Bony Oddities of the Ozan

[Mikrogeophagus]

Following the brief rains from earlier in the week, I decided to make a return to my new favorite Ozan outcrop where I had previously found so many mosasaur vertebrae. Though I did not get to add any new verts to my collection, I did manage to come across plenty of unique fossils and artifacts that have taken up my attention for the past couple of days. One interesting thing I have noticed from this outcrop is its abundance of pyritic bony material among other pyritic fossils (including "rusty" exogyra shells + bivalves). Most of them are unidentifiable chunks, but a few have enough distinctive features that I feel hopeful they can be identified. Some give off the flaky appearance of fish bones while others are more spongy and reptilian to my eye. I wonder if any others have come across similar fossils as I haven't seen much online that resemble these. Does anyone know what these strange little balls of bronze rust are? I assume it's pyrite degrading, but I'm not 100% confident. They seem to enjoy popping up on bony bits that come from this Ozan outcrop. Anyways, I have compiled the most interesting bony oddities from my two trips to this spot. I know there's a lot to take in, so I only included closeups of the most distinctive pieces in order to have the majority of the focus fixed onto them. If you would like additional closeups of anything here, feel free to let me know! Here is an overview of the finds:

 

 

Closeups and Descriptions:

 

A: Here is a 360 view of my favorite one of the bunch. A key feature is on the sixth image, where you can see a hole that runs through the bone (the white speck towards the top end). This give off a flaky look, so I think it may be fish. Then again, I could see this being the end of some sort of long bone. There is a symmetry to the bone as well as the little rusty protrusions that are characteristic of the things I have been finding. The grooving seen towards the bottom on picture 5 is very pronounced. I feel this might be to something really cool. Curious to hear what y'all think!

 

B: This is an interesting piece that is unfortunately almost entirely covered in pyrite chicken pox. It's difficult to tell what exactly the bone's texture is, but I would flaky as well. One side (pic 4) is mostly flat. The opposing side (pic 2) has a groove running down the middle that converges at one end. Pic 6 shows this convergence pretty well.

 

 

C: The spongy texture in pic 5 leads me to think this is reptilian. I get a vague sense that this may be turtle, but who knows. At first glance, the notch in it seems like a random natural fracture. However, the grooved patterns on two of its faces radiate out of that notch, so I think it must have always been like that.

 

D: A flat piece of flaky bone I think is from a fish

E: A flat piece of flaky bone I think is from a fish

F: A 3D piece of flaky bone I think is from a fish

G: A spongy bone that resembles turtle in my opinion

H: This is a pyritized disk that I included in a previous post. I decided to throw it in here since it is similar in nature, though not collected from the exact same location. I think it may be a shark vertebra, but its protruding center throws me off. Someone has suggested it to be an intravertebral disk. It is fairly degraded.

 

I tried to look around the outcrop itself for bones, but didn't come across any. However, I spotted and managed to pry out a pretty little cretolamna tooth so I will make sure to always check it out in the future. Thanks for reading!

[Mikrogeophagus]

Success! So I've been doing some online research the past few hours (while listening to the Common Descent podcast which I recommend) and I think I may have found an ID for fossil A. I'm feeling a bit proud of myself as I had little clue as to what to look for originally. My wishful thinking pushed me to waste a lot of time looking at ridiculously rare stuff such as pterosaur bones... of course to no avail . After returning back to the realm of reality, I started researching fish parts and came to notice its similarities with neural spines. Now, this is a decently sized chunk of bone, so I immediately thought of Xiphactinus. There weren't too many pictures specifically of Xiphactinus neural spines on Google images, but of the ones I found, I think there is a striking resemblance. There are some slight variations, but I think Xiphactinus is a good ID unless anyone has a reason to disagree! A key feature, the hole that runs through the thicker end of my specimen, is also present in the image from the web search. The grooving on the sides of the "spine" also appear to largely match up. Hopefully this isn't all just a complex case of pareidolia. Thoughts?

 

Side by side comparisons:

[Jared C]

Awesome! Found the common descent podcast recently too. Fun case of investigative work there, I'd agree with you that you seem to have made a match!

[JohnJ]

Pyritization of bones in the Taylor Group formations is not too unusual.  Sometimes it's a pain because it obscures bone detail as in your specimens.  In other instances, it can preserve fine details or thin bones.   But then, there is always the risk of pyrite disease.

 

It would be nice to see your first few finds photographed in natural light.  I think C  is turtle just as you suspected.

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Interesting collection of bone pieces! I myself am not very good at telling fish from reptile based on bone structure, so find it complicated to even know where to start with the identification of your specimens as I wouldn't know what diagnostic features to look out for. I think you did an excellent job identifying the Xiphactinus neural spine, though, and do believe that seems a good match.

 

Similarly, I believe H to also be correctly identified as a shark vertebra, although I'd keep my reservation with respect to an intravertebral disk being present. To me, the level of decay and rusty orange balls on the rest of the fossils speak of a pyrite-affliction (which is an iron compound and can, therefore, turn rusty brown), which decay products, internal to the bone, have increased in volume and are breaking out through the weakest spots in the fossil. As such, proper cleaning of your finds (normally, with fossils from a coastal/saline environment, I'd still recommend washing in clean water as dealing with pyrite is bad enough and there's no need to deal with salt as well; here I'm less certain, though an ethanol or acetone bath may work to remove the decay products to some extent); thoroughly drying them - either in hot summer sun, under a lamp, or in a low-temperature oven; and sealing them with Paraloid (B-72 is easiest to get and apply, doesn't discolour and lasts the longest, though B-67, which does discolour and will need to be reapplied after a few years, is hydrophobic and should therefore do a better job at keeping your specimens moisture-free).

 

Lastly, G, with its smooth hollow surface, looks like an articulation surface to me, and may be the anterior end of a mosasaur vertebra. You'd need plenty pictures of other angles, a video, or hand examination to confirm this, but that's the vibe I get from it

[Mikrogeophagus]

Thanks for the thoughtful replies! I will definitely have to look into paraloid and acetone. I've used paraffin wax before with microfossils, but paraloid seems to be the better route for these sorts of things. 

 

Here are some closeups using natural light for a few of the other specimens:

 

B:

C:

G:

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

13 minutes ago, EPIKLULSXDDDDD said:

Thanks for the thoughtful replies! I will definitely have to look into paraloid and acetone. I've used paraffin wax before with microfossils, but paraloid seems to be the better route for these sorts of things.

 

Paraloid is definitely the way to go with this, for, while I have little experience with paraffin, the experience I do have is that paraffin tends to disintegrate with time and will thus not form a perfect seal for your specimens, something Paraloid does a much better job at, especially when fully submerging the specimen and the more so if the fossil was heated before the treatment to drive off any moisture inside the fossil...

 

Based on the new photographs I no longer believe G to be part of a vertebra, by the way...

[JohnJ]

46 minutes ago, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

Based on the new photographs I no longer believe G to be part of a vertebra, by the way...

I agree.  It wouldn't surprise me if this was a remnant of overlapping mosasaur skull elements.

[abyssunder]

On 4/29/2022 at 1:23 AM, EPIKLULSXDDDDD said:

 

I think it may be a shark vertebra, but its protruding center throws me off. Someone has suggested it to be an intravertebral disk. It is fairly degraded.

 

I tried to look around the outcrop itself for bones, but didn't come across any. However, I spotted and managed to pry out a pretty little cretolamna tooth so I will make sure to always check it out in the future. Thanks for reading!

 

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by abyssunder