Lake Texoma, round 2.

[hadrosauridae]

Alright folks, just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of our fateful trip... but if your in a TLDR mood.... Fossils get real heavy, real fast, and we found a lot.

 

I had a rare full weekend off work, so my son and I went back to hunt the lake Texoma shoreline for a 2 day exploration.  We started off in the same beach we found last time (that I dubbed "Echinoid Beach"), but construction had changed everything and made it much harder to hunt.  The worst part is that last time we left a small pile when moving everything back to the truck.  I knew where it was, but when we arrived, I realized that its buried and probably gone forever. But we made the best of it and hunted what we could.  We wound up finding a lot more echinoids and one huge partial mortoniceras ammonite, plus it has echinoids in the matrix with it, so I couldnt hack that off in the field to save weight (it was HEAVY).  

 

 

 

 

Oh, that little one on the bottom left... I have hopes its a nautilus!  Will have to prep it out to see what all is there.

 

 

 

We had originally planned to camp out overnight, but a strong north front had pushed in overnight before, so it was 20 mph winds and lows in the 20s.  So, instead we went into the town of Durant and got a hotel room. The next morning the temps were again in the 20s, frost covering the truck, but at least the winds were mild (but not absent) so we decided to check out "ammonite beach" close to the spillway.  I have seen a lot of reports and pics from there, so I had an idea of the details, but this was our first trip there.

 

Let me just say.... be careful what you wish for!  I had seen pics of giant ammonites.  I wanted to find a giant, complete ammonite.  I wasnt mentally prepared to recover a giant, complete ammonite!

 

We started out hunt right at the boat ramp, following the shoreline all the way around.  Actually found several small partials right away, so I had high hopes.  We continued on.  Lots of large gryphaea in areas, and isolated areas with lot of ammonite molds and partials, so we spent a lot of time examining everything, but not finding much beyond the oysters.  Finally, (I think it was over an hour later) we got to the holy shrine of the ammonite.  The sights were just as the legends fortold.  Ammos everywhere!  Molds and partials every step you took.  Some of the partials were massive as well.  We looked carefully, hoping for something missed by the throngs of previous searchers, with little luck.   Mr. George and his sister had passed us waaaaay back towards the start, and they were ahead in the next cove, and working on something too.  They obviously knew more than us, so me made out way that direction.  We did find a couple of very nice partials (halves) from the cliffside as we went, so we stashed those and moved one.  Then we got to the blocks.  That is where George was hammering away to chisel a monster free of the rock.  Wonderful fellow, and it turns out I follow him on Youtube (North Texas Fossil Dude).  He showed us what and where and how, and we moved down the beach hunting for our own monster, and we found one.  Buried in stone, only the top showing.  Was it complete?  Could we get it out?  was it excessively buried under the big caprock above?  We decided to give it a go.  We hammered, and hammered, and hammered on the chisels.  Our arms ached but we were making progress.  We kept working until finally we could see a separation develop under the bottom edge.  Carefully we pried and lifted and it came free!  YAY!!!! We had out ammonite!  But now we had to get it back to the truck.  It a LOOOOONG walk with 75??? pounds of fossils each (I had all the partials and my son had the big boy) plus hammers, chisels, picks, camera, etc.  My rough measurement looks like about 1-1/2 miles long the shoreline.  It felt like about 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

George and his sister were kind enough to leave us a 3rd ammonite and a half dozen tiny echinoids they recovered from their spot. The ammo wasnt tiny either! It measures 11 1/2" across!  We had originally planned to go creek scouting for our next trip, but we were absolutely spent getting everything back.  I helped the local economy by having a great lunch in Dennison at burger shack a block off the highway called "Best Burger Barn".  If you go, get the pretzel and cheese appetizer.  Seriously the best pretzel I have every had.

 

 

Edited December 20, 2021 by hadrosauridae

[Mark Kmiecik]

Thanks. I enjoyed the ride!

[FossilDAWG]

Looks like you had a great if exhausting day.  I will have to get there one of these years.  I really like the ammonites , but I really really like the echinoids!

 

Don

 

[Sjfriend]

Nice report and awesome finds. That is one way to get some exercise lol

[AK hiker]

How was the water level? I enjoyed your video from round 1

Thanks for showing. 

[hadrosauridae]

2 hours ago, AK hiker said:

How was the water level? I enjoyed your video from round 1

Thanks for showing. 

I didnt even look at lake level.  It hasnt rained any significant amount since the last visit, so if anything its probably down a couple inches more.  Rough guess looking at the water line on shore, I'd say its down about 4 - 5 foot from normal.  I have some footage that I will post when I can.  I was miffed because on day 1, the camera wouldnt power on.  I had just taken it off the charger but the battery was at 0.  I Really need to buy more batteries.  I had to throw out 2 others because they were swollen.

[Huntonia]

Looks like you had a productive hunt!! Thanks for sharing! I've been enjoying the YouTube videos as well! 

[Jared C]

One of the most enjoyable trip reports I've read, thanks for writing that up!

[FossilNerd]

Man what a haul. Literally!

 

Great report and finds. That ammo is a monster! Thanks for sharing.  

[Planko]

Fantastic story! Great meeting you and glad you got that keeper out of the ground! Can't wait till see it cleaned up.

 

North Texas Fossil Dude (George)

[The Amateur Paleontologist]

What a lovely report Makes me feel like I'm right there, hunting for ammo's too!

That giant ammonite is a beauty

[hadrosauridae]

19 hours ago, Planko said:

Fantastic story! Great meeting you and glad you got that keeper out of the ground! Can't wait till see it cleaned up.

 

North Texas Fossil Dude (George)

 

Thanks, I cant wait until I can start prepping it (what little prep it needs).  I'm hoping the inner whorls are there, it conveniently has a big chunk of matrix holding on there.