Quality time

[Shellseeker]

My son currently lives in Dallas. For the last 10 days, he was visiting the East Coast of Florida, and yesterday we got together for a Bone Valley hunting trip. During these stressful times, getting together with family is a luxury to be enjoyed.  We were together in the sunshine, checking our sieves within 10 feet of each other,  talking about family, events from long ago, and events coming up.  Talking about fossils and finds. You can see by the gray in his beard that the 2 of us have been doing this for a good long time. It was about 95 degrees but when you are standing in water, it is easy to cool off.

For most of the day, the mosquitoes left us alone.

Initially we were finding small teeth,  his included sand tigers, mine Hemis and a small Mako.

 

We were digging away, enjoying the company, not many finds and then I picked up a small horse upper tooth.  I have found Neohipparion Eurystyle at this location previously. It might also be Cormohipparion.  I'll try to figure it out later.

 

We moved around trying to locate gravel in fast moving water, burning energy pushing upstream. We were moving gravel to the sieves with the shovel parallel to and our backs blocking the current.  Around noon, we stopped for lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, hard boiled eggs and ice water.

My son started finding Megs ... a broken 3.75 incher and one in good shape that is now going back to Texas as a memento of the day.

 

I picked up what seems to be my 1st fragment of Mammoth in a location that  generally has Miocene(8-12 mya) finds.  It is pretty worn but I will try to "read" the Schreger lines to confirm as mammoth.  Just a little strange to find it.  Mammoth has been around since the Pliocene and this is not a high mix environment. For example, few/no Equus, Camel, Bison, Tapir, etc fossils..

 

 

 

 

Here is the combination of what we both found (plus lots of little shark teeth) ,  not a lot but enough....

 

[hokietech96]

Awesome finds!!!

[JohnJ]

Regardless of what you found, it was a great day.

[RJB]

Looks and sounds like you both had a great day.

 

RB

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, RJB said:

Looks and sounds like you both had a great day.

RB

Yes, it had been too long since we had done something fun together. Time, space, and the daily chatter had kept us focused on less important stuff.

[Fossilis Willis]

Quality time indeed. And a few quality fossils to remember a day well spent.

[tombk]

That horse tooth has an amazing pattern to it. 

[Shellseeker]

13 hours ago, tombk said:

That horse tooth has an amazing pattern to it. 

Yes, I have always loved them. They go back into the Pliocene, and even sometimes into the Miocene.  Very hard to identify. The one on the left below was found by @Plantguy and highlighted in a 2016 TFF post.  Might be from a Cormohipparion species. Note how similar the pattern is to the one I just found.

[Family Fun]

Any day with family is great, to be on the river with them and finding what you did, an amazing day.

[Jared C]

That's a cool little canine among your haul there... any Idea what it's from?

 

[Clint08]

Great stuff!

[Shellseeker]

21 hours ago, Jared C said:

That's a cool little canine among your haul there... any Idea what it's from?

There are actually TWO cool little canines in the photo.  Fortunately the answer is the same for both:  Dolphin tooth !!!! For the one on top, it is rare in my hunting areas,  but I have found 10-15. I'll ask specific identifications. @sixgill pete @MarcoSr @Al Dente

 

On the bottom one, it has Rugosity, f r, is a measure of small-scale variations of amplitude in the height of a surface, !!!!

Most of there are broken,  I have one I love....

 

@Harry Pristis created a great photo of these..  Note the rugosity on the one under the penny.  I think that in my hunting area, the only canines that have rugosity are dolphin.