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Help - Good sites (in Europe) for Cretaceous Ptychodus teeth and other Cretaceous sites


Jurassicz1

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Hello! I have always loved Ptychodus teeth. But where I hunt they are extremely rare.

 

Are there any good sites in Europe that has Cretaceous Ptychodus and or other shark teeth? I have heard something about seine-maritime in France. 

 

Regards - Adriano.

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  • Fossildude19 changed the title to Help - Good sites (in Europe) for Cretaceous Ptychodus teeth and other Cretaceous sites
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I am unfamiliar with France.  Check with @Manticocerasman, if he is willing to share his experiences. 

 

I think that Ptychodus teeth are indeed very rare in France. And, those that are present coincide with geologic strata on the other side of the English Channel in the English Chalk deposits. Many amazing Ptychodus specimens have been found in England. But, I am not sure how common they are today in England or what restrictions there are hunting in either England or France.

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I’ve found ptychodus teeth in the cenomaniaan and turonian chalk of cap-blanc-nez in France. But they are very rare.

 

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Unfortunately, I wouldn't know where you could find Ptychodus-teeth in Europe, as Cretaceous deposits are generally far and few between. Around the area where I lived in France, for instance, deposits mainly date to the Jurassic, with some Triassic and other time periods distributed in spot-wise fashion. There's talk of a Cretaceous exposure here as well, and there are finds on the market demonstrating that. But no one seems to know where this exposure is. I've also not heard of Ptychodus having been found there.

 

In terms of Cretaceous material, there are the Dutch and Belgian Maastrichtian/marl exposures. But apart from not knowing whether Ptychodus has been found there, vertebrate material from these locations is generally rare, if the exposure are even still accessible (due to sites having been reverted back to nature or being active quarries). I believe the situation is not much different in Germany, where I've been told Cretaceous exposure at far and few between (but maybe @belemniten,@Ludwigia and @Pemphix would know more).

 

There are some Cretaceous exposures in Scandinavia, such as in Denmark and at Ignaberga in the Kristianstad Basin in Sweden. But I've got no idea whether Ptychodus is found at those locations (but maybe @Dunderdung would know). And, in any case, as @The Amateur Paleontologist will undoubtedly tell you, any rare or significant find made in Denmark would need to be handed over to a museum.

 

As to France, the only site I'm familiar with (but haven't been) is Cap Nez Blanc. @caterpillar or @Pixpaleosky might know further Cretaceous marine sites, but many of these will, as is the case in my region, be either off limits or extremely vulnerable. Which brings me to the sites on the English coast. For, while Britain doesn't have a lot of Cretaceous exposures, there are various that, much like Cap Nez Blanc, are coastal sites where collecting is both tolerated as long as you don't start chopping directly into the rock and material gets replenished with certain frequency.

 

Have a look at this site for an overview of British Cretaceous sites and finds typically made there. Much as with other Cretaceous sites in Europe, however, the occurrence of vertebrate fossils at these sites is very low. Thus while many beautiful historical specimens are known, you'd need quite a bit of luck to make a find there yourself. @Welsh Wizard or @TqB might be good people to ask about this, though.

 

Good luck in your search!

Edited by pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon
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As Pachy has well said it, french cretaceous sites containing vertebrates are quite rare.

You can find shark teeth there but you have to make 5 or 6 trips to find a tooth.

Ptychodus teeth are extremely difficult to find. Personally, I have never found any

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Sorry I can’t help. 
 

There are lots of Cretaceous exposures in the U.K. I only really know about the Wealden which is early Cretaceous and I don’t know anything about sharks so not much good to you really.

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On 4/1/2022 at 5:07 PM, Jurassicz1 said:

Hello! I have always loved Ptychodus teeth. But where I hunt they are extremely rare.

 

Just to confirm and also record the locality as low in Ptychodus: your hunting grounds are at Ingaberga, right?

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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8 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

In terms of Cretaceous material, there are the Dutch and Belgian Maastrichtian/marl exposures. But apart from not knowing whether Ptychodus has been found there

@Jurassicz1 - To my knowledge, Ptychodus can't be found anywhere from strata that young. If Ptychodus as a genus is your goal, you should be focusing on strata from the cenomanian (preferably not lower cenomanian, as P. decurrens will be your only reasonable prospect there) all the way through the Santonian. Only one species of Ptychodus really holds out going into the Campanian, and that's P. Polygyrus, which anyway doesn't survive to the end of the Campanian. Here in the states it's rare, but I know it's been found elsewhere, like in Israel. If it's found in Israel, perhaps it can be found a bit further west on your side of the world as well. There's a user on here who found an associated tooth set in Israel, I'll add the thread when I find it.

