Swimming In Petalodus! PSoA Wilson Clay Pit Trip

[Mikrogeophagus]

Yesterday, I embarked on my second journey with the Austin Paleo Society to a famous spot: The Wilson Clay Pit. It's the site of a former clay quarry that was used for the production of bricks. Though it is in private hands, the land owners are very kind and allow fossil hunters to collect a diverse range of Pennsylvanian fossils on their property. One of prize finds from the pit is the highly-coveted Petalodus tooth. Some of y'all may remember me wishing to find one on my last trip to the Brownwood area, only to realize we weren't at the right sites to find them. Well, if there was a place to collect beautiful Petalodus teeth, it would be the Wilson Clay Pit. With that in mind, I excitedly set out on a starry night drive.

 

When I arrived, the sun had just beaten me to Brownwood. Temperatures in Central Texas dropped off recently, so we were looking at a frigid day just above freezing. Everyone was covered head to toe in heavy duty winter wear. Nevertheless, optimism was high, so I didn't hear much complaining! When we got to the site, I was blown away by its dramatic terrain. All of the previous quarry work had created huge artificial mounds of gravel and slabs filled with a variety of vibrant colors. In my opinion, it didn't have the beauty of a natural landscape, rather, the inner fossil-hunter in me was simply in awe of the virtually limitless acreage of huntable ground. Exposed randomly throughout was the Harpersville Formation and Saddle Creek Limestone. After @erose gave us a brief introduction to the site, we all disappeared our own ways into the vast, maze-like property.

 

Notice how there's no one else in the pictures? The pit is huge. If it weren't for the greenery, you might think it's Mars.

 

Most people headed off to one side of the entrance or went straight to the back. I was drawn more to the opposing side where there was a huge mound to climb. My goal was to find a spot that hadn't been touched by previous hunters (some mentioned that the Houston club may have been there recently already), so I was trying to get to places a bit more tedious to reach. Crawling up the gravelly incline, I wiped out within the first ten minutes. Luckily, when I turned around, everyone was already gone . From there, things started off a bit slow. I was scanning the ground, picking up anything mildly interesting since it was all new to me. It took a thousand crinoid stems before my eyes locked onto the bright white color of what could be the "porcelain" appearance of enamel. Nope, just bird poop. This cycle repeated five times before I finally found my first undeniable chip of Petalodus!

 

Lots of Petalodus chunks to be had. These are only the ones I decided to keep!

 

I took this to be a sign that virgin ground was finally reached and immediately got to being more thorough in my search. Pretty soon, the tiny teeth bits became more common than the bird poop and my intensity increased accordingly. After a solid 15 minutes of following the cookie crumbs, I was met with a sight that stole my breath. Before me lay a stone with a giant Petalodus perfectly prepped by natural weathering. It was a hundred times better than what I had expected coming into the day. I quickly snapped a photo and got to carefully packaging it in my backpack. Already, my trip was made.

 

An awesome Petalodus specimen. The tooth is about 45 mm across and 54 mm from top to bottom.

 

The day was still young, so I got back up and went to searching. I think my eyes were only attuned to sharky things as those were what I was picking up the most. My bias towards white objects paid off even more as I accumulated a small collection of Deltodus fragments. I like that their white color contrasts nicely with the black Deltodus I found in my last PSoA trip.

 

 

Halfway through the day, I looped back around to the entrance where I decided it would be best to drop off my prize find, in case I wiped out again later. Because of my vertebrate success from earlier, I set myself to make some invertebrate finds and give balance to my collecting. I found that the purple layer was invertebrate rich and had heard of the possibility for crinoid calyxes, trilobites, conularids, and more. Climbing up and sliding down the purple slopes was blast. There was often something new to reward the effort and my pockets were quickly heavy with brachiopods, crinoid material, and horn corals. 

 

This is not edited. The stuff really is this purple.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn't making any out of this world finds on the invertebrate side, so I instead continued my search while also hiking around the entire perimeter of the pit. The eastern border extended pretty far. As I traveled that way, I noticed more and more chert covering the ground. Some had mentioned arrowheads being found on that side of the property, but I didn't see much worked material. As I circled around, I decided to say screw it with the inverts and go back to searching for teeth. I began inspecting rocks of similar appearance to the ones in which I had found teeth before and made a breakthrough. I couldn't believe it when I spotted the crowns of two decently sized Petalodus poking out of two separate boulders.

 

 

Unfortunately, the limestone was very tough and I knew that getting them out without shattering them would be nearly impossible. My time would be better spent looking for more accessible ones; if there were two that could be found just like that, then surely there were many more nearby. After showing the teeth to Brian, another PSoA member, we both went on a quest to find a perfect specimen that could pop out. As I travelled up the adjacent mound, I did find a decently sized Petalodus, though most of the crown was missing from weathering. It came out in one piece, but I decided to give it away. Not so long after, I followed up with a beautiful smaller tooth that was entirely burnt orange. In my excitement, I forgot to take an in situ pic and immediately began planning a method of attack. Of course, such an awesome find just had to be buried under a thorn bush. Brian was a great help, pulling away the thorny branches so I could get in and make some swings with the hammer and chisel. It took some work, but the durable limestone eventually gave way and the chunk with the tooth came out. After gathering myself, I noticed that some of the root had splintered off. I did manage to locate one piece of it, but the rest was nowhere to be found. Can't win em all, but still happy with it nonetheless.

