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ID wanted on 4 shark teeth and a vertebra from the waco pit


Jared C

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Hi ya'll!

 

I had my first real break as a newbie recently and finally reached my all time goal of finding my first shark tooth this weekend. This was at the waco pit, which I (think) is at a confluence of the del rio formation and the eagle ford formation. Over the course of several afternoons, 3 more shark teeth followed, as well as a vertebrae to wrap up a nice trip that also drew up some pyratized ammonites and shells.

 

The daily collection limit of two per person meant that my brother and I were able to really zone in to hot spots with what we wanted rather than being distracted by the thousands of miscellaneous oysters and echinoid shards.

 

Anyway let's get to it. Because this would be relevant to size, I've heard before that the waco pit specimens were subject to a sort of island dwarfism, just in reverse - supposedly it was a lagoon cutoff from the rest of the western interior seaway. Is there truth to this, and if so, to what extant did the dwarfism occur?

Here is the first photo with everything in frame, front sides facing forward. _MG_8836.thumb.JPG.010dbbab66173d454868982526179fca.JPG

 

Here is the view from the back, included because I've done no preparation work on the white specimens in fear of destroying them, and for some the back has less dirt. The tooth with enamel intact has just been wiped off with a dry tissue. My best guess would be that these belong to Cretolamna, but that's mostly speculation._MG_8840.thumb.JPG.f195188f6765935938064823a65c9ad4.JPG

 

On the specimen with intact enamel, here is the view from the side, included because it has the most distinctive curvature on this plane of any of the specimens._MG_8831.thumb.JPG.997f11b5872cb97921b2b13ed783ab0c.JPG 

 

And on the same tooth, here is the view of the back again, mostly just to show off it's sheen - this was the first tooth I found over the weekend, making it my first tooth ever - I'm delighted that it's so well preserved._MG_8828.thumb.JPG.5cbb5a474c9c67c253c9c1bb326202eb.JPG

 

Lastly, the vertebrae that my brother found. My guess is that it's a fish vertebra, I just have no idea what species_MG_8844.thumb.JPG.f3995b5f9c5da053cf91bebe84b89b45.JPG

 

Thank y'all on any ID help, or advice on preparation would be appreciated! I have no idea why 3 or the teeth are white, so advice there would be handy as well!

_MG_8821.JPG

“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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IMO your first tooth could be a small Cretodus crassidens.

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If you're a fossil nut from Palos Verdes, San Pedro, Redondo Beach, or Torrance, feel free to shoot me a PM!

 

 

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#2, 3, and 4 look like Cretolamna appendiculata. I'm not seeing the wrinkles I'd expect from Cretodus although those cusps on #1 do seem slender. I'd make a conservative guess that #1 is still Cretolamna.

 

I'm familiar with the Waco Pit in name only and I don't know anything about the dwarfism. I just googled it and saw some things mentioning this. I might read about it tomorrow.

 

Fossil shark teeth take on a lot of different colors depending on the depositional environment and the minerals that the tooth took on during diagenesis. Off hand I know orange and red colors are usually indicative of iron rich sediment, yellows and greens from clays and limestones, and jet black ones are rich in phosphate although there are lots of mineral factors.

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Nice finds, your first one in particular! I think these are all Cretolamna sp. A potential ancestor to the famed mega-toothed sharks. Can we get a better picture(s) of the largest white one? Want to be certain it's not something else.

1 hour ago, Jared C said:

I've heard before that the waco pit specimens were subject to a sort of island dwarfism

I can't comment on dwarfism. Finding only small teeth can have other explanations. 

1 hour ago, Jared C said:

My guess is that it's a fish vertebrae

Yes. That's really as precise an ID as you can get.

1 hour ago, Jared C said:

I have no idea why 3 or the teeth are white, so advice there would be handy as well!

Whiteness caused by sun-bleaching/exposure to the elements.

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"Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument." - Carl Sagan

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1 hour ago, Thomas.Dodson said:

Off hand I know orange and red colors are usually indicative of iron rich sediment, yellows and greens from clays and limestones,

That's really cool, I didn't know. This locality has an interesting mix of those. Many of the ammonites and snails have completely fossilized in iron pyrite, and the del rio clay is where most of the fossils seem to be found,with the exposure being wedged up tightly to the highly fossiliferous limestone of the eagle ford formation (so I've heard). The golden yellows seen in the better preserved of the teeth shows that, and the deep rich browns that are prevalent as well might to a degree too then I imagine. Very cool!

“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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  • Fossildude19 changed the title to ID wanted on 4 shark teeth and a vertebra from the waco pit

@Jared C 

 

Just as an FYI - singular verts are vertebra, multiple verts are vertebrae.  ;) 

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I don't have access right now to my "library" but there is at least one paper on the Grayson/Del Rio dwarfism. But note that not all of the fauna was dwarf.  There are normal sized echinoids, asteroids, oysters, etc. in the mix. 

 

All of the material found in the pit is Grayson Marl/Del Rio Clay.  No Eagle Ford although it is nearby.  Also if you use one of the map viewers it will show the site as Quatenary fluvial deposits. Those would have been at the surface before the pit was dug into the Del Rio.  This is a location where reading the description is way more informative than just the graphic map.

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1 hour ago, erose said:

I don't have access right now to my "library" but there is at least one paper on the Grayson/Del Rio dwarfism. But note that not all of the fauna was dwarf.  There are normal sized echinoids, asteroids, oysters, etc. in the mix. 

 

All of the material found in the pit is Grayson Marl/Del Rio Clay.  No Eagle Ford although it is nearby.  Also if you use one of the map viewers it will show the site as Quatenary fluvial deposits. Those would have been at the surface before the pit was dug into the Del Rio.  This is a location where reading the description is way more informative than just the graphic map.

perfect explanation, thank you

“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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