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  1. Hello everyone! I've been swamped with work, preliminary home building plans and trying to get my collection more organized, but I still managed to pull of a small hunt at Green's Mill Run in this weekend, as well as a short trip to Aurora back in February. I hadn't really made any strong plans for either trip, but a series of different events eventually let to me heading to the area, and the timing worked out in my favor both times. The Aurora visit in February was a quick one; I got up one Saturday morning with nothing much planned for the day, but when I looked into my surplus storage trailer and saw all the excess Hardouinia echinoids and Exogyra oysters that needed to be donated, followed by receiving word there was some special things going on that morning that could have been a decent opportunity to represent the fossil club I am in, I figured it was a good day to visit. After I made my donation and spoke with some folks, I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon digging through one of the piles that was poised to be relocated soon with a local friend. I ended up finding a few nice things! This is a group shot with most of the things I found that day. Only a couple of really big highlights, I was able to find quite a few Trivia gastropods! These are some of the coolest fossil gastropods from the mine spoils that I've found there, and they're really ornate. I was told the last batch of material had a lot of them in it, so I was glad to have found some before they moved it on. And the other really cool find, a Scaphella gastropod with some trace color patterning! I've only found a handful of these gastropods as well, and the fact that it had some preservation like this was really neat. It's not at the Florida level of preservation, but it's really nice regardless. Moving on to the present, I had previously made a few short attempts to locate a modern echinoid that is almost exclusively found in North Carolina, Rhynobrissus cuneus. However, none of them bore any fruit, and with the cost of fuel and lack of time making it difficult to continue taking detours on my way back from other trips, I figured it wouldn't hurt to see if I could attempt to locate someone that wouldn't mind swapping some things for a specimen. Fortune was kind to me, and a very nice lady was willing to part with one she found in exchange for some of my spare finds in my collection! It also included spines, which was more than I was hoping for. After talking a bit, we decided to meet "in the middle" at Greenville, NC to swap the specimen. Knowing I'd be in the vicinity of the site, I packed my creek gear and hit the road for a very rainy hour and a half drive. These are a couple of photos of said specimen, alongside a copy of the official description of the species that the USNM (AKA the NMNH) printed to give out to various institutions. After wrapping up, I immediately went to my preferred Belemnite hunting spot in GMR. However, I failed to realize how much rain had fallen not just that morning, but the night before! It was just shy of 6 foot on the Tar River, and the water was considerably high and rough in that particular par of the creek, which is narrow and steep. I was a bit disappointed in the turn of events, but rather than call it quits I decided to go to the other spot I have hunted at with friends, which was wider and much more shallow. I can safely say I have now learned my lesson with the height of the river's impact on the site, it was still quite rough in that area too! Still, since I was there, I gave it my best shot and got to work on some areas without strong currents. Ultimately, it wasn't a bad visit! I found a few surprisingly nice things, as well as a few finds that I did not expect. Unfortunately, this particular part of the creek is not very good for any sort of mollusk fossils, including my favorite belemnites! They are a bit rarer, and are highly eroded, but I still was able to find one decent quality specimen. The bivalves and gastropods are also more scarce and weathered in this area, so I ended up with fewer invertebrates than I was hoping for. My preferred spot has a higher concentration of Peedee Formation finds, and there are some nice belemnites that have come out of a small 2-meter area. However, this spot is really good for vertebrate material! I found quite a few cool things there, and there are plenty of large