 

Another beautiful Petalodus. This one is 37 mm wide and 33 mm tall.

 

By then the sun was setting. Most of the group had already gone home, so it was just me, Brian, and Melvin atop the mound. We had some nice discussion, but I think we were all a bit worn out from a day's worth of running around this fossil hunter's paradise. The weather, too, had gotten tired of strangling us with cold, and a final gentle breeze flowed passed the hilltop. God rays poked out from the Westerly clouds to illuminate the distant expanse of greenery I hadn't noticed until then. The moment was nice. After saying our goodbyes, I was a little dejected seeing that I would soon no longer live in Austin and would thus miss out on a lot of future club activities. PSoA has got a really great community, and I'm glad I was there to experience a bit of it firsthand. Luckily, they do have a lot of trips far away from Austin, so I'm sure we will meet again for a future adventure, someday, once they travel close by my neighborhood. 

 

Until then, here are some pics of my finds from my latest PSoA field trip:

 

Petalodus ohioensis? teeth

 

Bryozoans, horn corals, and fusunilids

 

Archaeocidarid plate, crinoid arm (Delocrinus) and stem, and a couple of oddities (perhaps conularid or Poterioceras cephalopod fragments?)

 

Straparollus? gastropod and some gastropod from the order Bellerophontida

 

Whole lot of brachiopods. I think bottom center is Meekella. Is that rare? I only found one.

 

Big purple bivalve

 

Shark family photo

 

Thanks for reading!

Edited November 21, 2022 by EPIKLULSXDDDDD
Grammar

[old bones]

Wow! Excellent finds. That sure does look like a fun place to hunt.

[deutscheben]

Nice finds, those Petalodus have a lot of character!

[sixgill pete]

Very nice, guess you could have called this topic Petalodus pudding!! 

[Nimravis]

Great report and finds.

[historianmichael]

Nice haul from a famous locality. PSoA is a great group of people. I hope you get a chance to meet up with them again.

[connorp]

Great finds. Thanks for sharing.

[JohnJ]

I love the steeper slopes out there.  Really cool finds.  

[Shellseeker]

Nice,  always like to get an artist rendition of what the beastie might have looked like...

 

 

[Mikrogeophagus]

@Shellseeker When I show my friends the tooth, they tend to first imagine a cool looking shark to go with it. I always hesitate to pull up an artist rendition because then that original badass mental image gets instantly swept away by the goofy monstrosity that you've shared... . Petalodus could really use some love from the paleoart community 

[PaleoPastels]

WOW let me just say Im SO happy for you!  I remember our chats about you wanting to find one! Ive been off the forum a few days, delighted to come back and see you found your prize! Congrats, man! You have so many of the little treasures… wow. The nature out there looks BEAUTIFUL as well! Gotta love the paleo societies here, was recently with Roger at DPS on a private trip and guides are super helpful- I learned SO much. 
 

(offer still stands if you want to meetup/hunt somewhere btw !) 

[Mikrogeophagus]

@AmmoniteDelight This is definitely an all-time favorite trip! It won't be my last visit to the site that's for sure... I've got too many invertebrate boxes to check off. And you're right that this place has a strange beauty of its own. We should definitely meet up once I'm back in DFW! I'll message you when I'm in town.

[erose]

Man-O-man!  You really did find the best teeth that day! We soooo lucked out and it didn't rain.  Rain on the drive back was nasty.  I'm sure we will see you around.

[LSCHNELLE]

Great finds! Nice that you were able to persevere through the cold weather and come away with some excellent fossils.

[bthemoose]

What a haul! Thanks for sharing the photos and experience.

[ThePhysicist]

On 11/20/2022 at 4:31 PM, EPIKLULSXDDDDD said:

... WOW.  Thanks for sharing! 

[Jeffrey P]

You totally killed it with fantastic teeth. Congratulations. Wilson Clay Pit is an amazing site when the conditions are right. Thanks for sharing your success.

[thair]

Nice finds. I wish I had known y’all were coming so I could have met y’all. I live here and haven’t been out there in a while 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The teeth are quite nice, but I love those brachiopods. 

[Mikrogeophagus]

3 hours ago, thair said:

Nice finds. I wish I had known y’all were coming so I could have met y’all. I live here and haven’t been out there in a while 

It was a blast with PSoA. Luckily they go about once a year so the next trip is never too far out. HGMS is also out there but not sure on their schedule.

 

22 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

The teeth are quite nice, but I love those brachiopods. 

the best sites are the ones with a little something for everyone .

[Gizmo]

Very nice, congrats!

[JamieLynn]

well now I am especially bummed I didn't get to go this time!! Great finds! You cleaned up!