Trip To The Nc Oligocene (With A Touch Of Miocene/pliocene Overburden)

[sixgill pete]

Took a trip with he NCFC last Friday to an Oligocene quarry here in eastern NC. Belgrade Formation. There are also some pockets of Miocene/Pliocene/Pleistocene overburden in the form of a rocky layer. Did fairly well.

There were several other Fossil Forum members on this trip also, so maybe they wil post there finds here. I had to leave a little earlier than most as I had to go to work. Bummer. I did see a couple of 2-3 inch worn megs from the rocky layer, as well as 2 squalodon type teeth from this same layer. I found 2 beautiful makos in this layer, great shape, great colors. The larger about 1 7/8 inch and the smaller 1 1/8 inch. Also I fund a worn C. angustidens about 2 1/8 inch with great colors. Along with a cow shark tooth. It is broken, but is an extremely rare find from this formation (Belgrade) and I was really stoked about it. A couple nice shark verts, ray teeth, nice hemi's and a Galeocerdo casei. This is a tiger shark tooth known only from the Belgrade formation. Another NCFC member, not a forum member, found a really nice mammal tooth also that I believe is deer.

All the good stuff .........

The culls .......

Lingual side of the makos and C. angustidens ....

[sixgill pete]

Labial side of the makos, angstidens and cow shark .......

As you can see there is also a small croc tooth, a dolphin vert and another of the mystery fish teeth I have found there. I will address this in a different post.

[megaholic]

Good job Don, sorry I missed that!

[TyrannosaurusRex]

Wow! All I can say is WOW!!!!!

[Al Dente]

Here are some of my finds from the trip. The first is the oyster Striostrea (Crassostrea) gigantissima. At this quarry there is a layer of these that lived on the hardground at the top of the River Bend - Belgrade Formation contact. The second picture is the caudal sting of a stingray. There are a lot of stingray teeth and caudal stings in this quarry.

There are also a lot of Anoxypristis sawfish rostral teeth. Here is one that is next to a nice Oligocene limpet, possibly Diodora pumpellyi. The next picture is a Hemipristis tooth, probably H. serra. I found a lot of these this trip.

[Al Dente]

Here is a nice croc tooth on a pedestal of dirt. The next picture is a dugong rib section.

This Great White shark tooth is probably from the Pliocene. There is a pebble lag that contains mix of marine and land fossils. On the way out of the quarry I saw a Rough Green Snake Opheodrys aestivus.

[jcbshark]

Wow Don, the colors on those makos are really nice ! Love the GW tooth too Eric : )

[sixgill pete]

Thanks for the possible ID on that limpet Eric. I also found a couple nice ones. I also did find quite a few Hemipristis on this trip.

Edited October 21, 2014 by sixgill pete

[masonboro37]

Your finds are great Don. I just saw this and I had already posted on my Summer/Fall Excursion reports. That was a great trip!

Edited October 25, 2014 by masonboro37

[masonboro37]

Here is a nice croc tooth on a pedestal of dirt. The next picture is a dugong rib section.

croctooth.jpg dugong.jpg

This Great White shark tooth is probably from the Pliocene. There is a pebble lag that contains mix of marine and land fossils. On the way out of the quarry I saw a Rough Green Snake Opheodrys aestivus.

greatwhite.jpg green2.jpg

Al Dente, beautiful Croc tooth and pic's.

Lib