Search the Community

It’s been a few years since I’ve posted, good to be back- I’m looking for unprepped material! I’m just a hobbiest who enjoys the prep work as much or more than the collecting. I’m not an expert by any means but I’ve done a handful of large green river fish, a few mammoth tusks, an Oreodont upper skull, and a few other miscellaneous specimens. One of the most enjoyable prep projects I did was a small oreodont upper skull that was in grade A condition, but since then (years ago) I cannot seem to find anything similar. I am most interested in any unprepped white River specimens, ideally skulls, turtle shells, etc. as long as they’re in grade A or B condition- I’m not an expert at reconstruction. I’m also interested in some of the larger and more rare species from the Green River formation. A large and complete Mioplosus preferably from the 18in layer would be great, I’ve only ever done one of those before and it was sadly around 30% disarticulated. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you! nick

Hi! Back with more from the estate sale. I'm guessing this is a jaw section from a Titanothere? It appears to be, but I'm new to the ID game and want to be sure. The estate contained other smaller teeth that also look like Titanothere/Brontothere, but I don't have an exact location as to where it was found. There were many Stylemys turtles in there as well, and I've had those looked at by a paleontologist at SDSM&T and they said the turtles were likely found in the White River formation of the Badlands. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

Hi, I recently purchased some fossil titanothere teeth on eBay. I don't think the seller had ever sold or shipped a fossil before, when it arrived and I picked up the box it became immediately clear that it hadn't been packed well. When I opened it my worst fears were immediately confirmed. Lying there in a single piece of bubble wrap was my fossil in pieces . I'm hoping to repair it and I was thinking of using some plaster and paint certain parts black to repair it but people here are much more experienced than me and usually have better ideas then I do. Here are some photos:

This is a trip out to our leased fossil property to dig a Titanothere skull on 9/14/14… See more of this and my trip to the Northwest Nebraska Rock Club show and swap here: http://www.thecrawfordfossilmuseumandgallery.com/?page_id=369 Sorry, the link is fixed now...

Here is my giant vertebra collection. I've had the lower 3 for a decent amount of time, some of you may have seen them before. But my new vert is the huge 1 foot whale found in barrow Alaska. My question is what part of the spine is it from? my guess is the neck, Thanks for looking! -Rylawz

It's been a while since I posted a trip report. The past two weekends have found me out at the White River Fm in eastern WY. The first weekend was just a day... but I found some cool bones. Found a titanothere site. Looks like quite a bit of at least one animal had been here, but much of it has weathered away. After poking around the site, I found some broken tooth bits on the surface, and quickly realized it was a jawbone sticking out of the ground. Way cool. I have never found this many titanothere bones, or a jawbone. Wyoming had a very wet April and the area is greener than I have seen it in years. Beautiiful. Here is the road going in to the Ranch. The ranch has been sold, so the big sign I posted last year of the Ranch is no longer there. But here is a dirt road going towards the Seaman Hills. Here is the titanothere site I found near the end of the day. A vertebra is seen lying on the ground up close. There are titanothere bones all along this ridgetop and along the sides. The area in the black circle is full of titanothere bones, but those over there are really badly preserved. I had to beat a hasty retreat away from the rainstorm. But not before collecting a nearly complete vert and a rib. Here is the jawbone as exposed before I touched anything... a few broken tooth pieces and some bone showing. Last weekend I went back and brought my girlfriend along. She's new at this fossil game but did a great job. Despite the fact that she said early on..."Hey we have three days, can we go to South Dakota on the third day. I've never been to South Dakota". So, watch out, there will be a few pix from SoDak at the end. After a few hours of digging by Becky and me, here is what we had. Pretty cool, not just one jawbone, but a fused matched set, left and right and a really cool procumbent incisor. Here is the jaw. In case you can't see the teeh, in this next photo they are below the red lines. We are looking onto the chewing surfaces, more or less. And this shot shows the beautiful incisor. Here is Becky working real hard at pedestaling the jaws (she had a good teacher, I like to think). We plaster jacketed the thing and rolled it over. Here are a few action shots of that. Writing a label on the plaster. Ready to the roll it over. On the count of three... "ONE TWO FIVE Three sir" And fortunately nothing rolled out the bottom. And then we hauled it out. The site is behind the biggest badlands hill in the background. Becky took this picture from the car. It was about a 3/8 mile walk with a 150 pound rock. The dolly came in rather handy. And then we're off to South Dakota. Becky had never seen Mount Rushmore, and I also convinced her we should stop in at the Black Hills Institute in Hill City. You know, to see if they have a titanothere jaw on display. If you guys ever go through the Black Hills... gotta stop in Hill City. Great little museum. (Their titanothere jaw is much smaller than mine... hehe). And finally a collapsed old homestead on the Ranch at the base of the Seaman Hills.

Okay, traded a couple of premium-grade teeth to a friend and ended up getting my dream fossil out of it: a Titanothere skull from Nebraska. So, now what? If anybody on here is well-versed in Titanotheres, can you help figure a genus? It would have been a little one, as the skull is about 2' long and the animal was very old when it died, indicated by the extremely worn teeth show. Nick

In 1998, I partook in a geology field camp that placed me in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. There were a few opportunities to collect fossils along the way. While staying in Rapid City, we spent a day collecting fossils in the badlands. Although I would have liked a few more days and a bag of plaster, we only had time to surface collect. And surface collect we did. Because we were on restricted forest service land, bones were scattered all over the place. It was a good day. Titanotheres were present in the Eocene Chadron Formation. I found vertebrae, leg and toe bones, and teeth. The vertebra was one of six or seven overall, but I could carry only so much.... Vertebra: Leg bone end: Toe bone: Tooth: Above the Chadron was the Brule Formation, which features Oreodonts. I picked up a couple fairly nice jaw fragments: And some leg and toe bones: And some other bones....: Some others in the group found ammonites in the underlying Cretaceous Pierre Shale, but not me. Although collecting here is normally off limits, we were allowed to keep our finds. The only condition was that every specimen had to be photographed and recorded. While in Rapid City, we also mapped the area around Bear Butte near Sturgis. There was an oyster bed in the Jurassic Sundance Formation that was a useful stratigraphic marker, but none were worth taking home. I did, though, find some belemnite fragments: