Insane S.C. fossil hunt!!!!

[PrehistoricWonders]

Ok I’ll do that know.

[PrehistoricWonders]

Here are some pics that should hopefully help. The display side is in nice condition, but the other side might not be as helpful, because it’s eroded, also, when I was taking closeups I saw some markings, that I don’t know what they are from, I’m not saying they’re preditation because I’ve been wrong on that several times, but I don’t know what they’re from. 

[PrehistoricWonders]

The markings are circled in this picture.

[hadrosauridae]

those are some great teeth!  cool dig trip!

[PrehistoricWonders]

59 minutes ago, hadrosauridae said:

those are some great teeth!  cool dig trip!

Thank you!

[FossilNerd]

Looks like a great time was had by all!  Very nice finds. Love the associated verts and that beautiful and big meg!

[MarcoSr]

12 hours ago, digit said:

I'm trying to think who we have here on the forum who knows their shark verts. The shape and placement of the oval holes along the edge should be characteristic to family. You may wish to do a search here on the forum for "shark vertebrae" and see who weighed-in on other ID requests. I'm thinking that @Al Dente, @MarcoSr and @sixgill pete might be a good place to start. Better close-up photos along all sides of the edge might be useful in determining a good ID. Then you can make your entry with the ID down at least to the family level (lamnid or carcharhinid).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

There really isn't a comprehensive publication on fossil shark centra that I'm aware of.  There are some shark centrum from different fossil species identified in a number of different publications.  I donated 3,000+ Eocene shark centra over two years ago in hopes of getting something comprehensive published.  A researcher is working on it but the pandemic stopped his research cold.  There is a really good paper on extant shark centra "A Guide to Identifying Shark Centra from Southeastern Archaeological Sites" Kozuch and Fitzgerald 1989.

 

Here are some extant shark centra from this publication:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of genera/species of shark centra can look very similar.  Plus the centra can change in size and shape along the vertebral column.  So without a comprehensive publication on fossil centra it can be very difficult if not impossible to id them especially to a genus/species.  Kent 1994 calls centra similar to those in this post scyliorhinoid-type.

 

 

Marco Sr.

[digit]

3 minutes ago, MarcoSr said:

Kent 1994 calls centra similar to those in this post scyliorhinoid-type.

I think this is likely all that we were hoping to get for a taxonomic category.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Al Dente]

Some of my recent finds have made me believe that accurate identification of centra to the genus level is not very likely for some sharks. I found this string of centra last month on the beach. It's difficult to tell from the photo but these particular centra have a lot of variablity in both size and shape. 

 

 

[digit]

Cool string of verts--I never find anything that interesting on the beach (usually just old flip-flops and other plastic trash).

 

I don't expect we'd ever get a taxonomic ID down to the genus given the variability. I do think I recall reading in some other topic here on the forum that there were some distinctions between lamnid and carcharhinid sharks that could at least identify it to a higher level.

 

BTW: The "predation" marks remind me very much of the rodent chew marks that we often see on fossilized deer antlers and other bones. Unless the trio of shark verts had also washed up on a beach (as shown above) to be gnawed on for come calcium, I'm guessing these marks are either abrasions or possibly something like the marks of gastropod radulas. This could happen if these bones were exposed enough underwater to accumulate a bio-film of turf algae which might have been dinner for some marine snail.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[PrehistoricWonders]

2 hours ago, MarcoSr said:

 

There really isn't a comprehensive publication on fossil shark centra that I'm aware of.  There are some shark centrum from different fossil species identified in a number of different publications.  I donated 3,000+ Eocene shark centra over two years ago in hopes of getting something comprehensive published.  A researcher is working on it but the pandemic stopped his research cold.  There is a really good paper on extant shark centra "A Guide to Identifying Shark Centra from Southeastern Archaeological Sites" Kozuch and Fitzgerald 1989.

 

Here are some extant shark centra from this publication:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of genera/species of shark centra can look very similar.  Plus the centra can change in size and shape along the vertebral column.  So without a comprehensive publication on fossil centra it can be very difficult if not impossible to id them especially to a genus/species.  Kent 1994 calls centra similar to those in this post scyliorhinoid-type.

 

 

Marco Sr.

Thank you, if I can’t I.D it from that, I don’t think I’ll be able too.

 

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

Some of my recent finds have made me believe that accurate identification of centra to the genus level is not very likely for some sharks. I found this string of centra last month on the beach. It's difficult to tell from the photo but these particular centra have a lot of variablity in both size and shape. 

 

 

@hokietech96 that’s crazy!!! I think you might be right that it’s nearly impossible to get an accurate I.D on shark verts.

[hokietech96]

13 minutes ago, Familyroadtrip said:

Thank you, if I can’t I.D it from that, I don’t think I’ll be able too.

 

@hokietech96 that’s crazy!!! I think you might be right that it’s nearly impossible to get an accurate I.D on shark verts.

That is @Al Dente amazing find

[PrehistoricWonders]

Oh sorry, I just woke up.

[PrehistoricWonders]

26 minutes ago, digit said:

Cool string of verts--I never find anything that interesting on the beach (usually just old flip-flops and other plastic trash).

 

I don't expect we'd ever get a taxonomic ID down to the genus given the variability. I do think I recall reading in some other topic here on the forum that there were some distinctions between lamnid and carcharhinid sharks that could at least identify it to a higher level.

 

BTW: The "predation" marks remind me very much of the rodent chew marks that we often see on fossilized deer antlers and other bones. Unless the trio of shark verts had also washed up on a beach (as shown above) to be gnawed on for come calcium, I'm guessing these marks are either abrasions or possibly something like the marks of gastropod radulas. This could happen if these bones were exposed enough underwater to accumulate a bio-film of turf algae which might have been dinner for some marine snail.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Thank you I had no clue, so I figured I’d ask. It was in the layer and hadn’t been in the stream for very long, I don’t know if that helps, but that’s most of what I know.

[digit]

Likely, these marks were made when this item was still bone (long before mineralization).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[PrehistoricWonders]

16 minutes ago, digit said:

Likely, these marks were made when this item was still bone (long before mineralization).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Thats cool! So which would you think is the most likely reason for the marks, invertebrates attaching on to it or rodent chews marks? On one side there are marks everywhere and on the other there aren’t any really, what would explain that? Don’t mean to be rude, just curious.

[digit]

Curious is great--it's what powers this forum.

 

Taphonomy (not taxonomy) is the study of the processes of fossilization including all the things that happens to the remains post mortem. In addition to the process of mineralization which preserves things so that we can find them later (and post them here ) it also includes the study of other actions like predation, disarticulation, relocation and deposition. We often find dugong rib bones in Florida (especially in the Peace River). These bones often have holes in them which are often mistaken by new fossil hunters for predation tooth marks (gator teeth fit nicely into the holes). They are in fact the burrows of bivalve mollusks especially piddocks (Pholadidae). These bivalves have rough shells covered in tiny "teeth" like a rasp that they use to grind away material to produce burrows in which they live. They can burrow into clay, wood or softer rock like limestone. The burrows in the dugong bones were likely excavated while the bone was relatively fresh and soft long before it became hard mineralized fossils.

 

I suspect your scraping marks on these shark verts were likely made by some other organism while the verts were also relatively soft and that was preserved along with the verts themselves during fossilization. Unless we knew more about the likely paleobiology of the habitat and other animals inhabiting it, we can only offer possible guesses as to what made the marks. If we had more information about the site and knew that it represented a beach environment and were to find numerous examples of rodent gnawing (for the minerals and to keep their evergrowing teeth filed down) or even associated rodent teeth fossils, then we could make a good case for the culprit. As a diver who has studied coral reef ecosystems for decades I am also aware of gastropod mollusks that use their radulas (tongue-like mouth parts that are often hardened with iron mineralization) to scrape biofilms of algae and bacteria from hard surfaces. In the process they do bio-erode hard substrates which could include bones.

 

A third possibility could also be just scraping marks produced by the verts moving against another hard object as waves slosh around the shark remains. I'd expect those type of scrapes to be more evenly spread out over the verts instead of being focused into small patches as you are observing but since we don't know for sure anything is possible.

 

I don't think we can say what caused the marks conclusively without more information just as we can't pin down the exact age or (likely) the exact species these came from. We don't always get the full picture and complete knowledge with isolated fossils but it helps to always ask questions. We sometimes have potential explanations for things like these markings and we have to be content with that.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[PrehistoricWonders]

9 hours ago, digit said:

Curious is great--it's what powers this forum.

 

Taphonomy (not taxonomy) is the study of the processes of fossilization including all the things that happens to the remains post mortem. In addition to the process of mineralization which preserves things so that we can find them later (and post them here ) it also includes the study of other actions like predation, disarticulation, relocation and deposition. We often find dugong rib bones in Florida (especially in the Peace River). These bones often have holes in them which are often mistaken by new fossil hunters for predation tooth marks (gator teeth fit nicely into the holes). They are in fact the burrows of bivalve mollusks especially piddocks (Pholadidae). These bivalves have rough shells covered in tiny "teeth" like a rasp that they use to grind away material to produce burrows in which they live. They can burrow into clay, wood or softer rock like limestone. The burrows in the dugong bones were likely excavated while the bone was relatively fresh and soft long before it became hard mineralized fossils.

 

I suspect your scraping marks on these shark verts were likely made by some other organism while the verts were also relatively soft and that was preserved along with the verts themselves during fossilization. Unless we knew more about the likely paleobiology of the habitat and other animals inhabiting it, we can only offer possible guesses as to what made the marks. If we had more information about the site and knew that it represented a beach environment and were to find numerous examples of rodent gnawing (for the minerals and to keep their evergrowing teeth filed down) or even associated rodent teeth fossils, then we could make a good case for the culprit. As a diver who has studied coral reef ecosystems for decades I am also aware of gastropod mollusks that use their radulas (tongue-like mouth parts that are often hardened with iron mineralization) to scrape biofilms of algae and bacteria from hard surfaces. In the process they do bio-erode hard substrates which could include bones.

 

A third possibility could also be just scraping marks produced by the verts moving against another hard object as waves slosh around the shark remains. I'd expect those type of scrapes to be more evenly spread out over the verts instead of being focused into small patches as you are observing but since we don't know for sure anything is possible.

 

I don't think we can say what caused the marks conclusively without more information just as we can't pin down the exact age or (likely) the exact species these came from. We don't always get the full picture and complete knowledge with isolated fossils but it helps to always ask questions. We sometimes have potential explanations for things like these markings and we have to be content with that.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

Unfortunately I don’t know what the spot we were in was, and we didn’t find any mammal teeth(besides a tooth that we don’t know what it is, but that one is modern) nothing else had anything that looked like gnaw marks, I can’t say the exact age but it’s from the chandler bridge formation. Do you think a museum would be able to I.D it, or is it to partial? 

[digit]

If you can find a contact at a local museum or have a fossil club in the area that is familiar with the local fossils, you can bring it and see if you can learn more. Never hurts to ask (unless you bring them concretions on a weekly basis asking if they are dinosaur eggs).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[PrehistoricWonders]

19 minutes ago, digit said:

If you can find a contact at a local museum or have a fossil club in the area that is familiar with the local fossils, you can bring it and see if you can learn more. Never hurts to ask (unless you bring them concretions on a weekly basis asking if they are dinosaur eggs).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

I try not to say stuff are eggs, unless I’m 99% positive they are! I’m not sure what museums are near Summerville SC, if anyone knows someone, could you share with me, I’d love too see if it could I.Ded!

[BellamyBlake]

Lovely finds. What an exciting trip that must have been!

[PrehistoricWonders]

Yeah, it was great!!! Even just getting out for a couple days, it makes a huge difference!!!