Last Collecting Trip Of Year? Maybe...then Again

[geofossil]

The last trip out to the badlands this season? It was a good one. Everything is all washed up, drying on paper towells and ready to be curated. Most of the material is dino. Most of the 'bits' are dino teeth in piles according to family. There is, however a few non-dino specimens such as croc teeth, myledaphus teeth, and Lepidosteus scales The 'stuff' in the upper sheet diesn't look like much from the angle but are mostly hadrosaur and ceratopsian phalanges. there's also some non-descript looking Ankylosaur scutes and ossicles at the bottom.

No snowy weather in the forecast but the issue between mid November and late February is mostly the amount of daylight. The low angle of the sun is actually good for finding fossils but it also pulls the eyeballs out of the sockets after a few hours. Some of our badlands are desert and the cold isn't much of an issue....as long as it's dry and, of course, no snow. I suppose only a fossil nut is out in the Canadian winter looking to get his 'fossil fix'... but almost certain come December and January we'll be saying 'hey, it's sunny and not so cold, up to minus 10c so do you want to go fussil hunting

[Gatorman]

Very cool hope you can make it out a few more times.

[Mike Owens]

The last trip out to the badlands this season? It was a good one. Everything is all washed up, drying on paper towells and ready to be curated. Most of the material is dino. Most of the 'bits' are dino teeth in piles according to family. There is, however a few non-dino specimens such as croc teeth, myledaphus teeth, and Lepidosteus scales The 'stuff' in the upper sheet diesn't look like much from the angle but are mostly hadrosaur and ceratopsian phalanges. there's also some non-descript looking Ankylosaur scutes and ossicles at the bottom.

No snowy weather in the forecast but the issue between mid November and late February is mostly the amount of daylight. The low angle of the sun is actually good for finding fossils but it also pulls the eyeballs out of the sockets after a few hours. Some of our badlands are desert and the cold isn't much of an issue....as long as it's dry and, of course, no snow. I suppose only a fossil nut is out in the Canadian winter looking to get his 'fossil fix'... but almost certain come December and January we'll be saying 'hey, it's sunny and not so cold, up to minus 10c so do you want to go fussil hunting

Now that would be a fun trip! Great finds! Actually winter is the best time to hunt here in Texas. Most of my good finds are searching areas that are grown over in the Summer & become bare in the Winter. Don't know if I could handle that Canadian cold, but I'd love to give it try. Again -- excellant finds.

[Northern Sharks]

Great haul. Finding stuff like that, and that much of it, would take the chill off a bit wouldn't it? I just found out about a Silurian deposit not too far from me, but I think I'll wait until the spring to go exploring.

[milou115]

Thanks to share the photos of your fossils !

What you have found is amazing !

See you

Mil'

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Geo

Now those are some killer finds! I think that I subscribe to your obsessive/compulsive manner of collecting. I've been known to collect with a flashlight when winter robs me of daylight or just to justify the cost of a long trip. I've hunted alone with a 24 foot extension ladder on the edge of busy highway roadcuts 400 miles from home (and had the ladder slide 18 inches as I left fingernail marks in the sheer wall), employed the use of various motorized and human powered floatables in the name of fossils, trashed rechargeable circular saws cutting chalk in the field, etc. I've driven solo as far as 400 miles each way, collected 10-12 hours, then turned around and run home the same day, getting pulled over not for speeding, but for weaving...

[geofossil]

Geo

Now those are some killer finds! I think that I subscribe to your obsessive/compulsive manner of collecting. I've been known to collect with a flashlight when winter robs me of daylight or just to justify the cost of a long trip. I've hunted alone with a 24 foot extension ladder on the edge of busy highway roadcuts 400 miles from home (and had the ladder slide 18 inches as I left fingernail marks in the sheer wall), employed the use of various motorized and human powered floatables in the name of fossils, trashed rechargeable circular saws cutting chalk in the field, etc. I've driven solo as far as 400 miles each way, collected 10-12 hours, then turned around and run home the same day, getting pulled over not for speeding, but for weaving...

Ha! Ha!. More details, please. Still laughing. We could do one of theose comedy skits that begins 'If you think you're a fossil addict then you haven't heard anything. Did I tell you the time that......'.

My wife and I had rode our mountain bikes into the badlands about 5 kms and then walked another hour or so before I found this nice compact dino femur. Weighed about 50 lbs or so. We rarely collect anything that weighs more than a couple of pounds. We pass the the femur on the way back to our bikes and I decided to try and carry it out. A couple hours later and half dead from the heat and exhaustion of going up and down hoodoos, we reached our bikes. I had the femur strapped to my back and was labouriously peddling along when the front wheel dropped in a gopher hole, stopped the bike dead, and I went head first over the handle bars and tumbled down about a 20 foot slope. My wife said i was laying on the ground but all I was moaning was 'is the fossil okay....is the fossil okay'. She stuck a few bandaids on me, pulled out some cacti spines with our ever-on-hand tweezers and, recovered, continued on our way. The femur was fine...I was more or less fine and today we have the specimen on one our shelves. It's a decent bone, nothing to get too excited about, but is a testament to fossil collecting fever.

