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Went to Ernst quarries last week and found this whale ear bone. When I cleaned out the matrix this small bone popped out. My thoughts are that it might be a whale stirrup bone from the ear. If that is the case, what are the odds it is associated to the earbone found in the same matrix?

Work has me in Sunnyvale CA but I have Sept 30/Oct 1 free to fossil hunt. I'm not bring dive gear but I'll bring a hammer & chisel if anyone has any suggestions. Trilobites or Shark teeth or similar. Thanks, Calvin

Hi Everybody, I found this tooth the other day and it looks different from all the other teeth I have found in the STH area. The tooth resembles (to me) a Isurus lower but it has clear cusps on both sides of the tooth. I looked on elasmo and I don't see anything that looks quite like it listed for Bakersfield. The only thing I saw that looked like it had cusps was a catshark but the root doesn't seem to match. Maybe a Isurus Retroflexus? I'm stumped please weigh in with ideas. (I will try for better pictures tonight) Thank! Jesse

I went to the Ernst quarries at shark tooth hill last weekend and had a great time collecting teeth. I'm new to the area and hadn't collected there before, but I met a couple there who were very experienced and helped me identify a lot of what we found. I've attached a picture of what the landscape looked like as we were getting ready to leave. Really a beautiful area, in a desolate sort of way.

I had to make a business trip to California and to the San Joaquin Valley this week. I planned for a partial day on Thursday to take some time for myself and do some hunting. After checking the weather, it was clear it was going to be a scorcher even for a Texan but I figured I would take my chances with the elements and book some time anyway. I got in contact with Rob at Ernst Quarries and arranged for a half day dig. We met at the gate at 8am. At first I thought I was at the wrong entrance since I was the only one there. Rob pulled up and told me there was a possibility I could be the only one there for the day. After waiting several minutes we headed up the road and made the turn towards the Slow Curve area. Rob was kind enough to show me around. There were plenty of tools and sifters available as well as hammers and chisels to break through the different layers. He warned me to watch for snakes and and call him if I needed anything. They had spotted a small rattler the day before in the same area but I was pretty certain the snakes are smarter than me and were not going to expose themselves to the 96 degree weather that I was about to subject myself to. I started in an area where two Meg's were found the week before. It was my first time chiseling into the bone bed and was not really sure what I was doing at first. I found a couple of small teeth and of course broke the root on the first not heeding warnings not to clean in the field which was a temptation I thought I had gotten out of my system on my last visit. I found a small piece of Meg, a fragledon or in this case a specladon. It got my juices flowing but that was the closest I was coming to a Meg for the day. The heat was harsh. I was hydrating almost as much as I was digging. I split my day up by chilling a while then sifting a while then when I got too hot, checking the surface while drinking water and wishing that I could have come on Friday when the temperature was a forecasted 75 degrees after a front. None the less I kept going until about 1:00 when I had to head to LAX for a 6:30 flight back to DFW. I left with a handful of nice teeth as my reward for the day. A few new firsts for my collection including my tiny frag of a Meg, a first hemi, and a partial cow shark. I love how it keeps producing enough to keep me happy but leaves me also already dreaming about the next trip and hitting the honey hole. Here are some pics of some of my finds. Thank you for looking.

Well the stars aligned or maybe it was really just my schedule but I finally had the opportunity to do a short trip to the Ernst Quarries and hunt for some of those great Miocene makos I have seen on other posts here on the forum. I had to be in Bakersfield for work last week and went on the website for Ernst Quarries and saw that they were closed on the one day I would be available to hunt so though a little dissapointed I decided I could at the very least check out the Buena Vista Museum of Science and Natural History during my spare time. I looked up their website to see when they were open and to find out the specifics and low and behold, they were having a dig on the very day I would be in town. I reached out to them and found out they would be out there for three days and I asked if there were any openings for a half day dig that I might be able to join before heading out to Fresno for my red eye back to DFW. Koral at the museum was very accommodating and told me they did indeed have an opening for Friday morning. I filled out all the necessary paperwork and sent it back. Koral was great about getting me all the information I needed about the hunt and what I would need to bring and what they would be able to provide. Which wasn't much since they really do provide you with everything except water, and sunscreen. I arrived at the museum at 6:30 for my 7am orientation. I could have been there at 3am since I hardly slept the night before from all of the excitement. After some more paper work and paying my membership to the museum and fee for the hunt, I spent about 20 minutes looking at all of the exciting items they have on display at the museum. At 7 am sharp, Chuck our host for the hunt started the orientation and gave us all of the details and safety notes for the trip then we carivanned the 30 minutes to the quarry.

In a recent post about denticles (here), it was mentioned that most of the dermal denticles we find are usually from rays, and not sharks. Ray denticles are much larger than most shark denticles, especially the big sharp thorns common on some rays. I was determined to finally find a few nice shark denticles for my collection - I've already got plenty of ray denticles, but I had never found any from Cenozoic sharks (I have a few tiny Paleozoic denticles, but those are much different looking). Shark Tooth Hill is a site near Bakersfield, California. It is Middle Miocene in age. I had some left over microfossil matrix that I had searched already. I'm glad I saved it! I poured out the silt and tiny pebbles from the bottom of the bag and put it into a small vial. I filled it with some water, shook it up, and poured out the finest silt and water. I repeated this process until only the sand and tiny grains of gravel were left at the bottom. I let it dry overnight, and today I searched a little under my microscope. I was surprised to find a few very small fish teeth (most were less than 1 mm long), and I also think I found my first shark denticles from this site! I was experimenting with a cheap new digital microscope to get these photos - the camera on the microscope doesn't have the greatest resolution and can only seem to capture small images, so I combined four views of each denticle for these pictures.

Recently back from my trip to the San Francisco Bay Area (San Carlos, CA) to visit with my wife's sister's family. The purpose for heading over from South Florida at this time of year was the opportunity to photograph Elephant Seals at their breeding colony at Año Nuevo State Park--which we did and I'll post photos in elsewhere on TFF. I had been reading a lot about Shark Tooth Hill on the forum and considered a side trip to go check this locality out while in California. After a little research online I found that Bakersfield, CA (where the Ernst Quarry is located) is only a 4 hour drive down I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley in central California. We planned on renting a car and charging up the iPod for a road trip listening to an accumulated cache of podcasts during the 8-hour round trip. Instead, we chose a more interesting alternative. My wife's sister and her husband both worked for one of the dot-com startups in the 1990's that actually worked out. As a result they were able to retire early, build their dream home in San Carlos, and buy a few toys to amuse themselves. My brother-in-law Bob had been interested in aviation and had his pilot's license for some time. Eight years ago was able to upgrade his ride to an Eclipse 500 personal jet. Money can't buy you happiness but it can get you some fun toys. Bob is always looking for a good excuse to take the plane out and so he offered to fly us to Bakersfield. This condensed the 4-hour road trip into a 40 minute transit at 17,500 feet. We arranged for a rental car to be available at the JetCenter when we arrived and, for the day at least, we were living the jet-set rock-star lifestyle. I guess true rock stars would have been picked up in a chauffeur-driven limo instead of driving off in an SUV and probably wouldn't have stayed at the Holiday Inn and had dinner at an inexpensive Mexican restaurant. But that's okay since I'm more of a rock hound than a rock star anyway. We took out some of the seats in the back of the plane and secured three 5-gallon buckets to the floor with straps to verify that we'd be able to carry back some matrix from Shark Tooth Hill. Tammy sat in the remaining seat in the back and I got to ride shotgun (co-pilot).

Have you ever had the chance to look through this material? If not, you should. ...

OK then, the heat here this week reminders me of a summer in bakersfield/Phoenix. This triple diget heat reminded me of collecting at shark tooth hill in august. So if anyone might want to share images of treasures they have found there, please feel free to post them here. Here, ill startt them off

I have started hunting the matrix from STH that I received from ynot. This is some very nice matrix and is full of all sorts of teeth and fossils. Thanks Tony Some of these are familiar to me, and others brand new. I need some help with this shark tooth please. This looks very much like the photos on elasmo.com of Cetorhinus gill rakers. do I have this one right? ​ I reckon this is a dolphin tooth. The teeth in this matrix are very colourful.

This is a sea lion skull I was lucky enough to find last Friday (June 7th) at the Ernst Quarry's in Bakersfield. It is from the round mountain silt of middle Miocene age. I am wondering what the species is, maybe it could be Alledesus or Neotherium but don't know how to tell. Any ideas are appreciated, thanks!

I went to Ant Hill, which is on the south side of the Kern River & more or less across from Shark Tooth Hill, this past Thursday (5-22-14). The matrix is a little less hard than cement . From the marks I have seen in the dig walls it appears most people use a pick. To say you might have some damaged fossils from using a pick would be an understatement! Using my shovel I was able to get about an inch in the material--- a strong young guy might be able to get four inches or more with a good sharp shovel. I wasn't able to do much digging as my arthritis makes my back & hands hurt a lot when I do any physical activity. I reckon I need to enlist the aid of my 18-year-old nephew.! I haven't id'ed the teeth yet (haven't checked elasmo.com & I'm still a total Noob on id) but here are the photos of the 3 1/2 teeth + a tip and some micro stuff which I definitely can't id as either plant, animal or mineral. All the micro stuff I found. What are these things? (Second photo is reverse side.) About 2mm long. These things are rock hard so not a current plant/animal. Unknown things. Seed pods? Molar of a ____? 1-2mm wide. These things are rock hard so not a current plant/animal. Bone or fossil wood? 2mm. This thing is rock hard so not a current plant/animal.

I have been visiting the Ernst Quarries in Bakersfield CA recently as it is relatively close to my home and I need a periodic fossil fix. I am approaching a nice array of the STH fauna and its time to think of a display. I am asking for suggestions on how to mount teeth in a non-destructive fashion.

Maybe we should talk over some finds at the STH locale. Shall we? DESMOSTYLUS tooth. Interesting story---I used to live within a couple hours of STH. so there was a point when I was in school during the week, of courseI had weekends off, so I would drive up to STH and dig there every weekend, for many months in a row. On this particular weekend i was happy to find half of a rare desmostylus tooth(about five columns). On one of my return trips, a couple months later,I was digging a good 60ft away and found another smaller partial of a desmo tooth(a couple columns). Upon my return home to prep what I had collected, I was fiddling with the pieces and lo-and- behold, they fit together. I ended up with a complete tooth---minus one cusp. Paleo serendipity I guess. But this was great, as desmo teeth are rare. Paired cetothere(whale) ulnas(elbow bones)

Finally made it to Shark tooth hill! Before I could drive, before the internet, before home computers, my dad took me up there with a hand drawn map from a friend of his who worked at the oil fields. "Just look on the ground, there's tons of fossils lying around" we were assured. We drove a couple of hours to find a locked gate and no tresspassing sign blocking our way Oops! I spent a few hours combing through the area road cuts and called it quits empty handed. Fast forward almost 40 years. Now I live on the opposite side of the country. My sons watch a video of Shark tooth hill on The Fossil Forum and my youngest declares that that is what he wants for his birthday present. We often skip cake and parties in lieu of a family trip to some remote site for a hunt. Calvert Cliffs, Md; Monmouth Co., Nj; Herkimer, Ny. all have been prior victims of our peculiar family tradition. I happened to have a conference scheduled in San Diego for the same weekend and my parents had been pressuring me to bring the kids out to visit them. Well a short time later a lowball bid on priceline gives us some good news! Rob and Koral were very helpful getting us set up for the trip also, thanks so much! What can I say about STH? First off it is clearly misnamed. Yes there are copious, large and beautiful shark teeth, but it should be named "Marine mammal bone bed." We couldn't even walk to the dig site without stepping on chunkosauruses. I really think all those concretions are underrated and would have filled the SUV with them if I didn't have to ship everything to New York. The digging is tough because it is so easy to break the teeth with picks and shovels. I thought that my arms and back would be sore from digging, but no. The muscles that get sore are the muscles in your hands from breaking up the clumps of clay. Screens are a must, and I was glad I brought lots of water, kneeling pads, etc. as the museum staff and Obsessed1 recomended. We tired of digging quickly in the heat, especially since Grant (the b-day boy and youngest) was finding more teeth outside the screen than in it. So at the insistance of the boys we surface collected most of the day. There were several bonuses from our more mobile strategy, we met more people and more fossils this way. Interestingly enough whenever we returned to our "spot" where we left the shovels and screens, Grant kept finding more teeth. Initially I thought this was the effect of training our brains to recognise the enamel texture and shapes, but after one of the boys got hit by a flying tooth, I realised that it was raining teeth Thanks to all the rainmakers

I found these two strange bones the last time I was down in Bakersfield digging shark teeth in the the Round Mountain Silt, Early-Mid Miocene. A forum member suggested the larger of the two may be a turtle bone or some sort. I do not think they are from dolphin, seal, or whale. Desmostylus perhaps? Leatherback sea turtle? I am unsure... Has anyone seen these before? Thanks for taking a look, Joe

Hey guys, I've been off the radar for awhile .. work you know .. been working on Siggraph for those of you who are familiar with software development. Just wanted to start a new topic here .. This one is right at 3.00" - 7.62cm C. carcharias Bahia Inglesa Formation South of Caldera Provincia Copiapo III Regio de Atacama Chile