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Well...either way it's a first for me. Looking at some unusual rocks that I've found over time I looked at this little 1/2" piece that I had...and I think those are Schreger lines on the ends making me think this could be a very small piece of tusk?!? Then I heard of snakewood so could it be that instead?? Either way....either one would be a 1st for me so I'm cool either way. Thanks for your thoughts.

I have been trying to finish up my ID's of small teeth I collected last year from Moss Creek in Texas (near the North Sulphur River). This material is Upper Cretaceous, Campanian and I have found at least a dozen genera of sharks with Cretalamna, Scapanorhynchus, Pseudocorax and Squalicorax being the most common forms. I'm going to start with seven teeth that I think may be the same but I can not put a name to. I have been through the references I have specific to this formation or age, elasmo.com, and many very helpful posts on here, but I am still at a loss. In Welton and Farish, they look most like Microcorax crassus, but those are supposed to be somewhat older, and even then there are still some differences. They may be posteriors of one of the more common forms, but I have not found a good match yet, so I'd appreciate some help. I'll tag a few a the folks I know are usually pretty good with this stuff: @Al Dente, @MarcoSr, @ThePhysicist, @fossilsonwheels and a couple I know have collected here recently: @EPIKLULSXDDDDD, @Ironhead42 I do not see any serrations or nutrient grooves on any of them. My pictures from above did not come out very well, so I'll just post a couple (with matching numbers from above) that I think show the patter most of them have (flat on the one side and quite convex on the other with a more expanded root). Thanks for any advice you can offer. Mike

Tumbled and grinded and cut some of these pieces. any of em bone or just p wood or rock ? pics 1-7? first few almost positive Dino bone other have no idea. They seem to almost solid iron ore like but not magnetic hematite and pyrite consistency.

Disclaimer: I'm still not 100% sure if the layer I'm hunting in is the basal Atco, but I am under the impression that it is for now. Hopefully I'll be able to do a hunt at Midlothian with the DPS some time soon to get a reference for what the Atco is really supposed to look like. In the past month, I've taken another visit to my little Atco spot to try and learn the place a bit better. I scouted farther upstream and downstream as well as another creek not so far out. There were some pretty cool finds, but I'll keep the story short since I've already covered this locality in a previous report. After a bit of creek walking, I was relieved to see that the latest storm had washed out some fresh conglomerate for me to start splitting at the main gravel bar. Most of the teeth present in the matrix are extremely weathered from reworking, but now and then, a pristine specimen can be revealed and carefully extracted. The first of these discoveries came from just the second rock I had picked up. Some of you may relate to that moment of disbelief when you open the two slabs and realize you are face to face with a huge tooth in mint condition. I hate having to glue broken teeth together, so I proceeded with extreme caution. Still not totally sure if this is Cretodus houghtonorum or Cretodus crassidens, but for now I am tentatively calling it C. houghtonorum since its cusp is more gracile and seems to lack the ovular shape of C. crassidens. One interesting feature of the tooth is the presence of a an extra little cusplet which can be seen in the labial views between the central cusp and distal cusplet. Whatever species it may be, it is a first in my collection, so I am am pretty content. I traveled a little ways up a feeder creek and came across the root of a decently sized Cretalamna gertericorum. The matrix was hard, so I ended up having to clean it at home. Sadly the central cusp was really banged up. Tough to spot, but the root of C. gertericorum Cretalamna gertericorum. On the left is the new specimen and on the right is one from my first visit to the site after recent repairs. At a later gravel bar, I finally found something sticking out of the matrix that I had been really hoping to find. Some of you may remember that my last trip to this spot had yielded a prearticular tooth to a meter long pycnodont fish called Acrotemnus streckeri. These fish are also documented as having pharyngeal teeth. I managed to finally pocket one at this site and one at the later site I'll soon cover. I can't say for sure these are from A. streckeri, but their large size does make it a candidate. Pycnodont pharyngeal in situ A couple of pharyngeal teeth I will tentatively assign to Acrotemnus streckeri. It's kinda neat these teeth share the bluish grey color of the prearticular tooth. Before I show off the final find from the main Atco site, I'll quickly go over the second location I visited. The plan was to locate the Atco there as well, but with all of the modifications made to the creek, I wasn't able to find the source of the Atco rubble I found scattered along the stream. Nothing remarkable was found, but that isn't too say I didn't come out with at least a dozen small teeth. Here a couple pictures of some interesting geologic formations. Huge ripples were found on a lot of the washed out matrix. Located in the uppermost Arcadia Park was this limy layer that was rich in vertebrate material and gastropods. I came across this giant concretion that really stood out. I wonder if anything's inside it. And here is an overview of the smaller finds from the trips: Top L to R: Squalicorax falcatus, Cretodus houghtonorum, and Cretalamna gertericorum Bot L to R: Xiphactinus sp., Acrotemnus streckeri, and various ptychodus Back to the main site, as I was wrapping up the day, I came across some hardened material on the shale bottom of the creek bed above the conglomerate layer. Usually these sort of things are only broken oyster bits, but the shape and density of this one seemed odd so I went in for a closer look before noticing how dark the object was underneath the algal growths. It soon became clear that this was a string of 5 very large fish vertebrae and I begun working around the fossil to pop it out whole. Thankfully, I was able to do just that and the sight as I flipped it over sent me jumping up and down. I scoured the surrounding area, but did not locate any more of the fish. Makes me imagine one day 90ish million years ago this chunk of fish was all that was left after a shark attack or maybe something of the like. After bringing it home, I was able to scrub off the larger chunks of algae, but a hard "calcareous" layer remained attached directly to the bone. I tried soaking it over multiple nights in a bleach water solution and slowly worked off pieces with a dental pick during the day. The plan was to use the other side as display, so I wasn't too concerned with abusing the algal side, but of course I would have liked to have as little damage done as possible. One of the verts was offset, so it quickly broke off from the stress of picking at it. Later another vert came off, but this wasn't an issue as I could easily glue them back later. The work was tedious and took time. On the display side, I worked off the shale with a needle and frequent brushing. Slowly the form become more and more apparent. Soon enough, I decided it was time to get the paraloid out. On a site with so many professional preppers, I'm sure this doesn't look all that impressive, but I am suuuper happy to have this on display and proud of the work. It's fun to hold and imagine the sheer size of the beast these bones once belonged to. I hope you all enjoy it as well. Thanks for reading