[Gatorman]

Haha you guys are dangerous

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Last weekend I had a buddy out on a river in my boat and had engine trouble. The thing just wouldn't start. I ripped the cowl off, shot in starting fluid to no avail. Finally I changed the plug realizing we had no spark and the thing sputtered to a start. With daylight waning I left the cowl off and ran downstream several miles, dumping my buddy on a bar and continuing on. At dusk a lightning storm hit. I didn't have a poncho or even a hat. Rain sucks when you wear glasses. My buddy is undergoing dialysis and has tubes in his chest. He warned me before we went out that he couldn't get them wet, so I hauled butt upstream in a torrential downpour and ultimately picked him up soaked to the bone. With water coming in from the sky and through the hole in the hull back by the transom I bailed fast with a topless Gatorade bottle as darkness fell and the current picked up. Ultimately we got back to the bridge, hooked a rope up to my truck, and spun the tires in the mud until the boat was back up the bank. We didn't find much but we were high on adventure. I'm glad we didn't try to wait out the rain in the dark and then run back because the river spiked 5-6 feet and the current would have overpowered my little boat and motor loaded as we were with 2 guys. My best find was a cool section of horse jaw set in sandstone conglomerate matrix with 2 molars intact. I scribed away a little matrix to reveal the occlusal surfaces and now have a cool free standing specimen display.

Ma Nature can throw you some curves at times. Lightning bolts dropping all around you is no fun when sitting in the biggest piece of metal around. While engine problems can be a big potential snag, especially when running downstream, my other concerns include swamping the boat, breaking shear pins, twisting or breaking an ankle, falls, broken glass and rusty metal and stagnant water can all ruin your day and your health, or worse yet, someone beat you to your site after all that effort! I've had to stone wild hogs, territorial cattle, dogs, and even tangled with a 6.5 foot rattler with my trusty rock hammer (see previous thread elsewhere on this site). Heck, one day I got too close to some Texas critters while flipping rocks including a snake, 2 scorpions, and a black widow. It was a rainy day and as if the critters weren't enough, I had a 300 pound slide of mud and rock miss me by about 30 seconds after I walked by when working a road cut in the Walnut formation. Had I been in the wrong place I would have heard the slide and looked up just in time to see this deluge of geology in motion as it hit my square in the face, snapped my neck, and dumped me backwards at the foot of the exposure.

Why can't all the good fossils just jump into my truck?

[geofossil]

Danwoehr, good grief, a kindred spirit. The crazy part is then we'll do it all over :lol:

A friend and I did a quick three day swing through southern Alberta and eastern Montana. It was mid May so lots of daylight. 16 hours of daylight means 16 hours of collecting! What? Why waste the other 8 hours sleeping...one of us can drive and the other one nap. Yes, the pickings were fantastico. The third day we're exhauseted but still on fosil-collecting-adrenalin and going to try a new spot just inside the Montana border before crossing back into Canada at the Wild Horse border crossing. We spend a lot of time spread out on the ground looking for micro vertebrates...little teeth and so on. Sure enough, we fall asleep in the 90c temperatures. We wake up and drive like maniacs to the border at Wild Horse which closes at 5PM. Well, we arrive just as it's closing...by that time we looked like unwashed crazies. The US fellow (who sort of knows us) unlocks the gate for us and waves to the Canadian custom guard not to bother stopping us. I say 'thanks' and he says don't thank him but the little fellow stuck to my friend's neck. Sure enough it's a tick and there's no way either boarder guard wants to mess with us. We get across the Canadian gate, strip down and find a few more hitchhikers. The two guards are bursting their sides laughing. Fortunately the population in that part of country area is zero except for the guards and they weren't offended by our sudden nudity.

I've stepped on rattlers, been hissed at by a cougar, backed off from lots of Grizzlies, but TICKS. Yuck! Give me a Grizzly I can see any day over a dastardly tick that I can feel crawling up my neck whether it's really there or not.

[worthy 55]

Great outing!!!!!!! :cool: :cool:

[Geo Pete]

The last trip out to the badlands this season? It was a good one. Everything is all washed up, drying on paper towells and ready to be curated. Most of the material is dino. Most of the 'bits' are dino teeth in piles according to family. There is, however a few non-dino specimens such as croc teeth, myledaphus teeth, and Lepidosteus scales The 'stuff' in the upper sheet diesn't look like much from the angle but are mostly hadrosaur and ceratopsian phalanges. there's also some non-descript looking Ankylosaur scutes and ossicles at the bottom.

No snowy weather in the forecast but the issue between mid November and late February is mostly the amount of daylight. The low angle of the sun is actually good for finding fossils but it also pulls the eyeballs out of the sockets after a few hours. Some of our badlands are desert and the cold isn't much of an issue....as long as it's dry and, of course, no snow. I suppose only a fossil nut is out in the Canadian winter looking to get his 'fossil fix'... but almost certain come December and January we'll be saying 'hey, it's sunny and not so cold, up to minus 10c so do you want to go fussil hunting

Which formations did you visit? Looks like an outstanding adventure. I visited Alberta just last month to see the Tyrell Museum...worth the enormous drive, I must say!