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Hello, I'll admit I have zero experience with fossils. One day while waking or property I found this fossil. I am interested to discover what it is and how old it may be. It was found about a mile east of the Trinity River near Palestine, TX. I was surprised that it was on top of the soil, but the area is prone to erosion. It's about 2 inches in length and has some obvious texture to it. Hopefully my pictures are clear enough for identification and/or dating.

My son brought me a rock from Pulaski, TN, and I am trying to study it and identify the various elements in it. From what I can tell (and from what I have learned here in the past) I believe it is mostly made up of encrusted bryozoans, although there is something different about them. There are tiny filament like "sticks" that I have not seen before. Is that perhaps just a type of bryozoan that I am unfamiliar with (quite possible!). There are also a number of embedded items in the rock. The third photo here shows two of them, side by side. I remember from previous answers that I have gotten here that sometimes you see items like this that have "silicalized" (did I get the right word) inside of a rock? Input appreciated! Ramona This is another item that is embedded in the rock and it is surrounded by softer dirt, so I have dug out around it some. I am afraid to dig much more, as I don't want to damage it. Third photo is yet another, similar, embedded item - they all seem to be the same type of thing. Thanks! Ramona

Hi all, I am thrilled to bring you an update on the object I posted not too long ago in the Fossil ID section. As advised, I brought it to the Calvert Marine Museum to be examined by expert eyes, but unfortunately the paleontology staff was not at the museum when I arrived, so I left the fossil with them along with my contact information and details about the location and age of the fossil. This was a few weeks ago. I just recently received a voicemail from the museum staff notifying me that an expert on marine mammals had taken a look at the fossil and rather easily recognized it as a dolphin periotic, a bone in the ear! When I called back and asked about the shark tooth that was buried in the bone, they said he must've missed that (I don't blame him; it's a small tooth!), but I asked if it would've been a result of feeding. They confirmed that the tooth undoubtedly wound up in the bone when a shark bit into the animal, but suggested that it is much more likely that it was a result of scavenging, not hunting. Because of the size of the tooth especially, it is most reasonable to conclude that a small shark scavenged the remains of the dolphin after it died, as a shark of that size typically would not pursue such large prey. Regardless, I think it's a spectacular find and it's certainly one of my favorite in my collection. A huge thank you to the experts at the CMM for their unparalleled expertise and willingness to help out an amateur. I'm very happy with my find, and can't wait to go pick it up next time I'm in the area. Thanks for reading this update! ~David (p.s. below is a picture of the fossil that I posted on the original ID thread. I'll post more detailed pictures once I pick it up from the museum)

My second question tonight. I found a few shark tooth shapes that seemed interesting enough to not toss back in the Big Brook this weekend. I was hoping for some advice. One seems to me to be a fractured tooth with mostly the root remaining (the larger black one). It feels dense and hard like a stone. I couldn't tell at the site with my bad eyes but there are some groves in part of the "tooth" that help make it look like something of the tooth variety. It certainly appears to be something significant, if only a piece of it. The smallest black item is hard like a rock as well yet seems like it would have been a tooth. There are no clear signs though. Do some fossils lose their definition like this? And lastly, I found something that looks like the shape of a tooth but it may be embedded in some other substrate. Can I scratch away at it with a pick, or tap at it with a small rock hammer or the like to see if anything comes off? Thanks for your patience. Andy

Found this in the dirt miles down a secluded train track. At the time I thought it looked like the ribs of a small rodent but as I did some research it seems to be similar to the attached picture of a hadrosaur tooth, but I'm no expert. Also.. I found this odd piece of what looks like pottery just in the same vicinity. Any guesses? fossil guy website hadrosaur tooth example my find:pottery?