My Current Research--stone City Fm/whiskey Bridge--explanation

[silverphoenix]

Well I have to admit that I've made a big deal about my research lately having to do with the Stone City Fm and how I don't want people looking for the spot I've been working. I figure I'd do a little explaining.

First of all, I am Currently working on sorting out the last cup of microfossil matrix from Calvert Bluff Fm and I am simultaneously sorting out species into smaller vials and trying to identify them. After I am 100% done with the picking (in about a week), my "set work plan" is composed of pin-mounting each publishable specimen, and then IDing/finish identifying each specimen, taking photos, and putting them (along with all valuable info) into about a 40 page or so paper depending on the biodiversity of the site sample. The paper will be submitted to the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology after it has been tweeked to death.

My second project, which will receive my full attention after I'm through with the first site, will be the Stone City Formation. While it is by far the oldest discovered site in Texas and has been extensively documented over the years, there is very little information on the vertebrates found there. Besides this, the documentation that has been done is for the most part poorly done and lacking proper specimen photographs. Not to mention that there are still undiscovered/unpublished vertebrates there.

I started out collecting at the Stone City Fm/Whiskey Bridge a while back, but about 3 weeks ago, I decided that the scientific information that can be discovered intrigues me even more than increasing my collection size. So basically, everything I collect/have collected is open to research in Texas A&M's paleobiology lab in this new project. The project will be a study of the vertebrates found at the Stone City Fm--specifically in the storm bed in the upper Eocene layer that I'm working on.

The excavation of the site goes like this: I dig out the 3 inch storm bed layer, scoop it up, put it in a white shallow cardboard box to pick out the large stuff, break up the chunks, run everything through 1/2" wire mesh (then go through what gets caught in it and pull out the verts), then run it through a 1/4" wire mesh (and go through and pick out the verts) onto a window screen (bag it) and sift what falls through the window screen on #40 mesh splatter screens (then bag that). I carefully package the larger specimens in cotton in pill bottles for transport back. When I get the material back, I wash the vertebrate fossils (teeth/plates/bones/etc) over a container, put them on a towel to dry, then carefully repair what is broken with super glue. The dirt that was washed off/out of the fossils is then sifted on the #40 mesh and dried to be gone through. The vertebrates are then sorted and stored in a compartmentalized plastic box for when I start the project. The microfossil material I bring back is then washed on it's respective screen, dried for 2 days in the sun, soaked in H2O2 for an hour, washed over it's respective screen, then left to dry for a day in the sun, then bagged and labeled so it can be gone through under a microscope in the lab. I'm taking the microfossil material I've collected to the lab tomorrow...and the process will continue.

Once I have finished digging out the storm bed, I will go through the matrix and repeat the process I described for the Calvert Bluff Fm. Besides this, I will take all bone with new breaks out of the window-screen size material and try to match it to previously pulled out vertebrates that have broken/fallen apart in modern times (a shark tooth may get caught in the 1/4" screen, but half it's root fall through onto the window screen--I have to find the root so I can repair the tooth--and I often do pick out the piece just by eyeing it after screen washing).

Anyways, this is what I'm up to. I get to keep anything that's not important, but anything that has any scientific value or that can have isotopes for climate studies derived from it will be donated to the paleobiology lab where I work each week.

I will ghost-mark the site this week where I'm working, so if anyone starts digging there, they'll know it before they've disrupted anything. When I start the paper here in about august on the Stone City Fm., I would appreciate any help offered. If anyone has found fossil turtle or other vertebrate remains and is willing to participate, then pictures would be appreciated at the time and possibly specimens donated.

I will provide links to the papers I write as they are finished and I will post my finds as usual.

Hope this wasn't too long winded, but I wanted to explain the situation fully so no one thought I was just being stingy about the my "dig sites". I encourage everyone to collect and I have nothing against it--I understand both the collecting and the academic side, so I'm right in the middle--I just really need this one layer collected in it's entirety for this research.

[jkfoam]

Silverphoenix,

I can certainly agree with you about the published literature concerning the Stone City Formation (and other Claiborne formations). While invertebrates have been extensively studied and reported the vertebrates have, for the most part been ignored. I haven't done a literature search on the vertebrates lately and the last things I remember was D.L. Frizzell's work on the Otoliths. Personally I don't have much interest in vertebrates except when they are found in a formation in which I do have an interest.

I look forward with interest to your future paper on the vertebrates at the Stone City Bluff. I am sure it will answere many questions I have about some of the fossils I have found there.

After collecting in the Texas Claiborne for a few years I had accumulated a bunch of the Otoliths. For a long time I thought there were just two species to be found, the Ekokena epporecta and Corvina gemma. Well when I closely looked at my accumulation I found that I must have about 8-9 different species. Thats when I did my literature search which led me to the identification of most of my collection and the realization that several of the species I have had not been described before.

I have pictured below the most unusual otoliths I have ever found. I found them at a location on the Trinity River. What makes them unusual is that while all the otoliths I had previously found were composed of a calcarious phosphatic composition brown to tan in color these otoliths were Corvina gemma and they were composed of common opal being a white translucent composition. They were also 4-5 times larger than any Corvina gemma I had ever found being about 7/8 inches on the long axis.

Below is a photo of the large otolith and a typical otolith

JKFoam