Rattlesnake Creek Rendezvous

[digit]

Well, the Peace River was still about 7 feet too high to consider dipping a sifter in it (much less trying to stand upright against the current) so my wife and I set our sights on an alternative destination for our anniversary weekend. Yup, that's right--if you marry well you can actually go fossil hunting as part of your anniversary celebration. In the end we decided upon, not Niagara Falls nor Acapulco, but the relatively closer destination of Gainesville, Florida. We've been wanting to visit with Dr. Richard Hulbert, Collections Manager and Coordinator of the Program of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History located on the campus of the University of Florida campus in Gainesville and so we thought we'd make a long weekend of it. I'll post more about our visit to the FLMNH collections in a separate topic soon.

Once we decided upon Gainesville as a destination we contacted TFF member Khyssa to see if she was available for some hunting in Rattlesnake Creek which, thankfully, she was. We rendezvoused at a local park nearby where we would go hunting (easier for us to find) an then headed off to Rattlesnake Creek. The trick to hunting any of the many creeks that run through Gainesville is to find a good access point. For those unfamiliar with Gainesville (which, I admit, includes me) there is a nice PDF available online produced by the City of Gainesville:

https://www.cityofgainesville.org/Portals/0/plan/docs/GIS_Creek_Names.pdf

The location we arrived at to explore Rattlesnake Creek must be well known by both the people of Gainesville and the local government as they have provided numerous parking spaces along both sides of the road where it crosses the creek. We parked, changed into shoes that we didn't mind getting wet, grabbed our shovels and sifting gear and scrambled down the slope to the culvert. Anybody considering sifting in these creeks should be wearing shoes with sturdy soles as there is a crazy amount of broken glass--remnants of those with little respect for the natural beauty of wild places. Some people have decided they needed to "beautify" the culvert and overpass by tagging it liberally with multi-chromatic grafitti. We passed through the culvert and emerged on the other side where there is a gravel bed a very short distance from where we had parked. This was important as my main goal was to collect some Rattlesnake Creek micro-matrix and buckets of gravel get mighty heavy when lugging them back to the car.

We soon got down to work collecting the micro-matrix. I had brought along the same setup I've used before on the Peace River and Cookiecutter Creek. This consists of two of my normal sifters (one with 1/4" mesh screen and one with the larger and sturdier 1/2" mesh). The process is pretty basic--I place a piece of window screen material (1/20" openings on that mesh) inside the lower sifter and then stack the sifter with the 1/4" mesh on top of that. Then I toss in a few shovels full of sand and gravel dug up from the gravel bed on which we were working. In an area with deeper water it would be relatively easy to use the water to sort the gravel and sand through the sifters. The creek here was only a few inches deep and so with the help of a flexible plastic bucket I was able to scoop up some water and pour it over the sifter stack. This took a lot more time than sifting waist deep in the Peace River and was also much more tough on the lower back (and every single joint below that). Progressing slowly I was able to wash the finer material from the upper sifter into the lower one. Once most of the small stuff had passed through I took the coarser gravel (> 1/4") over to the sand bar where my wife had a quick look through it for larger items. I then shook the lower sifter to get most of the finer sand to pass through the inserted window screen. Once it was relatively sand-free I then picked up the piece of window screen by the corners and carried it over to my waiting bucket where it was dumped. I repeated this process till my 2-gallon bucket was filled (maybe a dozen or more times). I then lugged this bucket up to the larger 5-gallon bucket waiting in my car's trunk. Since the car was nearby it was easy to repeat this over and over till I had all the micro-matrix I felt I needed.

-Ken

[digit]

The larger fossils are pretty sparse here compared to sifting in parts of the Peace River. Also different from Peace River sifting is it seems that the fossil deposits that Rattlesnake Creek cuts through (and deposits into convenient gravel beds) mostly look like they are from a marine layer. Where you might conceivably turn up a shark tooth, turtle shell fragment, and a horse molar in a single sifting screen in the Peace (from the marine/freshwater/terrestrial layers), here we mainly found smaller shark teeth and ray tooth plates. We did find some small bone chunks (many likely from dugong or other marine inhabitants).

