Sharktooth Hill Weirdness

[siteseer]

I thought I would post a couple of photos of some unusual Sharktooth Hill Bonebed fossils. The first one is an unknown though now I think it's a cone. I showed it to a friend who helped me clean it by putting it in his ultrasonic cleaner. He wasn't sure but he also noticed what appears to be an attachment point at the top.

It's abut 2 1/16 inches high (approx. 5.1cm).

For years, it was partly covered in matrix and sat in a box with my bony fish stuff. I thought it might be some weird "growth" or other unfamiliar fish part. I decided to clean it earlier this year.

It's the kind of fossil I'd like to CT scan and I might have a friend who can get that done for me.

I'm open to alternative identifications. I have seen land plant material from the bonebed. Like the land mammal material found there, it was apparently carried downriver and floated out some distance into the ocean before sinking.

Edited January 4, 2013 by siteseer

[siteseer]

Here's a baby tooth of a C. megalodon from the Sharktooth Hill Bonebed. I've only seen a couple of these from there.

[Just Bob]

I could definitely see it being some type of plant materiel. We find lots of lignite in the Inversand marl pit in NJ. In fact we found a log there this summer. And the pit was estimated to be anywhere between 5-10 miles from the shoreline during the cretaceous. With that said might it be coprolite?

[donckey]

Does it have a very light weight? Cause it looks a bit like Amber

[Auspex]

I could go along with Just Bob's #2 suggestion.

[fossil26]

Hi Siteseer,

Not 100 percent sure, but it looks like coprolite to me too. I see a lot of it in the bonebed.

Nice baby megalodon tooth!

Lisa

[Boesse]

Siteseer,

Have you contemplated the possibility that it might represent a swollen tooth root of a large odontocete? There are some odontocetes with swollen tooth roots (often mistakenly identified as "Prosqualodon") of that shape. Additionally, the radiating pattern appears to be the base of a broken off crown.

It doesn't look like a coprolite at all to me, because it appears to be a tad translucent and therefore 'crystalline' (e.g. dentine).

Bobby

[siteseer]

Bobby,

No, I didn't think it was a tooth but I can see what you're saying. I have seen some teeth of the form you're talking about and the root can be quite swollen but I've never seen one with the weird bumpy texture before. I guess the radiating pattern could be a crown base as you will find roots without crowns and isolated crowns. I have an isolated crown that has that cleanly sheared-off look and it shows that pattern. It also fits well enough with that base to suggest you may be right.

i didn't think it was coprolite but have heard collectors mention finding them in the bonebed.

Jess

Siteseer,

Have you contemplated the possibility that it might represent a swollen tooth root of a large odontocete? There are some odontocetes with swollen tooth roots (often mistakenly identified as "Prosqualodon") of that shape. Additionally, the radiating pattern appears to be the base of a broken off crown.

It doesn't look like a coprolite at all to me, because it appears to be a tad translucent and therefore 'crystalline' (e.g. dentine).

Bobby

[siteseer]

Hi Lisa,

That's the baby megalodon I told you about a few weeks ago. I thought I would post a photo where everyone could see it.

Jess

Hi Siteseer,

Not 100 percent sure, but it looks like coprolite to me too. I see a lot of it in the bonebed.

Nice baby megalodon tooth!

Lisa

[siteseer]

No, it has a heavier weight than a piece of amber that size. It does have that amber look but that's just a kind of preservation seen in some fossils in the STH Bonebed.

Does it have a very light weight? Cause it looks a bit like Amber