas turtle shell. I’ve found turtle shell elsewhere, but it was Miocene. The one on the right is the one I found. Joe found the other piece and let me have it. We walked on up the creek and Joe kept pointing out mosy verts here and there. I found one on my own the whole trip on the second leg of this creek hunt. He’d spot them from 30 feet away half covered. It was impressive how he could see them so far off mixed in with all the other rocks and gravel. Some were pretty little too. I think maybe 6 or 7 mosasaur vertebra were found total. Cathleen has always had higher fossil quality standards than I do so she turned all, but one of the vertebra down. She took the best one home. The water was pretty deep and cloudy so it limited finding fossils considerably. There were numerous places we came to where the water was fairly deep. Joe’s boots came almost to his knees, but mine were maybe 10 inches tall. So, we had to walk carefully as times to find where the water was more shallow so that I could cross or proceed up the creek. There were many places where there was no gravel in the creek and the bottom was the typical slick gray shale of the Ozan. We all had walking sticks, which helped considerably, especially with the mud. When you hit the mud sometimes you don’t know if it is safe or how far you will sink. Walking sticks served as a measuring stick for mud depth. Which reminds me that I need to put a mark on my walking stick for boot height and water depth. We came to a few places that we tried to walk through and sunk maybe 10 inches max, which isn’t too bad by NSR standards. Other places we avoided and went around. This is Joe and Cathleen in the creek. See the large blocks of stone in the creek. Well, I had been seeing stone like this in the river since I have been hunting it, but I had never known the source. Come to find out it was imported stone to help with erosion control. This is a piece of it up close. It is a sandstone type material. Now I know it isn't from the river. I have been wondering all this time where this formation was, because nothing in the description of the formations in the area say anything about this type of stone. So, it has been a complete mystery all this time to me. The mystery is now solved. We hiked on up the creek for a while without event or really finding much of anything. I was finding petrified wood left and right. The pieces in this feeder creek were, in general, larger than what I usually find in the river. Here is some of the pet wood I found. These are my favorite pieces. The first one actually looks like it has a stain on it. You can see the sharp peak pointing to the left. The second has lots of texture and contrast in color. The third is a nice deep, brick red that you can't tell from the pic. I could be mistaken about the last piece, but I think it may be a piece of palm root wood. As I walked along I came to a piece of what I initially thought was petrified wood, but as I looked at it I realized it was not petrified wood. I thought it looked like a fish tail, but I had never found fish fossils in the NSR area. Joe came over and he initially thought it was pet wood too, but then he turned it and said “Wait a minute, that is a piece of fish. “ Woohoo!!! I was quite excited and happy about that find. I think it was Anthony Maltese who told me he thought it was "probably a Pachyrhizodus or a Plethodid based on the segmentation of the fin rays (top left of the picture)". I think he may be @-AnThOnY- on here, but I could be wrong. We walked on and found a few more vertebra and then we came to a place where the water was too deep for Joe and I to cross. I do not mind getting wet, but when it is around 40 degrees I prefer to stay dry. At that point we had been walking for a little over 2 hours. We turned around and headed back. The walk back went a bit quicker. Maybe 1/3 of the way back we were walking in part of the creek we did not walk when going in. The shale was not flat on the creek bottom, but at an angle, slanting towards the center of the creek and deeper water. I stepped just wrong on it and down I went. As I was going down, I tried to ensure that I fell in more shallow water and that I didn’t flood my boots. Somehow I managed to be reasonably successful in my attempt. I landed in a sitting position in maybe an inch or so of water with my knees bent so very little water got in my boot. Still my back side and upper thighs got wet. I stood up and began to attempt to slide forward on the shale so as to not fall again. Cathleen was right in front of me. Before I made two steps she went down too. She was wearing full waders that came up to her torso, but she was not quite as lucky. Water got into her waders and when she stood up she could feel the icy water flow all the way down her back, then down into her boots. It was in the low 40s now so it had warmed a little, but it was not a pleasant feeling to be wet in 40 degree weather, but we toughed it out. It was when she stood that we realized that we had not walked this side of the creek on the way in. We immediately crossed the creek to get to less slippery ground. We made it back to our entry point. It was almost noon. Cathleen said she needed to drive back home for something planned with family. Joe drove us back to our cars. I emptied my pack, which was full of petrified wood mostly. Then Joe and I drove back out to the creek. I put on my waders at this point. We headed down stream to continue looking for mosasaur material. I found one little very beat up vert, but I also found several pieces of Pleistocene bone and a horse tooth. The horse tooth is likely modern, though there are not many horses in the NSR area so it could be Pleistocene. Weird thing about a lot of Pleistocene bones in Texas is that many of them are not fully mineralized and so they are fairly soft and light in color and appear modern. So it is hard to tell if something is modern or Pleistocene. Even the mammoth bones in Waco are not mineralized for the most part and so they are fairly fragile, white and look like modern bones in texture. Joe and I proceeded down the creek. I was walking on the bank on one side of the creek and he was walking in the water in the creek. I came to some deep mud and contemplated whether I should back track or attempt to make my way through it. Ahead of me the mud got much deeper. I decided I better make a 90 degree turn and cross over to the other side. I had my walking stick with me and tested the mud to make sure I would bottom out rather than keep sinking. The mud stopped and hit creek bottom at a little over 2 feet deep, up past my knees a ways. I figured I’d be OK. I went ahead and walked through it down into the water. It was tough pulling my legs out, but I managed OK until I was in the water. I was trying to balance on one foot and with my walking stick so I didn’t fall over into the water. I’d managed a few steps, but then I was having trouble pulling my foot out of one spot. Joe came over and took my hand to pull me out and hopefully keep me from falling down in the water as I pulled out of the mud. I made it out successfully with Joe’s help. If I had been alone I am not sure I would have taken the risk. Not with the water being so cold. It was icy cold. It wasn’t the worst mud I have encountered, but it was some serious mud. We moved along without event after that. I had told Joe I wanted at least one hour to hunt the red zone before I left the NSR. So after a bit we turned around and headed back. Joe is not a fan of the red zone. He says the preservation of mosasaur material there is not very good there. I have not found mosasaur material there, but it is true that a lot of red zone material has either pyrite or gypsum. Pyrite is the most common. If iron was present in the fossilization process, frequently the fossils develop pyrite disease when exposed to the air and they can disintegrate into dust. I am a fan of the red zone, because that is where some of the best ammonites come from. We made it out of the creek and Joe drove back to the fossil park. It was about 3:00. These are the finds from the creek. The long thin light one is a metapodial from something like a deer or the likes. I am not sure about the others. The horse incisor, from a young horse is at the bottom middle. These are the mosasaur verts and turtle bone that Joe pointed out. The horse tooth is there to prop the one vert up. I think I may have connected another piece to the NSR puzzle. See the white calcium layer on the vert on the far left? It is common to see this on fossils. I could be wrong, but I have come to believe that fossils with this white layer most likely come from the Roxton formation. My fish piece has the same stuff on it. I don't think I put my little worn vert in one of these. I will post is in my overall picture at the end. I will be back in a bit with the trip to the red zone. I want to thank Joe for being so kind as to take me hunting so I can learn from him. I hope we can go hunting again sometime so I can learn more. Joe is the mosy guy. I am the ammonite girl. So, it was helpful to hunt with him to broaden my knowledge.
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