Texas Day Tripping in the Glen Rose Formation

[JamieLynn]

Summertime is here in Texas and that means if you want to go fossil hunting and not get heatstroke....you better go early in the morning! My Grandmother would say "Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, Summer is here and it's hot as usual".

I am fortunate that the Glen Rose Formation is close to where I live, so that is my best hunting in Summer! I hit up four different spots recently (one with the Paleontological Society as our monthly field trip) and found some nice new things and some nice not-new things!

 

A few "new" finds: 

My Favorite : Associated Starfish Ossicles! It may not be a full leg, but it was awesome to find a whole mess of them that were "together". Biggest one is 1/4 inch.

 

Floating (Cormatulid) Crinoid. Apparently a slightly different species than I had collected previously. 

3/8 inch

 

Another Floating Crinoid : Solanocrintes sp. 

1/2 inch

And a TINY one of another different species of Solanocrintes

1/8 inch 

A couple of cool new crab claws (Unknown Genus and species). Found these at two different locations:

1/8 inch

 

A few more new to me crab claws (again, Genus and species unknown) Size 1/8 inch

 

 

 

 

 

Found a Fish tooth; Lepisosteiforme (Gar) 

 

And lastly, a "different" Leptosalenia - it may just be a variation on the regular texana, but it might be a cf. texana. (as per Smith and Radar)

It really looks different than any other I've found. 3/4 inch

 

A "regular" Leptosalenia texana for comparison. Also 3/4 inch and from same location:

 

Some more not "new" finds, but nice ones nonetheless.

A bit water worn but still detailed Echinoid Spine Balanocidaris sp.

A couple of odd fragments of plates from an Echinoid Echinothurid. Size 1/4 inch

 

 

 

A couple of Tiny Echinoid Loriolia rosanas. The big one is 3/8 inch

A cool Trigonia wendleri

 

 

A nice big Neithia occidentalis

 

the BIGGEST Gastrpod Nerinia I'v found so far:

 

A nice little unknown Gastropod with some good detail:

 

and finally, A ZOMBIE CRAB CLAW!!  hahhaha! These are usually fairly well preserved, so to find one in this state of decomposition was actually kind of cool:

 

 

 

 

[fossilhunter21]

Nice finds! 

[JamieLynn]

16 hours ago, fossilhunter21 said:

Nice finds! 

Thank you! 

[erose]

Cool beans! The starfish ossicles are great as are the Comatulid crinoids. For other examples of those starfish ossicles check out this presentation on the GR I did for PSA: https://austinpaleo.org/Presentations/EchinoidsGlenRose.pdf

[Uncle Siphuncle]

18 hours ago, erose said:

Cool beans! The starfish ossicles are great as are the Comatulid crinoids. For other examples of those starfish ossicles check out this presentation on the GR I did for PSA: https://austinpaleo.org/Presentations/EchinoidsGlenRose.pdf

Good work, Erich.

[erose]

1 hour ago, Uncle Siphuncle said:

Good work, Erich.

Thank you Dan.  Certainly will be an update in a few years with new specimens and descriptions.