Micro Fossils From Cretaceous Alabama

[Rockin' Ric]

Howdy Y'all! Micro fossilizing is addictive and got bit by the bug sometime last year. I often wondered what actually got through my 1/4" mesh sifter while sifting for marine fossils and shark teeth! Well, wonder no more. After piling the gravel that went through the sifter I would place the gravel in a 2 gallon bucket to take home and inspect later. Now every trip to a creek I do it religiously because of the addiction! Some creeks are really productive and other creeks not so much but what drives me is the thrill of what I'm going to find in the next pour of the red solo cup into the white paper plate. Even when it's time to tend to my responsibilities I tell myself, just one more... I know that type of thing happens to you guys. It's time consuming but it's so worth it! I went on an excursion two weeks ago and brought back a bucket of gravel. Here are my finds for that particular day. I have found more Enchodus teeth on this site than ever! Pictured is a variety of Enchodus front teeth and interior teeth, Enchodus palatine jaw piece with teeth, Pseudocorax, Pyncnodont tooth, dermal plate, tiny Mosasaur tooth, shark Coprolite, and another Enchodus palatine jaw piece. Look forward to visiting this creek when it warms up and game hunting season is over! Happy Hunting Everyone!

 

[jpc]

love the finger for scale.  

 

Oh, and the fossils are cool, too.  

[Adam86cucv]

18 minutes ago, jpc said:

love the finger for scale.  

 

Oh, and the fossils are cool, too.  

It'll be a TFF challenge, how many microfossils can you line up and balance on your finger.

 

And they are nice fossils 

Edited October 29, 2021 by Adam86cucv

[Al Dente]

12 hours ago, Rockin' Ric said:

tiny Mosasaur tooth

Those Enchodus teeth are very nice. I’m wondering if your tiny mosasaur tooth could be Pachyrhizodus tooth?

[digit]

17 hours ago, Rockin' Ric said:

Micro fossilizing is addictive and got bit by the bug sometime last year. I often wondered what actually got through my 1/4" mesh sifter while sifting for marine fossils and shark teeth! Well, wonder no more. After piling the gravel that went through the sifter I would place the gravel in a 2 gallon bucket to take home and inspect later.

Welcome to the addiction!

 

You might consider adding a second sifting screen under your 1/4" mesh screen (an additional 1/4" screen would work fine). Into the lower screen slip a loose piece of window screen mesh (roughly 1/16" mesh size) to catch the finer gravel but pass through much of the really fine sand. Make sure the window screen overhangs the sifters around all of the edges. You can pick up this loose screen by the corners and roll the gravel from side to side while washing out the sand. This will give you a micro-matrix concentrate free of the unneeded sand which you won't have to lug back to your car. Of course, this just means you can fill up your bucket with more concentrated micro-matrix so you will still likely lug a lot of wet weight back to your vehicle. As a word of caution from someone with perennial back problems--take two buckets and fill them up halfway instead of topping off one bucket. Balancing the load will help mitigate spinal issues later in life.

 

I recently collected some micro-matrix from the creek in the backyard of my home in Gainesville, FL. The gravel is fairly fine in this creek (so no 6" megs are going to show up). I used a larger 1/2" screen on top and put the window screen mesh on my 1/4" screen below that. By using the 1/2" screen on top the more numerous shark and ray teeth in the 1/4"-1/2" size class ended up in the matrix instead of being pulled out in my top sifting screen. If my friend was with me while I collected this I'd have probably switched positioning of the 1/2" & 1/4" sifters and let him pick the >1/4" fossils from the top screen.

 

         

1) The gravel bar in my creek after a good rain deposited fresh material. 2) The stack of sifters with the 1/2" mesh screen on top and the loose piece of window screen (you have to look closely) between the top and bottom screens. (3) The sifter stack loaded with a few shovels full of sand and matrix.

 

         

4) After the two sifters are submerged and the water has pulled the matrix/sand through, separating it into larger than 1/2" and everything else. 5) The top sifter contains larger rocks, leaves, and a pull tab. 6) The loose window screen contains the finer gravel ans some remaining sand.

 

         

7) The window screen is lifted out and rinsed in the creek to remove more of the fine sand. 8) The micro-matrix left in the window screen after a quick wash. 9) Loading up a pair of buckets to haul out the wet matrix which will be dried on a tarp in the sun and then classified further.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Rockin' Ric]

6 hours ago, digit said:

Welcome to the addiction!

 

You might consider adding a second sifting screen under your 1/4" mesh screen (an additional 1/4" screen would work fine). Into the lower screen slip a loose piece of window screen mesh (roughly 1/16" mesh size) to catch the finer gravel but pass through much of the really fine sand. Make sure the window screen overhangs the sifters around all of the edges. You can pick up this loose screen by the corners and roll the gravel from side to side while washing out the sand. This will give you a micro-matrix concentrate free of the unneeded sand which you won't have to lug back to your car. Of course, this just means you can fill up your bucket with more concentrated micro-matrix so you will still likely lug a lot of wet weight back to your vehicle. As a word of caution from someone with perennial back problems--take two buckets and fill them up halfway instead of topping off one bucket. Balancing the load will help mitigate spinal issues later in life.