bone chunks to be found, such as these. On to my shark teeth, these are all my Squalicorax teeth! These are some of my favorite shark teeth to find, and most of the ones I've found at this Peedee Formation site are much smaller than the ones I found on Holden Beach. Here are some unsorted teeth I found. I'm still learning shark teeth, so unfortunately a lot of my finds are currently lumped together like this. GMR teeth tend to be pretty worn down, so it makes it hard to identify a lot of the specimens I pick up. These are some miscellaneous things I found; the bottom left is a ray tooth, which I don't find quite as often there. The other two on the bottom are probably Enchodus teeth, the middle one is either a heavily worn tooth of sorts or bone fragment, and I have no idea what the top specimens are, though they looked interesting enough to hold on to. On to some of the more exciting shark teeth I found! these are pretty worn down Otodus teeth, but I always enjoy picking them up even in rough condition. This was a fairly large but worn Isurus (Mako) tooth of some variety, about 3.05 cm (1.2 inches) long. It's got a thick root but is somewhat flat, with the edges of the blade flattening out to almost a shelf of sorts where the serrations would be in other teeth. This is my first Hemipristis serra (Snaggletooth) tooth from the site that wasn't a small chunk, and it's one of the largest I've found anywhere! It's missing the root unfortunately, but is still about 2.41 cm (.95 inches) long without it. If it had the root I'd imagine it would have been at least 3 cm (1.18 inches) long. And speaking of large teeth, this is the largest Galeocerdo cuvier (Tiger Shark) I've found there, at about 2.79 cm (1.1 inches) crown width and about the same slant. It was a suprise to find to say the least, I nearly dumped it back into the creek because I didn't notice it at first! It doesn't beat my largest Holden Beach specimen (3.2 cm or 1.26 inch slant), but it's a big tooth with nice color. And for the most interesting tooth, some sort of Lamnidae shark that is missing a root, but appears to be possibly pathological! It's about 3.75 cm (1.475 inches) long as is, but it'd probably be at least 4.445 cm (1.75 inches) long if it had a root. Lacking the root makes it hard to say what it might have been, but it's definitely one of the largest teeth I've found in the creek thus far, and one of the most interesting. And lastly, this is the find that kind of caught me off guard the most: It appears to be, just based off of appearances, a specimen of Skolithos linearis. Not the most exciting trace fossil visually, but it's really interesting to me! These trace fossils were a surprise bonus to my fossil hunts in Surry County, Virginia, and I wasn't really expecting to see something of the sort here. The ones found on eroded cobbles in Virginia along the James River are said to be from the Cambrian Chilhowee Group (563-516 ma), but I'm not really sure what the age of these here would be. From the best I can tell online, they seem to have occurred throughout multiple periods of time in multiple places due to different organisms, but these look strikingly similar to the ones I saw in Virginia, albeit with the cobbles more eroded. I took a picture of the larger one next to a Virginian specimen to compare, and I highlighted the burrows with a red circle on the GMR specimen, as they are very hard to see in pictures. The longer circles are of "side section" specimens, and the smaller ones are from the ends of some running through the center of the rock from one edge to the other. The smaller cobble's specimen is a bit more obvious to see, so I didn't circle it. I haven't been able to locate any information on these fossils occurring in the area anywhere online on a superficial level, so if anyone has any insight into it, please let me know! I'd love to know if these are indeed what I am thinking they are, and what age they could possibly be if so. I might make a post on the ID forum some other time if I can borrow a camera that can take better pictures of the specimen. Anyway, that's all for me! I've got a family trip to Holden coming up shortly, and I may have some interesting opportunities to collect some different NC fossils coming up this spring; I don't have a lot of info on it, but it seems promising. I've also got a return trip to Virginia planned before the end of spring, and I can hardly wait for it!
  2. shark57

    Yorktown Formation Hexanchus griseus Tooth

    From the album: Fossils

    This is a 1.6 inch blue-enameled Hexanchus griseus (aka gigas) from the famous Lee Creek mine. It is from the Pliocene Yorktown Formation sediments.
  3. Hello all! We have these small fossils from the Yorktown Formation that we are not sure what they are. They fizzle under HCl! Any help would be appreciated. BTW, the divisions on the scale bar are 5mm. Thanks so much! Miguel M
  4. shark57

    Yorktown Formation Seal Jaw

    From the album: Fossils

    One of my favorite Lee Creek finds, a nice seal jaw with 5 teeth. This must have been a fairly young individual because there is almost no wear on the teeth.
  5. shark57

    Large Colorful Virginia Megalodon

    From the album: Fossils

    This is my largest megalodon. It measures 5.17 inches slant height. I found it on the James River and from it's appearance I believe it is from the Pliocene Yorktown Formation.
  6. shark57

    Large Lee Creek Mako/White Shark

    From the album: Fossils

    This is my largest mako (now considered an extinct white shark). It measures 3.16 inches and was found in the Lee Creek Mine Pliocene Yorktown Formation.
  7. I’m going through my collection of unknowns, and came across this little guy. It is a small, ornate vertebra collected from the Pliocene Yorktown Formation at the Lee Creek Mine in North Carolina,, USA. Scale in the photos for size. Bird? Snake? Other? thanks
  8. Hello again everyone! After a quick trip out to Holden Beach with some minimal finds, I was left with some indecisiveness on the location my next fossil hunt, I was presented with the opportunity to go back to Surry County, Virginia to hunt the same locality as I did back in August. I was a bit unsure if I wanted to make the trip again, as I had a fairly rough time during the last trip with some stomach issues, and I had felt I had a decent enough haul from that time. However, after Tropical Storm Ophelia went through the area dumping a lot of rain and the forecast was predicted to be much cooler than August, I decided to make the return. I can say with certainty I am very, very glad I made this trip! I was also given the opportunity to stay on site this time as well, which was really cool, and I made a few new friends with the fellow hunters that were also staying there. This is once again very picture heavy so hang in there once again. A small note, I had previously though all of the fossils were from the Yorktown Formation, but I was corrected on this; the site is primarily Late Miocene Eastover formation, with a fair bit of Early Pliocene Yorktown Formation, with the cobbles from the Cambrian Swift Run Formation mixed in in places. Starting again with some pictures of the site, not much had changed in two months, aside from some of the cliffs collapsing partially, which unveiled some new, fragile bivalves. The sand they had put on the beach that covered some of the material had been washed out a little bit, so there were more fossils and Cambrian cobbles at the water line than previously. It was particularly rainy on Saturday morning, but as the day went on it warmed up to a comfortable temperature, and became sunny. It was very breezy this time around, so the waves were particularly rough the whole weekend, which helped expose more fossils on the beach. There was once again plenty of cool wildlife in the area as well! This unfortunate fellow was struck by a propeller and washed onto the shoreline late Saturday night. The damage was mostly on the side lying in the sand. This was the first time I've ever seen a sturgeon outside of an aquarium setting. I reported it to a researcher at VCU, who collected it the next morning. He told me it was a male, estimated to be 30 years old. It was around 1.676 meters (5.5 feet) long. I was able to hunt one particular spot in the area where the exposure was fairly close to ground level as well, here is one small look at that exposure. And as a brief glimpse into my finds, here was one such find in situ! (Courtesy of one of my fellow hunter friends I met during the trip) I don't have a particular order to show off this time around, but I'll start with my absolute favorite of my finds this trip: Ecphora! I was a little bummed out last trip that I was unable to locate one, but I lucked out big time this trip. The quality of them is all over the place, but I found a few that were especially good, including the one I had pictured in situ. The one in matrix was found accidentally when I was doing UV light hunting (Which I'll talk about in a bit). This was my favorite one! It's around 11.43 cm (4.5 inches) long, and 8.89 cm (3.5 inches) wide. A very small bit of the outer edge of the opening did break off while I was handling it after this picture was took, but fortunately I had some strong adhesive handy and was able to get most of it secured back in place. On to the UV light hunting, I spent a few hours after dark hunting for calcite and calcite-converted mollusks. I found quite a number of calcite clams, as well as some pretty good crystals as well. Two clams in particular had some fairly decent calcite crystals growing inside fractures between the two valves, which was really cool! These are two small clusters growing on some material. These were particularly luminous with the UV light, much like the crystal-covered clams. Here is a calcite-replaced Turritella on the right, and on the left is an odd-shaped chunk of calcite. It almost looks like the shape of an Ecphora shell's lower half, which makes me wonder if it could be a calcite cast of an Ecphora interior. Here are a few large coral chunks right after I has washed them off. (Septastrea marylandica?) A couple of scaphopod "tusk shells" (Dentalium attenuatum) with a lustrous, double-valve Pandora clam. Some fairly intact Turritella shells. (Turritella subvariabilis?) I found quite a few nice double-valve Chesapecten this trip. Some show up in the UV light at night, which helped me find them. However, some of the larger specimens had a lot of erosion or biological damage to them such as bore holes, so they would fall apart when I tried to clean them. I still ended up with a decent number of them, so it all worked out in the end. The leftmost specimen has a bit of calcite on the outer edge. Here is my largest Chesapecten next to my smallest once again (the large one is about 17.78 cm, or 7 inches, wide). Some large clam tubes I found. (Kuphus fistula?) A few gastropods of decent quality with a double-valve oyster and a Crucibulum limpet. (Crucibulum grande?) This Naticidae shell (Lunatia sp.?) is fairly large, probably my favorite gastropod aside from the Ecphora! Unfortunately, it's extremely fragile, so I refuse to move it until I get something set up for coating my specimens. Because of this I haven't measured it properly. There is a smaller specimen in the opening underneath. A half whale vertebra alongside some different rib fragments I found. One of the friends I made found a fairly sizeable, nice quality whale vertebra. I found this nice tympanic bulla with only a small bit of damage. Definitely better than the one I found in Green's Mill Run! I found this micro crab claw dactyl while cleaning a different specimen. Some areas had microfossils inside of larger specimens, depending on how the preservation was. I finally found shark teeth as well! The white mako is around 5.715 cm (2.25 inches) long, and if the marbled one had it's full root it would be even longer. I found the bottom four purely by accident while getting the coordinates of the deceased sturgeon early that morning. One visitor found a half Otodus megalodon or Otodus chubutensis tooth with beautiful serrations. I found a lot of Discinisca lugubris brachiopod shells this time around, particularly in the area where the calcite was common. Here is one with some calcite to the left of it. There were a lot more Skolithos to be collected this time! The first specimen was given to me by the man who put the whole hunt together, and the second one was one I found later. These particular specimens are nice because they are visible both as cross sections and from above / below, whereas usually it's just one or the other. I found a new type of scallop this trip as well, Placopecten! These are also extremely fragile, so they're currently on-hold and sitting in one spot until I can get some better preservation for them. This one I'm a little unsure on, I'm thinking a Cliona sponge but it might also be a bryozoan colony. It's on a fragment of Chesapecten with a lot of sponge bore holes. (I'll make a post with better pictures in Fossil I.D. later when I get time.) The last on my major finds, these are some intact clams, and they are a lot more durable than the last ones I found! I can handle these to a higher degree than the other ones I found without them falling apart on me. I still want to get some kind of preservation on them. Someone at the hunt recommended Krylon clear coat, I'll have to experiment with it on some other specimens. And as a bonus, these are not my finds, but one of my cabin neighbor's finds. This is an regular echinoid he found, as well as a plate he found containing a fragmented Mellita sand dollar. While I found the very small fragment attached to a Chesapecten, according to the man who set up this hunt he's never seen a sand dollar like that found in the locality, making it a first. That's all for now! Nothing new on the Triassic spots, but I'm closing in on one, and the other is looking promising for next January once hunting season has passed.
  9. Hello there! On my revisit to the James River in Surry County, Virginia, I found something interesting on a broken fragment of a Chesapecten I can't quite narrow down myself! The area contains primarily Late Miocene Eastover formation, with a bit of Early Pliocene Yorktown formation as well. Most of my resources for the area's fossils I have are related to the molluscan fauna of the formations, so I haven't found anything reliable yet as to the identity. I initially picked it up thinking it was some sort of crab, but I realized I was looking at a much simpler animal after a few moments! The whole mass is about 5.334 cm (2.1 inches) "long" and 2.794 cm (1.1 inches) "wide", and wraps around the fragment. The fragment of shell has a lot of bore holes related to Clionaidae sponges, so I was wondering if this is what this is. I don't have a lot of experience with sponges, although I do have one from Tennessee I got from an online acquisition. I do know that the structure of sponges tend to be somewhat chaotic and overlap each other, and this appears to be the case. However, the unusual shape also reminds me of a bryozoan colony as well, so I just want some additional input with this. I don't know if there are described sponges from the area. I have a few angles taken with my trusty (and tricky) phone camera, and I tried out my USB microscope I got for my Aurora, NC microfossils. Although the quality isn't perfect on the microscope, I tried to find more "pristine" pores on the surface to take images of.
  10. Jeffrey P

