Trip Report: a filthy fossil adventure on Austin's Ozan (with Insitus!)

[Jared C]

I've had quite the busy weekend..Saturday I returned from a two week trip to Ohio, and today I started the first day of the new semester.

Due to the upcoming school schedule and two weeks without a hunt, I made sure that Sunday would be a day for a thorough, long hunt.

 

One nice bit about being away for so long was that I had lots of time to think about new localities. There was about a three day stretch where I spent multiple hours of each day researching and investigating. I've been juggling my focus between Cretaceous to Pleistocene stuff, and after a while I settled on a possible spot (which was very close to my usual stomping grounds actually) that seemed it could offer the best of both.

 

The search:

I was amazed by how inaccessible this place ended up being- the plan was to park just under a mile down trail and split off into the thicket to reach a creek. Needless to say the plan failed - the thicket was completely impenetrable, until I found a tiny game trail a little further up. I blundered my way through until I came to the top of a vertical exposure that I had to maneuver (tumble) down , to get to another game trail that ran lengthwise along the bank.

 

This continued for an additional 20 minutes, and my rock hammer became more of a grappling hook, but I finally made it to the water, scratched up and filthy. I took a shade break at the bottom of one of these exposures, and made my first keeper find - a beautiful coral of some variety tucked into the bottom of the cliff.

(Above- my backpack at the shade spot under one of the exposures)

(Above: First find! A detailed coral)

 

Further downstream, I found an exposure of bright blue shale - it was an odd sight, and unfortunately the photo doesn't show it's brilliant hue at all

 

Nearby, there was a pretty piece of iron pyrite embedded in shale, worth making it into the collection bag

 

It was a nice feeling to hunt in a spot where I'm almost positive no one else explores. The location was so secluded and difficult to reach that it seemed very unlikely those rocks had even seen a person in years.

 

After those banks turned up dry, I Indiana Jones'd my way up the exposure I came down from to try and find another access point further upstream... and I did! The approach this time was much easier, as this game trail seemed to be quite active. This was where things started heating up.

 

I apparently had reached the end of the natural area, because in the distance I saw an apartment complex that was backed up to the creek. Several kids were playing in it over there. I turned away and immediately had that strange, powerful intuition that "there are things here somewhere"

 

Indeed, after 5 minutes, in a corner that was riddled with rusty bullets for some reason, I saw a brown strange fossilized tooth I've never seen before. Below is the insitu

 

I was hyped! It had beautiful colors and was still positioned in a piece of the jaw! It looked so odd that I assumed it was mammal, optimistically a carnivore.

I couldn't be more wrong though - after some head scratching on the Fossil ID section, and the intellectual prowess of @Al Dente, it turned out that the tooth is cretaceous - from the large bony fish Hadrodus hewletti . I had never even heard of it (which, let's be honest, isn't saying much), but some of the experienced locals and other hunters hadn't either. In addition, the only other reference I could find to Hadrodus hewletti (from a google search) was on a single speciman discovered in the Mooreville chalk of Green County, Alabama in 1979 - the same speciman used to ID this tooth in the first place. So, I guess that makes this find pretty rare! I hope so, especially if it could even be of scientific interest.

 

I made my way up, poked around a bit, and decided to to head back to the precise spot where I found the tooth again. At this time I still thought it was mammal, so I was keen to inspect the exposure high above in case there was more. There wasn't, but low and behold, in the same corner, a great looking Scapanorynchus was staring out at me. Even on it's own, a great shark tooth like that, especially from Austin, where they can be notoriously elusive, is a trip maker. Below is the insitu

 

The day was coming to a close. I had spent about 6 hours trekking and exploring this new area, in Texas afternoon heat, and it made a fantastic adventure for the last day of summer holidays

[JohnJ]

Nice report, Jared.   Your "coral" is a fragment of the rudist, Durania austinensis.

[FranzBernhard]

Great report and great experience and a really great find, it seems! Thanks for sharing.

Franz Bernhard

[Ludwigia]

Congrats on those teeth. Looks like the strain was well worth it.

[RJB]

  Interesting tooth.  I even googled it. 

 

RB

[Shellseeker]

Wow and WOW... the memory of a lifetime.  You have a lot of hunting left to try and best this find.  Thanks for sharing

http://oceansofkansas.com/FossilFish/Pycnodont/rmm1950a.jpg

 

http://oceansofkansas.com/FossilFish/Pycnodont/rmm1950a.jpg

[Castle Rock]

I enjoyed this report and I ENVY your proximity to such an interesting site!  I would also point out that the occurrence and the appearance of the pyrite in the blue shale reminds me VERY much of the common occurrence of VERY similar nodules of pyrite in the Lower Niobrara chalk in Western Kansas. As much as I THOROUGHLY enjoy finding various vertebrate remains in both the Upper and the Lower Chalk, I am likewise fascinated by the HIGHLY variable crystal forms and COLORS of pyrite!  Also, I would mention that wherever the pyrite nodules are somewhat common, fossils, both vertebrate and invertebrate, seem to virtually DISAPPEAR.  I would LOVE to know about any available studies or reports on the occurrence and formation of the pyrite.  Dave

[tombk]

Beautiful teeth well worth the effort. I agree that it’s a special feeling to research and find a site that feels all your own. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Great report, great finds.

Thank you for sharing. 

[fossilhunter21]

Nice report and finds! 

Thanks for sharing! 

[Jared C]

For anybody interested, I just found a great post on the forum from 2008 about a similar tooth found in Dallas county, @Roz wrote much about it, and it seems they found a Hadrodus priscus tooth. He talks about the history and habits of the fish in the genus. Cool stuff!