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A Long Overdue Trip Report (featuring a week spent in the Texas Pleistocene and Eocene)


GPayton

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So it's slightly embarrassing to admit this, but after two years on the forum this is (finally) my first trip report. I've been inspired by the amazing trip write-ups that @Jared C has been giving all of us every week and figured that now that I've finally had a week of finds worth writing about this year that it was my turn to try my hand at the same. 

I'm 21 and still in the thick of college. I'm attending Baylor University as a Geology major right now after having switched majors at the end of my freshman year. I've always had a love for fossils and prehistoric life and for many, many years I would tell everyone I knew that I was going to grow up and be a paleontologist. Eventually that passion faded away, only to come roaring back during the early months of the COVID pandemic when I stumbled across my first mammoth bone while searching for (and failing to find) arrowheads along a section of river close to my home in southwest Houston. 

During a brief stint in Boy Scouts I had heard stories about mammoth bones being found in the area, but I never really believed them. I had always assumed that the only fossils to be found in Texas were in the Cretaceous and Permian rocks to the north and the west, and since I was a kid who was still young enough to rely on their parents to travel anywhere there was a fat chance of me ever getting to find any of them. But suddenly, with this one unidentifiable chunk of mammoth bone in my hand, I realized there was an entire world of fossils I had never known about not more than a 15 minute drive from my front porch. Needless to say, I was excited, and the next several months were a whirlwind of plotting locations on Google Maps, reading Hulbert's book on Florida fossil vertebrates cover to cover, scouring the USGS Pocket Texas geology map, and enduring more sunburns and mosquito bites than I ever thought possible for a single human being. The kid that was obsessed with dinosaurs had finally come back, and it wasn't long before I decided that this was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. 

 

So, with that overly-long explanation out of the way, let me tell you about last week! I've been swamped with work for the two math courses I've been taking for transfer credit all summer, but last week I was finally able to find some time to go out fossil hunting again. Anyone who's in Texas right now knows just how bad the heat has been lately. Fortunately for me that also meant my favorite river in the world was low enough to have hopefully exposed some more Pleistocene goodies. I returned to a spot close by that I'd been to before to try my luck and see if there was anything to be found. 

Now, while I didn't find anything that made my jaw hit the floor as I have in the past, I came away very satisfied and with a small collection of fossils that do a great job of representing the diversity of the vertebrate fauna in this part of Texas during the late Pleistocene. 

 

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A was the find of the day, and a first for me: a camelid toe bone (likely Hemiauchenia or Palaeolama based on a post in Fossil ID by @garyc several years ago). I picked it up on my way back up the riverbank and although it's not as heavily mineralized as I'd like, beggars can't be choosers! It was definitely the trip maker in my opinion. 

B and C are pieces of turtle plastron, the former from the hard-shelled variety and the latter from the soft-shelled one. If you don't know what the difference is, I recommend looking up a picture of a soft-shelled turtle - they look pretty funny. Identifying hard-shelled turtle shell fragments to species, or even genus, is near impossible unless the piece in question is diagnostic, like a nuchal section. Soft-shelled turtles are a little easier, since as far as I know Apalone ferox was the only one of its kind swimming around here during the late Pleistocene. 

Turtle shell fragments are easily the most common fossil I come across, possibly tied with horse fossils. I don't know for sure, but my theory is that it's an issue of preservation bias. Turtles already live in water and muddy areas, so when they die there's a greater chance that their bodies will end up in the type of environment that's conducive to creating fossils. They're also encased in a giant bony shell, meaning they simply have more "bones" than your average animal. Both of these factors taken together equals a LOT of fossilized turtle shell fragments scattered across the river. 

D is an osteoderm from the giant armadillo, Holmesina septentrionalis. They're one of my favorite Pleistocene animals. Although this is only my fifth osteoderm, they are much, much more common finds than those belonging to their much larger and more famous cousin the glyptothere, of which I only have one (and it's a hesitant ID at best). Just means I need to make more trips! 