    Chesapecten from Virginia

    From the album: Tertiary

    Chesapecten jeffersonius Scallop Late Miocene=Pliocene Yorktown Formation Virginia A generous gift from HistorianMichael
  11. This is something I just found out yesterday, but feel is amazing enough to share on the fourm (especially to all those who study Carcharocles (Otodus) megalodon)!!! I was researching shark diversity during the late Eocene when I came across some info on a fossil Shark rostral node specimens from the Zanclean Pilocene sections of the Yorktown Formation dating around 5.3-3.6 Million Years ago in what is now North Carolina. The Specimens USNM 474994, 474995, 474996, 474997, 474998, and 474999 belongs to juvenile sharks (with USNM 474998 belonging to an individual shark of about 1.46 meters (4.8 feet) in length). Originally believed to be rostral nodes of a Lamna sp., they were reanalyzed and discovered by Scientists Dr. Frederik H. Mullen and Dr. John W.M. Jagt to be from Juvenile Otodontidae Sharks. (also, USNM = National Museum of Natural History, Washington D.C., U.S.A.) Mollen, F.H. and Jagt, J.W.M. (2012). The taxonomic value of rostral nodes of extinct sharks, with comments on previous records of the genus Lamna (Lamniformes, Lamnidae) from the Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina (USA). Acta Geologica Polonica, 62(1), 117–127. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262142193_The_taxonomic_value_of_rostral_nodes_of_extinct_sharks_with_comments_on_previous_records_of_the_genus_Lamna_Lamniformes_Lamnidae_from_the_Pliocene_of_Lee_Creek_Mine_North_Carolina_USA Reconstruction by Tyler Greenfield, 2021 This research also strongly indicates/directly suggests these rostral node specimens might belong to fetal or newborn individuals of Carcharocles (Otodus) megalodon!!! If correct, it would be the one of the most significant finds in terms of non-tooth C. megalodon fossil material since the relatively recent discovery of specimen IRSNB P9893 (also known as IRSNB 3121), a pretty complete C. megalodon fossil vertebrae column from a Miocene Formation in what is now Belgium!!! Shimada, Kenshu & Bonnan, Matthew & Becker, Martin & Griffiths, Michael. (2021). Ontogenetic growth pattern of the extinct megatooth shark Otodus megalodon —implications for its reproductive biology, development, and life expectancy. Historical Biology. 33(12), 1-6. 10.1080/08912963.2020.1861608. https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10293771
  12. outdoorsman555

    Whale bone, but what?

    Largest piece i've come across. Yorktown formation - VA. It was found with what I believe was a bunch of smaller whale skull pieces. I'm at a loss for what this could be. Doesn't look quite look like a skull piece, or mandible, or rib, but i'm not an expert. There is one smooth section on the inside of piece, maybe helpful in identification. I would love others thoughts on what they think it is? Thanks!
  13. Hello everyone! I had the opportunity over the last weekend to visit a spot in a campsite along the James River that had an outcropping of Pliocene Yorktown Formation fossils, as well as some "visitors" from the Cambrian Swift Run Formation of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. This was my first hunting trip that was outside of North Carolina, which was really exciting for me! While it was miserably hot and humid, and I had a stomach affliction for the duration of the trip, I made the best of it and found some really cool fossils, and met a lot of interesting folks. In all, over 70 people from various organizations were there. I have quite a few pictures to share, so hang in there with me! These are a few photos of the area on the river. The area we were in was brackish, and the camp beach there was recently worked on, which limited some of the fossils in the immediate entrance area. However, further down either side there were a lot more fossil piles. It was neat being able to look up and see all of the shells exposed on the cliffside. These huge chunks of material containing tons of Chesapecten scallops and other fossils were found in several areas. They were more plentiful before the beach replenishment from my understanding Fortunately there was not anything dangerous encountered over the weekend, but plenty of little critters were out and about. (Especially ants!) The hunt went from Friday evening to Sunday morning. On my way out on Sunday, I was given a lift back to my vehicle by a kind family from the Richmond Gem and Mineral Society, who were also nice enough to lead me to a well-known tulip poplar tree on the site. This massive tree is over 400 years old, and it takes about 8 fully grown adults hand-in-hand to fully encircle the base of the trunk. Now, on to the goodies I picked up. The majority of the fossils I picked up were varying sizes and species of Chesapecten scallops. I looked really hard for an intact echinoid or an Ecphora murex, but unfortunately I didn't get that lucky! As for the Chesapecten species names, and that of several other fossils as well, I am still in the process of learning them, so my detailed information will be lacking. I'll stick with my best finds, but this is a little group of mostly Chesapectens I had laid out while organizing my finds. Here are a few Chesapecten I had that had some variable colors, including my largest three specimens. They measure just over 15.25 cm (6 inches) wide. They have been brushed with water to show the color better. These are some random fossils I found including two coral fragments, several gastropods, some partial tube clams and some loose bivalves. This is the largest venus clam I found in the hunt, around 7.6 cm (3 inches) wide. These typically held together better than a lot of other aragonite-based shells. I found a few intact bivalves in a section of the cliff that had slid down to ground level, but most of them were so fragile due to their aging aragonite that they broke apart upon handling; some even had the physical consistency of the sand surrounding them! These are some ones I found that stayed intact to some degree, and one that had mostly broken away. While they're not the prettiest specimens, I realized they could be used as a cool visual example of how steinkerns form. I'll have to find a way to stablize them a little better so I can get them in a display box. While most of the bivalves were very brittle, some had undergone a mineral change and had their aragonite replaced with calcite. They give off a faint greenish-yellow glow in UV light, which made for a fun late night activity! One man even found a cluster of calcite crystals from the formation! Here are two intact calcite clams, and two loose calcite shells I found. This was a rather sizable Crucibulum limpet I found, also referred to as a "cup-and-saucer snail". It's a little over 3.3 cm (1.3 inches) at it's widest. This was the widest barnacle I found during the hunt, and it's over 5 cm (2 inches) wide. Here are a few barnacle clusters I found that had some nice pinkish coloration preserved on them. Here are a few intact oysters I found. The smaller one had quite the barnacle attached to it! Someone at the hunt suggested that this particular bone fragment was possibly avian. There were a lot of whale bone fragments around the site, and there have been some pretty sizable speciments found there, including whale vertebrae and whole dugong ribs. This ray tooth fragment was the only fish fossil I found myself during the whole hunt. One young woman found a 2 inch mako tooth, while another woman found a fairly sizable megalodon tooth. Jumping back to my Chesapecten, This is a medium specimen that had some very large barnacles on it (perhaps Balanus concavus?) They're probably the longest ones I found, measuring around 5 cm (2 inches). Here is a cluster of some very small Chesapecten. This is a fairly colorful specimen with some equally colorful barnacles attached to the exterior surface. Here is one of my largest specimens of Chesapecten (15.25 cm / 6 inches) next to my smallest specimen (1.525 cm / 0.060 inches). These are some pathological Chesapecten I found, although I'm not 100% sure about the third one, it might just be damage. Now on to my top favorites, this is a cluster of small to medium Chesapecten I found. There are some tusk shells on the interior side, and there is a Discinisca lugubris brachiopod on the right side exterior. This large Chesapecten has a calcite-replaced clam valve right on the rim of the shell. I had found this one on Friday and I didn't learn about the presence of the calcite replaced shells until Saturday, so it went unnoticed until I was washing it at home. I was too busy admiring the huge scallops everywhere! While I didn't find any intact echinoids there, I did find this oyster shell that has a small fragment of what appears to be from a regular echinoid on it, but I'm still not 100% sure. I also found this Chesapecten that appears to have a sand dollar fragment attached to it. Given the age and formation this might be a Mellita aclinensis fragment. A whale tooth fragment I found on Friday. A boy found a whole one there just before I arrived, and it was over 5 cm (2 inches) long. Now, we're down to my absolute favorite finds of the weekend. Here is a whole Chesapecten jeffersonius with both valves in fairly pristine condition. There is only a very minimal amount of hard buildup on the valves. I also found this specimen, but unfortunately it had a hole through one valve. Still really cool though! These are cobbles that contain Skolithos trace fossils from the Swift Run Formation, which is an Early Cambrian rock formation in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. They would break off during the upheaval of the mountains and eventually get carried in water currents all the way to where they were found in the current age. These are the oldest fossils I've found myself to date. And last but not least, here is a fairly pristine Chesapecten jeffersonius(?) valve I found with some good color. However, the most interesting part of this one is that there appears to be something in the resilifer of the shell, almost like shiny red nacre. This is the only one I picked up over the weekend with this feature. I wondered if it could be a preserved ligament, but I was a little unsure; I figured this would be the best place to possibly get some insight on it for the moment. The exterior was brushed with water to show color better. That's all for now! I've got a family trip to the southern NC coast planned soon, so I might try to swing by Holden Beach and nab another batch of Cretaceous fossils while it's still producing a lot. I'm also hoping I can find some local Triassic material before the holidays, I've got a few promising leads on some spots, including one right down the road. -Tony
  14. Al Dente

    Fusinus exilis?

