Search the Community

Son Jack in for the last week , hunting the Peace every other day, I am going to need a break SOON. Yesterday the fossil gods smiled. Here are some of the finds. An Equus tooth with transverse HSBs and a little silicification . A Sea Urchin spine. Can these be IDed to a species ? I am always amazed at the few who survive myas to fall into my sieve almost perfect, A Bear lower canine.. It has been 4-5 years since finding my previous Bear canine, Arctodus pristinus. I am not yet sure on the Genus/species for this one. A whale tooth. Although never identified as a Florida fossil fauna, this one bears a striking resemblance to Aulophyster morricci, Here is the one I would like an Identification, Clearly a Vertebra., and almost as clearly a marine mammal because of the air pockets in the bone. Possibly an Atlas or an Axis, but I have not seen the like this size.. Unlikely whale. So possibly Dolphin. Inputs and suggested candidates greatly appreciated. It it a Vert? Which Vert ? What are the fauna candidates? Thanks for any and all assistance.

With the Peace River water depth coming down, and easing on the cooler temperatures. I was out hunting Wednesday, Friday, Sunday... basically checking various locations. It was a little cool, so I wore a 5 mm wetsuit. There were numerous places waist deep with some gravel.. A newer layer had moved in with small colored teeth, but almost everything we found were marine fossils and not very numerous. But there are always some interesting finds. A few were larger, some even complete There were a couple of types of urchin spines , one much more common than the other, Then some shell material transformed to silica... This last one had a silica cave complete with Botryoidal Chalcedony globes. Finally, a tooth, more likely Croc than gator.... All sorts of little treasures....

Hello, Some friends and I went to Chippokes State Park in Virginia last week. The park is beautiful, and going down to the beach was very nice. We ended up settling at a sand bar formed at the mouth of the College Run creek. Although, we did not find anything too remarkable at first sight - other than lots of fossil oyster and clam shells - after sitting down for a bit we found our first shark tooth. With renewed hopes we kept scouring the area and found a couple more smaller ones - no meg big or small sadly... I did decide to bring with me a gallon Ziploc bag half full of material to look at under the microscope. So far, like halfway through the bag, this is what I've found that has called my attention. Smaller marks are mm on the scalebar. Just a couple of questions or observations: - I think the crab claws are not fossils, right? - Are these guys urchin spines? - What do you think this is? It has some symmetry, but I am not sure if fossil or fancy looking (little) rock. - Tiny tiny shark tooth, but what species? - I have no clue what these might be If there's anything else that catches your eye, let me know and I'll take better pics. I really want to start building a good knowledge of the fossils/micro-fossils of the Williamsburg-Norfolk area now that I live here and so far removed from my beloved Peace River. Thanks: Miguel M

So building up my conodont collection and getting a scope to get better pics, but I found a 6-8' Pennsylvania shale shelf with huge intact pieces. I found this 2 x 2 1/2' piece with this central fossil fish? Under magnification (photo 4 and 5) there are scales/skin along the "spines"-that picture is at the central aspect of photo 2. I found the positive impression piece several yards away, though there are positive and negative pieces in both. Off one of the "spines". Off the end of one it a short, pointed spine? I can try to get a photo of that. My questions are 1. What is it?- fish? Listracanthus? urchin spines? 2. There appears to be some sort of decomposition of original tissue around some of the spines. Is that a reasonable observation and can anyone explain? 2. How do I clean it further?- the rest of it appears to be under a shale layer at the 7:00 position in photo 2 and 10-11:00 position in photo 3 there is ~12-18" of more shale along that margin 3. Should I just take/donate this to a lab and have them do it? I don't think this is earth shattering, but if its wholly there, could be interesting Thanks for any input! really appreciate the expertise on the forum!! Bone