Eagle Ford, close to home

[Jared C]

Over the weekend, @Jackito and I finally met up to do some hunting together. He offered to show me around at the spot he recently discovered, a potential Eagle Ford outcrop where I hardly expected one to exist - right at home in Round Rock (just north of Austin in central texas).

 

Previous (largely uneventful) excursions with the hope of finding Eagle Ford in Round Rock had taken me close by here,  but without Carter I would have never, ever zeroed in - his intuition and research to get to this spot is impressive. His account of our hunt and his finds are here:

 

In addition to his cool finds, I also found some really nifty teeth that show great promise for this area - four, all from different species, and in total we found (6? 7? something like that). A great day that exceeded expectations. Here's what I saw, in order:

 

1) A rear Squalicorax tooth, that came out of a shale slab that washed downstream. This little tooth find happened rather quickly, and set a good tone for the day

 

2.) I believe this is a Cretolamna tooth, since it doesn't seem to have a nutrient groove, and has evidence of cusps. Here is the insitu:

 

3.) Next came what I believe might be Cretoxyrhina mantelli. It doesn't seem to have a nutrient groove, and its a tough call but I don't think there's evidence of broken cusps. Texturing on the high side of the blade might be wrinkling instead. I'll be putting this on fossil ID for sure. Here's the insitu vs at home in better lighting

 

4.) My last cretaceous find was a Scapanorynchus, broken nearly in half, unfortunately, but nonetheless cool

 

It was a great day with some cool finds - looking forward to heading out again and exploring some spots with @Jackito and his loyal assistant 

Edited October 26, 2021 by Jared C
correcting typos - i should really start doing that before I post it, lol