Search the Community

I have small amounts of micro matrix that I’d be willing to trade. My preference would be to trade both to one person for ease of shipping. Old Church Formation, Oligocene Virginia I had separated some matrix before searching any of it specifically to trade some and rethought it after I found a Pristiophorus rostral lol I decided to not search it though as the intent was to give somebody else a chance to have fun searching. It is very productive matrix. I can see a couple of shark teeth in there. Among the possible shark teeth are Notorynchus, Squatina, Carcharias, Alopias, Isurus, Galeocerdo, Galeorhinus, Sphyrna, Carcharhinus, Pachyscyllium, Hemipristis. You are also likely to find a few Batoid teeth like Dasyatis, Raja, and Myliobatid. I really enjoyed this matrix. It’s a pretty diverse Oligocene fauna with good density of shark material. I did a report here on my searches for reference. Hallencourt France, Cretaceous Tiny matrix, tiny and very sparse fossils. You’ll find some invertebrate material. You may find a few fish teeth. The shark fauna is really cool, pretty diverse BUT there isn’t a ton of teeth. You’ll find broken Anomotodon. You’re very likely to find tiny Chiloscyllium teeth. There is a publication on this fauna and other possibilities like Synechodus, Scyliorhinus, Carcharias, Heterodontus, Palaeotriakis exist but again it’s really sparse. There is also a report on my searches of this matrix. As far as I what I’d like to get in return, I’d say interesting shark and/or batoid teeth. Some of what I’d like is below but I’m open minded and it’s not physically a lot of matrix Pristiophorus Heterodontus Squaliformes Catshark teeth, particularly Cretaceous and Miocene teeth Micro matrix that has shark teeth. I don’t need STH, Calvert, Post Oak Creek, Aquia, Atco, Cookiecutter Creek, Peace River,

Our friend @sharkdoctor sent us some micro matrix from the Old Church Formation in Virginia. This is our second batch and the first was fairly sparse but we did find some cool stuff. I haven’t searched much of this matrix but it’s already produced some nice teeth and has a better density too. There isnt, to my knowledge, any descriptions of Old Church material so my ID’s are just best guess. First pic- a beautiful little Galeorhinus tooth. Second pic- a really awesome Sphyrna tooth, maybe S. media. Third pic- a colorful Galeocerdo, I’d guess G. aduncas. I will update this I go.

TFF'ers, I need a bit of help identifying some material from the Old Church Formation from Virginia. I have the famous Muller (1999) reference and the more recent Ciccimuri & Knight paper (2009) regarding sharks and rays from the Chandler Bride formation. I'm wondering if anyone knows of any other papers or references that cover sharks/rays/fishes from the the Old Church or its equivalent formations on the mid-Atlantic coast (Belgrade or Chandler Bridge formations)? -Aaron @MarcoSr @Metopocetus

This past weekend in Central VA it was low 70s on Saturday and low 80s on Sunday with an extremely low tide both days, mid-morning. My wife and I, our buddy and 17 y/o son (TFF member Daleksec) and another friend of ours took the boat out on the Pamunkey River Saturday morning for a little fossil hunting / collecting. Since the tide was so low, we decided to start out with some surface hunting at a little beach with a nice Calvert Formation exposure. We immediately hit the jack pot and found some nice sharks teeth and random bone pieces. After finding everything on the surface we all started screening. (This is what my wife and I found Saturday.) The 3 buddies had this much or more in their bags for the day. If anyone knows what this 1" piece of bone that looks like a jaw is, please chime in. After a few hours of collecting and the tide coming in fast, Daleksec noticed an exposed vertebrae on the beach about 6 inches from where I had just picked up a tooth. After some quick exploration this is what we saw. My hand for quick scale. (Yes, I realize everyone's hands are different sized.) We were racing the incoming tide at this point. We didn't know how much of the skeleton was there since we didn't get to explore in either direction. I was pretty sure I saw a humerus and counted 12 vertebrae exposed before we covered it. The tide came in and covered it all about 5 mins after we finished burying the exposed bones in matrix to protect. The bones are literally sitting in the base of the Calvert Formation and right on top of the Old Church Formation. This Old Church exposure is the ONLY Oligocene exposure in VA. Obviously, our fossil plans for Sunday just changed and then we spent the rest of Saturday teasing Daleksec about the raccoons, opossums and deer coming to get "his" skeleton or at least running off with "his" skull. :-) Everyone but he enjoyed the witty banter about "his" disappearing skeleton. With the rising tide we decided to head farther up river to an Eocene / Oligocene contact exposure I know. Checked out the first small area and only 1 small tooth was found. My buddy wanted me to move him around a bunch of overhanging trees and snags. As I dropped him off on the bank (beach all covered by tide at this point), he walks over and picks up THIS!! He gets my attention and said, "I found something. I don't know what it is, but I'm not throwing it away." This is the very 1st Squalodon tooth I've seen found at this Oligocene exposure in 7 years of collecting here. To say I was jealous was an understatement, but I'm glad if someone had to find it and it couldn't be my wife or me, it was him. This pretty much finished up our day and WOW, what a day it was. Sunday in the next post.