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Micro-Matrix Incisor From The Peace River


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I've been making progress in the bucket of micro-matrix that gathered from a spot on the Peace River back in May when I made my last sojourn to sift there this season.

Looking through my 10x photographer's loupe with one eye while scanning the matrix was giving me a bad case of double vision if I gave into temptation and picked through more than a Solo cup full of micro-matrix. In attempt to find a technique easier on the eyes I purchased a 5MP digital microscope (basically a USB webcam with an adjustable magnifying lens). I found this too slow and cumbersome to use in my search for micro fossils but it does seem to be reasonably proficient in taking acceptable quality images of the finds.

I was struck with a brilliant thought yesterday (and I'm afraid I've probably now used up my quota of these for 2014). Being an old gray-haired codger now my eyes seem resistant to focusing on anything close-up. It's not that my eyes are too bad to read restaurant menus but my arms seem to be too short. ;) I do wear contact lenses to help me with my distance vision (and have for decades). I know that without my contacts in place that my close-up vision is actually pretty good after all. The epiphany yesterday was to simply tuck my contact lenses safely in their case and then use no magnifying optics at all to scan for micro fossils in my matrix. It turns out that with the aid of a good LED light that I can clearly spot and identify micros less than half a millimeter with the naked eye. This has greatly speeded-up the search through my micro-matrix and done away with the eye strain and double vision I was experiencing when searching under magnification.

This evening while relaxing with a fine sipping rum I searched my way through a plastic Solo cup full of micro-matrix. In addition to the usual very tiny shark teeth and ray plates I came across something novel (and I love novelty). It appears that this micro fossil might be a curved incisor of something mouse-like in size (and construction). Though it is difficult to show in photographs, one end (root) shows a bit of a hollow concavity and the other seems to show a beveled (occlusal) surface. I tried to include a scale in the images but the shiny surface reflected the circle of LED lights in a very distracting way. The actual length of this incisor is about 9mm if that helps to narrow down who could have formerly owned this bit of dentition.

I'm assuming something mouse-like but would be curious to hear if any on the Forum have any more detailed opinions.

Two sides:

post-7713-0-71643300-1403483238_thumb.jpg post-7713-0-62393700-1403483255_thumb.jpg

Cheers.

-Ken

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It's definitely some sort of small rodent, but I'm pretty sure that an exact ID is going to be nearly impossible...Most rodent incisors all look identical

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Absolutely a rodent upper incisor, size is in the mouse-vole-(small) rat neighborhood.

"There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant

“Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

>Paleontology is an evolving science.

>May your wonders never cease!

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Glad to know I'm at least in the right ballpark even if an exact species is likely not possible.

Interesting to see something different than tiny shark teeth. I saw someone else post a small rodent molar image found in some micro-matrix and I'd been hoping for something mammalian to counter the chondrichthyan and osteichthyan finds that were dominating the micro-matrix. It's something that never would have been left in my 1/4" mesh screen so it is interesting to see what novel finds were trying to pass under the radar.

Thanks for the rodent confirmation--my newest favorite find of the day.

Cheers.

-Ken

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Some rodent incisors are identifiable, but this doesn't happen to be one of them. Auspex is right - is is an upper. Upper incisors have a much tighter radius of curvature than do the lowers.

Sometimes thin sections will reveal structural details in the enamel which are distinctive to a species or genus or family. The patterns are called Schmelzmuster, and are based on the number and angle of the Hunter-Schreger bands. I just wanted to say those words. Schmelzmuster, Hunter-Schreger. Cool.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

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Thanks for the mini-lesson.

Under good magnification with a 10x loupe you can see the faint growth bands along the length of the tooth. Unfortunately they don't photograph well (with my existing setup). You can see a little bit of the banding in the first image above but not clearly.

Schmelzmuster--Hunter-Schreger--Schmelzmuster--Hunter-Schreger--Schmelzmuster--Hunter-Schreger

I think I have my new Word Worm for the day. Word worms are like ear worms but instead of a catchy hook from a song running through your brain endlessly all day they are words or phrases which rattle around your brain case like a golf ball in a tin bucket. Last month I was doing a little online research to try to find somewhere that I could go to hunt meteorites and while reading came across one of my favorite words: regmaglypt. When I left my keyboard to catch-up on some much needed weeding in the yard, my idling brain chorused this word over and over.

Schmelzmuster. Hunter-Schreger....I DO love this forum....

Cheers.

-Ken

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