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another cretaceous marine unknown


val horn

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Help will be greatly appreciated in understanding this bone that I found.  It looked like a large piece of turtle shell when I found it.  Like most at this site it is poorly preserved and broke in to several pieces as I went to pick it up.  I thought it was turtle plastron (common in the area) until I washed it and saw significant texture.  Now I dont know what it is at all.  Too much texture for turtle, too little for croc.  Any help to identify what it is, (or even what it isnt) will be well received.

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Edited by val horn
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It looks to be some sort of mineral I'm not seeing any evidence of a fossil here.

 

Just for education purposes however crocodiles have gotten very small in the past, take Koumpiodontosuchus I've found a few teeth which are the same size as lepidotes and the holotype skull was smaller than my hand.

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I agree... This looks mineral to me...

'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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I believe it to be bone because it matches the look of other bone from this site.  Almost everything from the site has ?calcite? crystals across exposed surfaces and is extremely fragile when wet but.  To illustrate the material I am posting a turtle plastron, mosasaur tooth external and internal surface, crow shark teeth and fish jaw.  Even if you agree that what i showed it is bone I am not sure that it is identifiable,  I was thinking of a something like the distal portion of a mosasaur mandible but hoped that it it might match sombody's  visual image.IMG_1423.thumb.jpg.36fdf6060f7acbe5ce2d9d99bde7a178.jpgIMG_1427.thumb.jpg.b2d71796d6a0438b7a855207007c7adf.jpgIMG_1428.thumb.jpg.61e5933c9dd7af6eb2418d67a2560198.jpgIMG_1429.thumb.jpg.b88b41768af32a5a29f7ff4a93be7951.jpgIMG_1442.thumb.jpg.5fe580ee89ae19e2916ef541207a9ed1.jpgis hard.  

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A couple more pieces of turtle and a croc scute from this same site (hopefully in better focus).

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I think clear pictures of the broken edges would help settle the bone question and then people could focus more on the shape.  

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