E is a neural section from a turtle shell, the part that denotes where the spine is. 

F isn't anything special, just a piece of petrified wood that I found interesting because of the visible knot in the bark. 

G is a fragment of a mastodon tooth. It's not the best one I've ever found, but it still made me incredibly excited when I first saw it half-buried in the ground and hoped that I was only seeing a small portion of a much larger tooth, which I've still yet to find and is near the top of my bucket list. Here's an in-situ photo I took:

 

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H are two fragments of the incredibly common horse teeth that no trip to the river is complete without. 

And last but not least, I is a fragment of mammoth (or mastodon) tusk, recognizable by the criss-crossed Schreger lines along the interior cross section that unfortunately isn't visible in the photo. 

 

Several days later I would return to the river, this time in a different spot. After spending an hour or two with nothing to show for it, I began the long walk back to my car a little disappointed. On my way, however, I spotted an algae-covered rock that seemed much larger than the rocks that normally make up the gravel that covers the river's many sandbars.

 

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Acting on a hunch I dug it out and flipped it over. And just like that, the day was saved! Sitting in my hand was a mammoth carpal bone, the first complete mammoth bone I've ever come across. To make the situation even sweeter, the sandbar that's visible at the top of the picture below is the exact spot where I first found that one chunk of unidentifiable mammoth bone two years ago. 

 

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If I had found this bone when I had first started fossil hunting I would have had no idea what I was looking at. But having read many of the Peace River posts on here religiously in the past I had a pretty good idea of what I had found as I carried the surprisingly heavy bone back to my car. Once I got home, a quick search through the University of Michigan's online database of 3D fossil models proved me right:

 

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The bone was barely mineralized, if at all, so it was quite crumbly in spots, especially along the section that had been exposed above the ground when I first found it. It took several days sitting in the sun in my backyard for the water that had soaked through every pore at its center to finally dry up and leave it a whole pound lighter. I'll have to get around to consolidating it sometime soon when I have the time. As there's a pretty good chance I might get a job working at the famous Waco Mammoth Site this fall when I head back to school, I'll have plenty of expert advice on how to go about doing it the right way! :BigSmile:

 

 Near the end of the week I traveled back to Waco with my roommate to move everything out of our old apartment and into the new one that we'll be staying in this upcoming school year. But on the way I couldn't resist the temptation to stop at one of my favorite fossil spots in the state, the legendary Whiskey Bridge just west of College Station. 

I've been to Whiskey Bridge several times before in the past (once with the Dallas Paleontological Society), and although I am fond of the plentiful and exquisitely preserved gastropods that the site is so well-known for, I'm a vertebrate lover first and foremost. As such, as soon as I learned that shark teeth could be found amongst the Eocene-aged sediments under the bridge, it became my all-consuming quest to find one every time I visit. I've found several in the past, including a very nice tiger shark tooth. This time I didn't have much luck when it came to shark teeth in particular, but did have more success finding fish material than I've ever had in the past. 

First was an incredibly large (and incredibly sharp!) pectoral fin spine from some species of fish that I'll likely never know. I found it just sitting on top of a pile of loose dirt and at first assumed it was part of a twig. I kept it just to check later, and it seems to match some pictures I was able to find online, not to mention the shiny black coloring being the most noticeable feature of vertebrate material at the site.

 

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The fish spine was followed up by a half hour of diligently scouring the lines of shell hash in the upper reaches of the exposed river bank for shark teeth. According to a graduate student I met on the DPS field trip who had written a paper on another Eocene formation in Texas and had done more reading on the one exposed at Whiskey Bridge than I had, the shell hash is the best location for finding teeth as it represents periodic storm deposits. I didn't find any shark teeth this time, but did come across what I think is probably a barracuda/mackerel tooth (Scomberomorus) and a fragment of one from a stingray (Myliobatis). Here's some pictures of them in-situ, easily recognizable because of their glossy black preservation:

 

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Finally, as the sun was beginning to set, I saw something that made my heart stop. What looked like the exposed base of a crocodile tooth was sticking out of the side of one of the steep riverbank cliff faces.

 

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I didn't even know crocodile material could be found at the site, so I immediately took as many pictures as I could in case it was a significant find and began extracting it. Unfortunately, the surrounding sediment was more tough than I was expecting, and it came out in pieces just as the sun started to disappear over the horizon. 

With the "tooth" now in the palm of my hand, I realized that I was completely wrong about what I had been looking at - there was no point, or cutting edge, or any other features present that would tell me what I had was a tooth. Annoyed and more than a little disappointed, I trudged back up the hillside under the bridge with aching hands. 

It wasn't until I got to Waco that I did some research and found out that although I hadn't found something as exciting as a crocodile tooth, I had still found something that I had never seen at the bridge before. Apparently, there's a species of ray-finned fish from the Eocene that's still pretty poorly understood known as Cylindricanthus. Fossils like the one I had found are hypothesized to have been part of the rostrum at the end of the snout, somewhat similar to modern-day swordfish. Here's a post I found on here from ten years ago about a complete rostrum that someone also excavated from Whiskey Bridge: 

 

 

So all-in-all, a pretty successful trip! Other finds I didn't mention included a rare-ish species of gastropod that I had never seen before (Gegania antiquata), a nice example of a cone snail (Conus sauridens), some fish ear bones, what I think is a shrimp trace burrow, and what is probably a very, very small, and very, very worn-down shark tooth. Here's a photo of everything laid out together:

 

 

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Before I wrap up this very long trip report, I wanted to thank everyone here on the forum. You have all been so helpful and welcoming over these past two years and the advice and information I've been given has been invaluable. If I had never found this place I don't know if I would have ever decided that fossils were so important to me that I wanted to make a career out of studying and learning about them. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. 

- Graham 

 

 

 

 

Edited by GPayton
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Congrats on that carpal, Graham!  Nice report, sir.

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The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true.  -  JJ

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Great finds and great report, Graham!  You guys are gonna inspire me to do a trip report too one of these days.

 

Congrats on the carpal! Those can be so tough to ID in the field.  My brother-in-law gave me a hard time about lugging home a 'big rock' one day.  I was really excited to confirm it was a carpal at home using the Michigan database.  As for brother-in-law... Pretty sure he'll never be convinced, haha.

 

I'm jealous of your holmesina finds.  I've only found two osteoderms so far.  But they're some of my favorites.

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Always love reading your posts! That Cylindricanthus piece is awesome:default_faint:Looking forward to future trip reports to come. 

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AWESOME report. Now that I live in college station, let me know if you ever want to hunt together at the bridge

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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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Thanks for the well-wishes everybody! It means a lot. 

@Brandy Cole - don't worry about that brother-in-law, I can't count the number of times I've brought bones home to proudly show them off to my family only for them to react the same way. The best fossil I've ever found, a large section of horse jaw with four teeth still in their sockets, was one that I was incredibly excited to show off to anyone who would listen. As soon as I showed it to my mom and told her what it was, she looked at me in confusion and said "But we still have horses now, what's so special about it?" :BigSmile:

@garyc - I actually live in Sugar Land and have spent a decent amount of time out in the Richmond/Rosenberg area before; it's a wonder we haven't already accidentally run into each other while out hunting yet! When I'm back home and have the time, I'd love to take you up on that offer. I'd really appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the fossils around here from somebody who's been around them longer than I have. 

@Jared C - that's high praise coming from the master of trip reports! Some time this fall we've definitely got to get out to the bridge together, I'm still jealous of that Striatolamia you found!

Edited by GPayton
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@GPayton I would've been stoked at finding any large jaw section that still had intact teeth!  That's so rare in river and creek hunting. 

 

Ever since I learned about it, I've really loved the idea of horses roaming the prairie here before our recorded history and then returning to the same stomping grounds in modern times.  It's such a neat circle of life  story.

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