 

 

Edited by Jared C
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48 minutes ago, Jared C said:

To my knowledge, Ptychodus can't be found anywhere from strata that young. If Ptychodus as a genus is your goal, you should be focusing on strata from the cenomanian (preferably not lower cenomanian, as P. decurrens will be your only reasonable prospect there) all the way through the Santonian. Only one species of Ptychodus really holds out going into the Campanian, and that's P. Polygyrus, which anyway doesn't survive to the end of the Campanian.

 

Cool! I didn't know that and had to base myself off of the Wikipedia-page for Ptychodus, which mentions the genus being around from 112-61 mya, i.e. from the Albian all the way through the early Paleocene (Selandian and Danian stages) - though the page inconsistently describes the genus as Late Cretaceous in nature (inconsistently, as this is just a part of the indicated timespan).

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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3 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Cool! I didn't know that and had to base myself off of the Wikipedia-page for Ptychodus, which mentions the genus being around from 112-61 mya, i.e. from the Albian all the way through the early Paleocene (Selandian and Danian stages) - though the page inconsistently describes the genus as Late Cretaceous in nature (inconsistently, as this is just a part of the indicated timespan).

no attack on you, don't worry :D. Here's a nice table that @LSCHNELLE has put together based off of Shawn Hamm's research with some of the species of their timelines. You can ignore the text that mentions the geologic formations, as they're just for Texas.

IMG-8208.thumb.jpg.8b0d17e9466fc14c39fd3b7917d87e49.jpg

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“Not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think” -Werner Heisenberg 

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5 hours ago, Jared C said:

Here's a nice table that @LSCHNELLE has put together based off of Shawn Hamm's research with some of the species of their timelines. You can ignore the text that mentions the geologic formations, as they're just for Texas.

IMG-8208.thumb.jpg.8b0d17e9466fc14c39fd3b7917d87e49.jpg

 

Very informative graphic! But as this is based on Texas, I wonder about the global application of it - although, admittedly, it's unlikely that there'll be as much of a discrepancy in real life as appears to be the case with the Wiki-page. Not surprised that the Wiki-information is incorrect as such, just that the indicated time range (i.e., the score if the error) is so large...! May be they're including Paraptychodus into their range? Could it be that Paraptychodus was "recently" split off into its own genus and the page not having been updated to reflect this. Would still not explain the error in the upper boundary mentioned, but does seem to work for the lower boundary...

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'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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23 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

In terms of Cretaceous material, there are the Dutch and Belgian Maastrichtian/marl exposures. But apart from not knowing whether Ptychodus has been found there, vertebrate material from these locations is generally rare, if the exposure are even still accessible (due to sites having been reverted back to nature or being active quarries)

They are reported from most mid to late cretaceous sites in Belgium and Northern France , but indeed almost al of those deposits are no longer accesible.

I've seen a few from old sites of the Mons bassin.

 

Natalie and I have found 3 specimens until now in Cap-Blanc-Nez. one in the Cenomanian and 2 in the Turonian. most occurences there are in the turonian. I still see them pop up from time to time in FB pages about Cap-Blanc_Nez.

 

Also some lecture:

http://biblio.naturalsciences.be/rbins-publications/memoirs-of-the-geological-survey-of-belgium/pdfs/msgb-1977-15k.pdf

 

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Thanks for the informative respons. I hunt in Ignaberga Quarry. But Ptychodus teeth are very rare. As the layer that they are found in are gone and are just Reworked in to the campanian layers.

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16 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Just to confirm and also record the locality as low in Ptychodus: your hunting grounds are at Ingaberga, right?

Yes. They are. Ptychodus are rare there as the layer they are found in. Are gone and reworked into the Campanian. I have seen some collectors have them in their collection. But they are small and very water worn.

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6 hours ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

 

Very informative graphic! But as this is based on Texas, I wonder about the global application of it - although, admittedly, it's unlikely that there'll be as much of a discrepancy in real life as appears to be the case with the Wiki-page. Not surprised that the Wiki-information is incorrect as such, just that the indicated time range (i.e., the score if the error) is so large...! May be they're including Paraptychodus into their range? Could it be that Paraptychodus was "recently" split off into its own genus and the page not having been updated to reflect this. Would still not explain the error in the upper boundary mentioned, but does seem to work for the lower boundary...