Hey, hæ again forum! I had an amazing extended spring break full of road trips, camping with friends, splashing in rivers, and finding fossils literally led by flowers. Due to my class schedule I actually had almost 2 weeks off class since we had online work which was easy to do on mobile. It was a MUCH needed break from a lot of heavy stressful baggage February threw at me; being an adventurous & outdoorsy girl I only want good times with friends and nothing but memories filled with laughs, smiles, and nature. I started off my break the BEST way possible by hanging out with @EPIKLULSXDDDDD at my favorite spot in the NSR. He has an entire thread for that so go check it out! It was amazing to finally take a friend deep into my element and get to be myself without any fear- I even spoke Icelandic accidentally and threw my shoes aside to go play in the water. EPIK arguably found the coolest stuff! I was mostly happy to just feel free! Thanks for that day, man. Much needed fun. Some pics from that day! A ton more on his Classic NSR thread! (Lots of mosie and shark finds.) Fast forward a few days and my friends wanted to head down South in the TX National Forests for primitive camping and foraging! Not many Cretaceous marine fossils down there but I ran into an unexpected prehistoric surprise later. We started in Davy Crockett Nat forest and I was able to do some herping/enting for days. I was under some stress at the time of arrival because through everything I went through weeks prior, one of my online friends secretly keeping me stable by a thread went MIA and I couldn’t vent by randomly talking about nature with them. I finally got back with them, sad at their message, but relieved were okay. I just want to be the most thoughtful friend possible to all of mine after another friend of mine recently lost their life. Luckily, I had mother nature to bless me with some encounters to cheer me up: I was surprised along the trip to see Lúpína flowers EVERYWHERE here in Texas. This flower is known as “Blue Bonnets” here in Texas and is the State flower. Ive seen them only once but not this many up close- entire medians of them on the roads! Ive seen them in art and merchandise but it didn’t hit me these indigo flowers are a southern variant of the ones we have all over back in Iceland. I felt so comforted and took it as a positive sign I belong here, as that same friend has reassured me that my Icelandic heritage is beautiful and I shouldn’t hide it. Ive been a lot more open the past few months about living in “dual-worlds.” Texas has more in common with my family’s heritage than I thought. I’m happy that I came back and chose this place to be my forever home and to continue studying marine paleontology. To everyone down here in Texas: when you see these flowers on the side of the road- please think of me. 2022 back in Iceland when I was healing: Additional camping nature pics! We eventually hit up Sam Houston Nat Forest where the camping was free! I was going to meet up with a local Houston herper for not one but two grail TX snakes- but unfortunately he was expecting bad weather and I decided to call off for his safety, talked over the phone about using bait boxes as rattlesnake hides instead. I found something SO cool out here- a fossil I LEAST expected. Bonus: I unlocked a good pre-trauma memory! The stone path here looked…odd for Fleming Formation (Miocene). I was having familiar thoughts. It didn’t take long for me to find a fossil in the limestone path, imported dirt, and a name popped up in my head…”Conk” I said outload. Friend laughing at me… a taxon finally undusted itself- “Conchidium sp! This is Silurian!” I lived in Indiana as a museum staff member in the early 2010’s and remembered so many of them SC/GMS roadcut trips. I was curious if this same material was brought from the Great Lakes area. I held onto this find because it helped me recover information that was lost. Also: I found half a maple moth Taking a break back home, I decided to work on freeing my “Kate Bush” ammonite some more. I used KOH flakes to weaken the limestone, sprayed the sucker with the hose outside, using my chisel attachment on my ZOIC trilo airpen for the remaining work! So far I think I’m going with Metengonoceras sp. Back on the road, we ended break with a bang! We headed out to a spot I very vaguely remember before my trauma. I apparently loved Austin and San Antonio a bunch and found notes from a favorited Glen Rose site info from years ago. One of my closest paleo friends in the area couldn’t meetup on this trip- but there were famous donuts along the way he heavily recommended to me since Im a foodie! Ya’ll seriously check out Round Rock Donuts if you are in the north Austin area- when I pursue my Masters in paleo & marine I might get an apartment out there so I can have those donuts on-demand! Life changing. I arrived at the exact spot I wrote and searched the area. New buildings along the way, and no memory of this place. I looked everywhere looking for the layer I needed and was about to give up, thinking “past Larí” was cuckoo. It was starting to rain and I was getting worried, dropped my hammer to the ground, head held back with my wrists to my face frustrated as my roommate who tagged along wasn’t finding anything either. We dried SO many spots with Orbitolina t. sprinkled throughout the formation. I lost my Turonian baby shark bottle necklace, slid down a cliff, stuck by a nettle, and tore my new modeled clothes climbing through rumble desperate for urchins. The weather was reflecting my mood as we got slammed with a tornado watch and the sky was turning dark and green. I nearly gave up for the day went back to get my hammer and behold- LOOK what it landed by: I thought… surely not, right? No way. We went to another spot, without much luck. Foolishly choosing to ignore the hint nature just threw at me. I called up my close donut-recommending friend and asked what to do. I was in the right spot but something wasn't right. They assured to me something emotional was the cause, as I was hunting for a genus which recently caused me a bit of stress. He told me to go back, relax and use patience, use the clues given by nature and look there again. I thought this was crazy... I sat there in the rain for a while while my friend still looked, no luck. I did some thinking- what would I do if I tried something that seemed impossible? I thought about a particular stress, then the night before it all happened and that contained joy I felt at 10:30pm about to invite a friend out here to this exact spot. I focused on that feeling- relaxed, and the rain actually, coincidentally, subsided. My friend kept reassuring me over the phone I was in the right spot based on pictures of the microfauna I sent. We almost gave up at this location, I proposed we go back to the first spot. ON THE WAY BACK, WHERE WE WALKED OVER FOUR TIMES: Oh… My. Bloody. Sea Stars. I immediately ran for over to that indigo flower - and looked for more. About an hour left of useable daylight before the inevitable set of storms rolled in I looked for clues. It turns out, yes, I was in the correct spot near the blue bonnet- but I knew I needed to do something else first. Like Native Americans, Icelanders are said to have a deep connection with nature. A woman of science, I was reluctant to think of such things but remembered I usually have strange luck when something obscure in nature is involved. Paleontology is part luck anyways when it comes to finds so I thought why not? As the wind was picking back up, I abandoned all senses… threw on some ambient music… and trusted the flower. Closed my eyes for a few minutes. Opening my eyes I noticed another hillside with other flowers behind it- and I went. More random flowers along the way across a busy road off the highway. Keeping a sharp eye out for any echs, I noticed the forams then went from orange to black after a bit of a walk. I also noticed a change in the ground’s surface. I then used my knowledge of the lithography to find a walkable layer and of course within SECONDS, next to a flower at that: Staying in the area I managed to pluck the urchins out one after another! In Texas- we pluck urchins, not flowers. Imagine if I knew about the exact spot for this special honeyhole upon arriving- I would have SO many more Leptosalenia texana! I’m happy there’s so many left to find but… I no longer believe in coincidences and I think next time I’m meant to bring a special friend (or more!) along to share this spot with! The weather made us turn in for the afternoon which gave me time to read about my finds. That day I was grateful for my friends, flowers, and the intimacy shared with the planet in general. I found more than just fossilized echs that day- I found myself again. I found inner peace, regained my patience, and I remembered my nature-loving friend’s compliments about my heritage which kept my spirits effervescent. It took a while, but found more self-respect. I’m proud to show off two red white & blue flags because they represent who I am AND play a massive part in my journey as a future marine paleontologist. I belong in Texas getting dirty looking for lost prehistoric friends- it’s my job to recover these silent storytellers lost by time and tell their story to the world someday. The construction was going to hide them again and happy I managed to save a few! Next time- I’ll come back with reinforcements to save more urchins, clean then up, and put them somewhere safe to be appreciated. Bless, bless. ~ Larí ***Out of photo space for this post, will add microfossil finds later.

I'm considering traveling to Texas as my kids REALLY have the fossil bug right now. I am thinking to hit sites in northern TX near lake Texoma and north sulfur river area, as they want to find ammonites. I am sure I can find decent sites on my own, but if anyone in the area has suggestions, or wants to meet up to collect somewhere, shoot me a note. It would be somewhat a one time trip for us, since we live in South Carolina, and I want to make it worthwhile for them. And, I could certainly provide some reciprocal intel / guidance on SC collecting sites (Summerville/Charleston) where I have done extensive collecting. Thanks, Steve

I found this cephalopod at the Lost Creek spillway site neat Jacksboro Texas. It's from the Finis Shale, Graham Formation, Upper Pennsylvanian. The largest dimension is 16 mm. It seems to be a replacement fossil so no sutures are showing and I don't know of any similar goniatites so that suggests a coiling nautiloid. The only thing I know of with a trapezoidal whorl cross-section like this is a Titanooceras and T. ponderosum has been found there but of course they are huge so it would have to be close to the protoconch. There is an off-center ridge going along the venter and the shell thickens greatly at the ventrolateral margins. I can check for any other features that might help with an ID. edit: It occurred to me that this may not be a cephalopod at all but a gastropod, Amphiscapha subrugosa but I haven't seen one with the ventral ridge. Ventral view Dorsal View

I found this sea urchin recently and figured I would share it with the forum. Not sure if it's a newly discovered species but it's a pretty nice piece. It looks like it got partly smashed somehow before petrification. It was found just outside the city limits of Uvalde, Tx near a slough that runs into the Leona River. So far I only have one picture to post but I will get a shot of the underside when I find the right lighting.

Hi, I found these while hunting on private land outside of Big Bend park near Terlingua, TX. I found them on the surface near a collapsing hillside in a creek bed. The two that look like bone I found within feet of each other. Any info that you could give me on these would be greatly appreciated. Are they even fossils?

found a few interesting things need identifying.... found in gravel from the Brazos river east of Houston Texas. First is a possible toe bone?, Bone fragment. second is a tooth. Possible Bison but I think it looks more equine??. could be wrong though. third is a possible small coprolite? passes the tacky test and when magnifies looking at a small chip in it there are orange and black colors inside can get pics if needed.