    I made a quick trip to an outcrop of Yorktown Formation (Rushmere Member) a few weeks ago and found this gastropod. I don't think I've seen it from this location before. It looks like several different species in my references, but Fusinus seems to be the closest. Maybe @MikeR knows this one. Edgecombe County, NC. The scale is metric.
  15. I've recently read a 2020 scientific paper describing pretty accurately the multiple nurseries that Carcharocles (Otodus) megalodon had established to raise young between the Miocene-Pliocene 23-3.6 Million Years ago (not just a single nursery in what is now Panama as previously thought). Herraiz, J. L., Ribé, J., Botella, H., Martínez-Pérez, C., & Ferrón, H. G. (2020). Use of nursery areas by the extinct megatooth shark Otodus megalodon (Chondrichthyes: Lamniformes). Biology Letters, 16(11), 20200746. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0746 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0746 What I also found interesting about this paper was that the geologic latest nursery area the researchers identified is what is now the Yorktown Formation, North Carolina. Images Credit: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0746 C. megalodon went extinct in the Mediterranean as a result of the Messinian Salinity crisis 5.59 Million Years ago. The emergence of Orcas (Orcinus) and the Great White Shark (Carcharodon carcharias), a decrease in diatom diversity during the middle miocene-pliocene, and the miocene formation of the Isthmus of Panama which changed ocean current patterns also helped caused a decline in C. megalodon's population by the Pliocene. But this 2020 paper has got me thinking about where did C. megalodon as a species make its last stand? Was the Yorktown Formation in North Carolina C. megalodon's last stronghold?
  16. Frank Eaton

    Yorktown Formation steinkerns

    I’ve hunted the Beaufort and New Hanover County Yorktown and Castle Hayne Formations for years and have never seen this shape. I found a small collection of these close together and can’t tell if they’re from a single animal or several and where the individuals would begin or end. Remotely cephalopod-ish? But don’t track with anything I’ve seen. thanks! - Frank
  17. I will be in Greenville for work at the beginning of November and have decided to head up a day early to try my luck in GMR. After a few hours of research, my initial plan is to drop in at the ball field on Elm Street, heading down current to sift just before the 10th street bridge. It's anyone's guess after that, as I have no experience hunting outside of Florida... although I imagine it is similar in a lot of ways to the creek hunting I'm used to. Equipment will be minimal and I usually prefer to "dig" with my hands to feel the gravel I am collecting, but curious how necessary a scoop/shovel/probe would be after watching a few YouTube vids of GMR. Lastly, if anyone is available and wants to meet up to hunt for the day... I would cherish the opportunity to spend the day swapping fossil hunting stories and sharing favorite past finds! PS... If anybody is feeling generous I am open to all forms of knowledge that will give me an edge in a new & unfamiliar environment.
  18. Went fossil hunting for the first time since Holden Beach in May this past Tuesday at Greens Mill Run in North Carolina. Found my best meg EVER!! A near perfect 3 and 15/16 incher (just missing a tad bit of enamel beneath the bourlette on the front). Most megs at GMR are already fragmented and/or worn down in-situ, so extra happy about this one! Also found a Ischyrhiza mira sawfish rostral tooth tip, a huge exogyra, and I believe a nice Chesapectens masidonius? Also a baleen whale ear bone fragment, and a brown item I think might be a worn cetacean ear bone? Also a piece of petrified wood, a gryphaea oyster, a shark vertebra with processes, a section of turtle plastron, and some other goodies. All-in-all a much needed break from grad school worries over publishing papers Edit: the “shark” vertebra is actually bony fish
  19. So here are all of my best finds from fossil collecting at Holden Beach. The coolest stuff to me is the Cretaceous PeeDee formation material. It gives a snapshot (albeit incomplete) of the material available in the PeeDee of NC. Usually many of these finds are sparsely distributed in this formation, but the dredging activity really helped concentrate it. 1st pic: mosasaur teeth and bones (jaw and rib fragments, verts, flipper bones), meg teeth, a horse tooth, a Pycnodontid fish mouth plate, a zipper oyster, and a mammalian astragalus, Lion's paw shells, and a cetacean cervical vertebra. 2nd pic: crow shark teeth, ray teeth barbs dermal denticle and verts, shark verts, angel shark vertebrae with prismatic cartilage, sawfish rostral teeth, enchodus teeth/jaw segments, crab claws, fish skull plates, and a croc scute 3rd pic: various sharks teeth, including great whites, bull sharks, tiger sharks, and various mackerel sharks 4th pic: soft shell turtle carapace and plastron fragments
  20. bosshog

    Whale vertebrae?

    Found in the Yorktown foundation area of Virginia . My best guess is some sort of vertebrae from a whale but I’m a newbie so fire away! A couple of the pics are the same specimen just from a different angle. The last pic is fossilized just not sure if it’s related to all the rest. Thanks
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