If you look at the Wikipedia page it makes this statement:"They died out approximately 85 million years ago in the Western Interior Sea, where a majority of them were found". Then, it contradicts itself by suggesting 61 Mya in the time scale. Per the NMMNH Bulletin 81 that Shawn Hamm wrote dated 2020, Paraptychodus is the ancestral shark.  It appears that paleontologists earlier thought that P. decurrens was what he now calls Paraptychodus.  Shawn makes distinctions between the two. Notably that the roots form an interlocking mechanism in Paraptychodus rather than the tooth enamel as found in all Ptychodus. He also says that claims of Maastrichtian and later Ptychodus finds have never been verified. Based on the fossil record, most had died off by around 85 mya, but the last survived until early Campanian (P. polygyrus). This quote from Wikipedia:  "A recent publication found that Ptychodus are likely neoselachians, rather than hybodonts or batoids as previously thought" is in line with current theory - based on Ptychodus having calcified vertebrate centrum. Shawn is also proposing in NMMNH B81 that they need their own Order - Ptychodontiformes. Also, the list of 22 species might eventually be cut down to between 15 and 20 to eliminate duplicates.

Edited by LSCHNELLE
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3 minutes ago, LSCHNELLE said:

If you look at the Wikipedia page it makes this statement:"They died out approximately 85 million years ago in the Western Interior Sea, where a majority of them were found". Then, it contradicts itself by suggesting 61 Mya in the time scale. Per the NMMNH Bulletin 81 that Shawn Hamm wrote dated 2020, Paraptychodus is the ancestral shark.  It appears that paleontologists earlier thought that P. decurrens was what he now calls Paraptychodus.  Shawn makes distinctions between the two. Notably that the roots form an interlocking mechanism in Paraptychodus rather than the tooth enamel as found in all Ptychodus. He also says that claims of Maastrichtian and later Ptychodus finds have never been verified. Based on the fossil record, most had died off by around 85 mya, but the last survived until early Campanian (P. polygyrus). This quote from Wikipedia:  "A recent publication found that Ptychodus are likely neoselachians, rather than hybodonts or batoids as previously thought" is in line with current theory - based on Ptychodus having calcified vertebrate centrum. Shawn is also proposing in NMMNH B81 that they need their own Order - Ptychodontiformes. Also, the list of 22 species might eventually be cut down to between 15 and 20 due to eliminate duplicates.

 

Thanks for this detailed explanation, Lee! That clarifies a lot! :Smiling:

'There's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fibre and, in some cases, backbone' -- Terry Pratchett

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There is a new Ptychodus species being proposed by Shawn Hamm.  It's pending publication this year.  Hopefully, we'll read about it soon.  He has already mentioned it by name in one of his publications.  But, no pictures or formal proposed name yet.  I have been waiting almost four years since finding my first one.

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Seine-Maritime is the way to go If you want to hunt the cenomanian grounds ( which can also be found at the VN , btw ) , but I can't remember any records of Ptychodus found there . 

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3 hours ago, taj said:

Seine-Maritime is the way to go If you want to hunt the cenomanian grounds ( which can also be found at the VN , btw ) , but I can't remember any records of Ptychodus found there . 

Okay thanks! Where in Seine-Maritime can you hunt? I have seen some Ptychodus online from Seine-Maritime 

 

Regards

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On 4/10/2022 at 2:37 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

I believe the situation is not much different in Germany, where I've been told Cretaceous exposure at far and few between (but maybe @belemniten,@Ludwigia and @Pemphix would know more).

Cretaceous in Germany is not my primary era to hunt fossils, but i know that there are some active quarrys in northern germany which are hunted frequently. For all of these permissions are needed (active). Best way is to ask in some specialized forums, i guess. 

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Years ago, I traded for two Ptychodus specimens from Bettrechies, France.  They were labelled as P. decurrens, Turonian age.  I'll have to look at those again.

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1 hour ago, siteseer said:

 

My searching found the following info. In the area NW of Bavay near Betttrechies, there is Carrière des Nerviens nature preserve (7.7 acres).  It is an old quarry that cut through Upper Cretaceous and into Late Devonian age Paleozoic sandstone. There "stones used to backfill the former quarry (now nature preserve) are those which underlie the Givetian limestone extracted in the Bellignies quarry. There is Sarrasin de Bettrechies, a coarse shelly limestone, deep gray, yellowish when it outcrops, detrital ferruginous dated to the Lower Cenomanian epoch, a hundred million years ago. There is clay and very glauconitic marl of the Upper Cenomanian stage, enriched by a pebble conglomerate paléozoïc stones. These rocks contain Praeactinocamax plenus, Chlamys asper, Ostrea diluviana and radiated fossils: Janira quadricostata, Cyprina ligeriensis, Arca mailleana. There is also bluish marl of the Turonian." (Wikipedia). The Middle Cenomanian to Middle Turonian are the best places to find Ptychodus decurrens.

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