Rock with teeth, roots, bones real?

[Rwdrive]

I'm a new dino fossil enthusiast and purchased this large rock, my favorite piece.  It is from Morocco and contains 2 mososaur teeth with roots and many other what appear to be bone or shell fragments. The rock is gritty and you can't touch it without traces of sandlike grit falling off.  I sure hope this real?  

Thank you. 

Jeff

 

  

  

  

[Fossildude19]

Sometimes the blocks are real. Quite often, the Moroccan Fossils are composited together, to make more interesting presentations. 

Many of the teeth are real, but set in man made matrix to hide broken pieces/sides. They will also add other bones/shark teeth to make the blocks more enticing. 

Don't get the matrix wet if you want it to stay together. 

 

[ThePhysicist]

The mosasaur tooth crowns are real, but I wouldn't be surprised if the block is a composite. Actually, I would say it's a composite piece because the roots aren't connected to the crowns and they don't seem to match their respective crown.

 

This compositing practice is very common with Moroccan fossils, but this one isn't nearly as egregious or obvious as some I've seen. It still makes for a nice display piece for your budding collection. 

[Rwdrive]

Thanks for the guidance on this piece. Definitely  a bit disappointing but not surprising.  

[LordTrilobite]

This looks 100% real. There are no red flags visible here at all.

There is indeed some matrix on the join between the tooth roots and crowns. But this looks to be natural. The area around the tooth crowns also looks fine, with a lot of other bones and stuff surrounding it. On composites it's common to see a kind of bland homogeneous area around where teeth have been set into the block. I do not see that here. So I have no reason to think this has been tampered with at all.

 

Of course, judging from just photos is not enough to make a 100% accurate judgement. But yeah, this looks like a normal block from the Moroccan phosphate beds with 2 mosasaur teeth with roots as well as a bunch of assorted bones from fish and reptiles. It's possible the spongy reptile bones also belong to mosasaur. I would say it's even likely since there seem to be more reptile bone here than fish bone. So there's a chance it's all part of the same mosasaur jaw. But if fragmentary it might be impossible to tell. Some prep of the block might reveal a little more.

 

Nice block with lots of nifty stuff in there.

 

[Praefectus]

These are real teeth with original roots. 

[Harry Pristis]

The white, chalky, amorphous bits typically are fish coprolites, a good indication that the matrix has not been tampered with. 

[Rwdrive]

Great to hear all that feedback. Thanks so much to everyone for taking the time to look at these photos. 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

I don't know. All the separate elements of this block are authentic - bones, matrix, tooth crowns and roots - but the connection between the crowns and roots don't look entirely right to me. Could still be natural, as the matrix surrounding the tooth crowns seems less bland than they would be with obvious inserts. But I wouldn't want to rule out the teeth having been inserted either. What I'm thinking of is a natural block with bones, the tooth crowns having been added to make it more appealing.