 

I recently collected some micro-matrix from the creek in the backyard of my home in Gainesville, FL. The gravel is fairly fine in this creek (so no 6" megs are going to show up). I used a larger 1/2" screen on top and put the window screen mesh on my 1/4" screen below that. By using the 1/2" screen on top the more numerous shark and ray teeth in the 1/4"-1/2" size class ended up in the matrix instead of being pulled out in my top sifting screen. If my friend was with me while I collected this I'd have probably switched positioning of the 1/2" & 1/4" sifters and let him pick the >1/4" fossils from the top screen.

 

         

1) The gravel bar in my creek after a good rain deposited fresh material. 2) The stack of sifters with the 1/2" mesh screen on top and the loose piece of window screen (you have to look closely) between the top and bottom screens. (3) The sifter stack loaded with a few shovels full of sand and matrix.

 

         

4) After the two sifters are submerged and the water has pulled the matrix/sand through, separating it into larger than 1/2" and everything else. 5) The top sifter contains larger rocks, leaves, and a pull tab. 6) The loose window screen contains the finer gravel ans some remaining sand.

 

         

7) The window screen is lifted out and rinsed in the creek to remove more of the fine sand. 8) The micro-matrix left in the window screen after a quick wash. 9) Loading up a pair of buckets to haul out the wet matrix which will be dried on a tarp in the sun and then classified further.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

Ken! Thank you for the awesome advice! Definitely will have to take into consideration the process you achieved separating the micro material. I'm learning as I go and think I have figured out a system that works for now. When we go to a creek, it's usually private property and have a time limit. I try to get all my sifting done to find all that I can find until the last hour or two of that day. I will sift in an area where the remnants is in one spot. As I sift, I shovel what goes the 1/4" mesh into a colander where I get rid of the sand, and you're right... lugging a bucket with all that sand and gravel thru treacherous terrain isn't fun at all! At least now that I get rid of the sand it affords me more micro gravel in the bucket to take home. When I get home I immediately spread the gravel out onto a large trash bag cut in half. I let it dry out on my balcony for at least 24 to 48 hours... of course when a portion of it does dry... I can't wait any longer so I get the solo cup and paper plate ready! Thanks again! Look forward to seeing your finds from here on out because you know, I'm going to be posting mine!

[digit]

I use the large thick black yard-waste garbage bags as well for drying micro-matrix in the sun. I often rinse the micro-matrix after I collect it to remove more of the fine silt and the foliar confetti composed of tiny pieces of decaying leaf matter. Scooping some matrix into a 5-gallon bucket and flushing with a hose to suspend the silt and organic bits which can then be poured off to helps to clean the matrix. I'll often dry the rinsed matrix on the garbage bags but sometimes I'll classify the bulk matrix into various size classes with my stackable screens first. Some smaller particles will try to stick to the larger ones when they are wet so a second quick classification is often done once everything is dry.

 

I purchased the green stackable sifting screens online. I ordered the entire 9-piece set as the finer screens are often useful to me but you can get the 5-piece set which has the mesh sizes you'll primarily be using:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EWOL8I/

 

https://www.amazon.com/SE-GP2-5-SET-Patented-Stackable/dp/B00C7YCQIQ/

 

I also visit the discount stores where I can pick up flexible plastic buckets with two loop handles for a buck a piece. These are nice as I can easily dump a screen of matrix into them and I can squeeze the sides of the buckets together to form a bit of a pouring spout if I want to pour out the matrix into a zip-top bag or a plastic cup which I'll use to hold a quantity of matrix for picking. Here is the post-processing (most of it) on the matrix that I collected (shown above):

 

         

1) Black bucket of rinsed matrix on the right, sifter stack resting on the white bucket, and a separate white bucket and some small flexible dollar store buckets. 2) Scooping some unclassified matrix into the top of the sifter stack which is then flushed with the hose to let the water pull the matrix into the appropriate size screens below. 3) One of the myliobatid ray tooth plates visible in the 1/4" screen.

 

         

4) After flushing with water and shaking the screens the top one with the 1/2"-1/4" material is removed and dumped into the white bucket. 5) The next screen contains the matrix in the 1/4"-1/8" range. 6) The final two screens have caught the 1/8"-1/12" material and the 1/12"-1/20" material. Anything finer simply passes through into the bucket on which the stack of sifters sits.

 

         

7) The white bucket accumulating the material caught by the 1/4" mesh screen. 8) The finer material from the 1/8" screen. 9) Finer still from the 1/12" screen.

 

I dried each size class portion on a separate black plastic yard waste bag in the sun. Only took a few hours. Once dried I scooped the various size classes of matrix back into the flexible blue plastic buckets and ran it through the sifting stack a final time. Some additional smaller bits passed through to the lower screens giving a better size-class separation. I might normally have just dried it first and done one stage of classifying into the different size classes but I wanted to get the 1/2"-1/4" material separated out as my friend was coming over to pick up a 5-gallon bucket of this most coarse material to pick through with his son back at their home. The finer material requires low-power magnification to pick through easily and the finest really needs something like my microscope-camera setup as the 1/20" material is just a little larger than millimeter scale.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken