Muddy creek, underlying Cretaceous?

[MarcoSr]

8 hours ago, Kikokuryu said:

 

Well, that's unfortunate. Though I'm confident that a locale could probably be obtained since every single specimen from that lot around early August seemed to have similar preservation. There has to be something written down somewhere.

 

Fortunately, they leave feedback so you can go back and look at all the specimens that were sold around that time. I dug up some of the more sparse or one-off single specimens from "Muddy Creek". Perhaps these could solidify that they definitely are not Muddy Creek 100%, or perhaps complicate things further. Maybe it sparks a light-bulb moment, who knows.

 

We got a lobster or crustacean, nurse shark teeth, shark cartilage, and sawfish rostrum. These were all listed I think at the same time the crocs and the shark teeth were, so there's a good chance they came from the same box, storage, or display they were kept in.

 

 

I did also find teeth labeled as being from the

that had a similar shiny wear on the root lobes. Can't really find any information on them, but just leaving that out there. Maybe it might help?

 

 

I have lots of crab claws from Muddy Creek, but I have never found or know of anyone else who has found a lobster/crustacean like your pictured specimen at Muddy Creek.

 

The pieces of shark cartilage that I have from Muddy Creek are all very small and look like the below picture (Sorry for the bad picture, but it is the only one that I have handy.).  Truthfully, I'm not sure that your specimen is shark cartilage.

 

 

 

 

Your "sawfish rostrum" specimen is a Cretaceous sawfish rostral tooth.  I have a number of Eocene sawfish Pristis and Anoxypristis rostral teeth from Muddy Creek, but they don't look anything like your specimen.  You can see one of each in the lower left of the display picture immediately below.  Note this is an updated picture of the display that I showed earlier in this post where I only display now fish specimens (shark, ray and bony fish specimens) in this display.  I put the reptile specimens (sea snake, croc and turtle) from the old display picture in a new display (see the 2nd picture below)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your nurse shark teeth could be from Muddy Creek.  Nurse shark teeth were common there.  Please see the two below pictures of Muddy Creek nurse shark teeth.  Again, sorry for the bad pictures.  If from Muddy Creek, your largest nurse shark tooth would be a great specimen from Muddy Creek because the central cusp or a side cusp or two always seem to be damaged or worn down on the majority of the specimens that I have from there.  I often wondered what they were eating.

 

 

    

 

 

I haven't heard of the Saratoga Formation (?) in Hempstead County, Arkansas before, so I can't really comment on that.  George Wolf seemed to have micro teeth specimens from every site possible in the United States.

 

 

Marco Sr.

[Al Dente]

This one is Schizorhiza which occurs in the Maastrichtian.

 

 

[Kikokuryu]

@MarcoSr I think this makes a pretty strong case for Maastrichtian, or it has to be some locale that has Maastrichtian mixed in. None of those early August Muddy Creek listings were probably Eocene then, or at the very least, I think it's safe to assume that none of them are Muddy Creek.

 

I didn't buy any of those other fossils. I just recalled other stuff being listed at the time so I went back to see what they were. And I think that was a good idea. I think the age of these fossils is a lot more clear than just from the sharks in question. I'll probably save all these images for future reference before our auction site wipes them out of existence.

 

1 hour ago, MarcoSr said:

George Wolf seemed to have micro teeth specimens from ever site possible in the United States.

 

Yea. I imagine it would have been pretty crazy and impressive to see all this stuff in one place.

[Kikokuryu]

@will stevenson Well, bad news, the specimens appear to have actually come from a container that had "Muddy Creek" written on it. I was provided images a some of the matrix to possibly help in uncovering the true formation or probable origin.

 

But they did say that George Wolf collected fossils from a creek in Georgia somewhere that may be where they came from. I don't really know this stuff, but perhaps it looks and sounds familiar to someone more well versed in this stuff.

 

[Al Dente]

It could be the Ripley Formation if from Georgia. The only published accounts of Schizorhiza from the US that I am aware of are from Texas, Arkansas and South Carolina.

[siteseer]

On 9/10/2021 at 2:25 AM, Al Dente said:

It could be the Ripley Formation if from Georgia. The only published accounts of Schizorhiza from the US that I am aware of are from Texas, Arkansas and South Carolina.

 

Hi Al Dente,

 

I remember Roz showing some teeth she found at a site on the Ouachita River in Arkansas.  One of the teeth was Schizorhiza and it had very similar preservation - if not identical.

 

Jess

[Wolf Family Collection]

Hello, I had listed these shark teeth on online from my dads collection as Muddy Creek. The label dad had on the container was Muddy Creek Trip. Dad had a friend that he collected with named Al Robb who is a member of the Houston Gem and minerals Paleo section. Al was back in the states for a visit as he lives in Africa now. He is working with Exxon. Al came by the house and he took a look at the teeth that I thought was from Muddy Creek. Al told me that my dad had went to Muddy Creek several times and on one of his trips he found a construction site in Bowie Maryland that was Cretaceous and the formation is Severn. Dad brought back several buckets of the matrix and sifted them at home to find all the shark teeth I now have. Al Robb has writing several papers on Shark teeth and in my opinion is an expert in the subject. Im sorry for miss-labeling these teeth as I know how importing Local and detail is to the fossil. Dad was pretty good at labeling his fossils and did label this group according to his trip just didnt mention it was Maryland and not Virginia. Al told me the site was a construction site that is now a shopping center, and is not far from the Muddy creek site.   If anyone who may have bought these and would like a refund please contact me on online and I will gladly refund in full including shipping. Al told me the Severn FM teeth are hard to come by.

 

Thank you

 

David

[Wolf Family Collection]

Al told me there was a paper called the Mosasaur that had a write up on this material.

 

  Ref. The Mosasaur 3, PP.87-95 (1986)

Eugene Hartstein and Larry Decina

 

The Mosasaur 6, (1999)

Hartstein and Decina, et al.

 

 

[bthemoose]

Thank you so much for following up on this and providing this excellent backstory and information, David! It’s wonderful to have the mystery solved on these teeth!

[Notidanodon]

@Wolf Family Collection thanks for providing info on this  no worries about the mislabelling, I’m just happy to have got to the bottom of it!

Edit: if anyone can find an open acess copy of that paper I’d be very interested  

Edited September 27, 2021 by will stevenson