The interesting thing about the teeth that we were seeing in Rattlesnake Creek was the colors. Whereas the shark teeth from the Peace River are most usually found in shades of black/gray many of the teeth from Rattlesnake Creek showed lighter cream colors (especially in the roots) and with blades tinged with red or orange. These colors more than made up for the teeth being less common and smaller than in some other areas I've sifted.

While the teeth were usually smaller--mainly around 1 cm (~1/2")--we did come across a really nice hemi (Hemipristis serra) that was every bit of 4 cm (~1.5") along its long side. It is pictured below with a tiny little tooth that we found still attached to the matrix.

In addition to shark teeth we came up with lots and lots of ray mouth plates. We found one piece of a ray mouthplate that still had parts of three tooth plates sutured together in their original configuration. Associated tooth plates like this are surprisingly uncommon (they must not be connected very solidly). It was also nice to find a couple of interesting dermal denticles that once would have have contained spiny "thorns" just under the skin along the backs of several species of rays.

The find of the day though was made by my wife Tammy. While sorting through a screen of gravel she spotted a larger tooth that was distinctly non-shark in its appearance. It was a bit beat up but easily cinched the competition for the "trip-maker" find of the day. We puzzled what this tooth could be--it seemed obvious it was mammalian but we were stumped to place a name on it. Internet image searches were not turning up anything that really closely resembled this tooth and so we decided to call in the big guns. On Monday we visited Dr. Richard Hulbert to get a brief tour of the museum's collection. He instantly recognized the tooth as being cetacean--from its size a larger dolphin/smaller whale. Together, we looked though the collection drawers for other cetacean teeth that had been found in the greater Gainesville ares to see how close of a match we could come up with. No exact matches were found but some relatively similar teeth were spotted in the collection.

All in all, it was a spectacular weekend getaway. We've now got some experience hunting in the creeks in the Gainesville area and we've got a really cool cetacean memento to commemorate our anniversary. A warm and appreciative thanks goes out to TFF member Khyssa for introducing us to fossil hunting in Gainesville and to Dr. Hulbert for taking the time out of his busy day to educate some amateur (and rank novice) fossil hunters.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Pagurus]

Great report, Ken. Now that's the kind of anniversary I like. What a romantic setting, especially that first photo with the bridge. Honestly, though, my wife would like it too, for awhile.. I know I couldn't work as hard as you did, though, collecting all that matrix. Thanks for describing your process. I hope you find many treasures in there.

Mike

[Khyssa]

It was a great day and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Even the mosquitos seemed to stay away. Meeting you and Tammy was wonderful and I look forward to seeing the two of you again this weekend. That tooth was definatly the best thing found on Saturday. Here's a few of the things I found.

Kara

[digit]

Yes, the weather was indeed just about as good as it gets. I was prepared to be eaten alive given the dense cover we were hunting under but they even seemed to stay away from my wife (who is a bit of a mozzie magnet).

You did get quite a nice selection of teeth from the creek and many with lovely colors rarely found down in the Peace River. You found some really nicely colored hemis (both upper and lower). Looking forward to meeting up again at next weekend's field trip with the Florida Paleontological Society. Hoping to find some interesting shells and other inverts at the quarry. May even try collecting some micro-matrix there (if there is any to be had) to see what is hiding there.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Grimlock]

I'm glad you had such a good trip. It sounds like you had a great anniversary. There is no way I could convince my wife to do that. We should have met up with you guys at the creek. The river hunting was ok, but it was kinda tough. I'll post what we found at the Santa Fe river soon. I can't wait to see what you get in the micro-matrix.

[jcbshark]

Nice finds, I love the colors they get up that way! : )

[fossilized6s]

Nice trip report, Ken.

I've always wondered about the Rattlesnake creek. All of the micro matrix I've hunted from there has had more broken glass then usual. Now I know.

I love finding Stingray denticles.

[digit]

Luckily, by the time I sort the micro-matrix down to bits that can fit through a 1/4" screen all of the larger shards are removed. What remains are usually smaller cuboid ground-up bits of glass (in a wide variety of colors--white, green, brown, and even a bit of blue). At least these are rarely sharp slivers which makes handling the micro-matrix less dangerous than it could be.

The fossil layer represented in Rattlesnake Creek seems to produce virtually nothing but shark teeth and ray material. Surprisingly, the ray material consisted of mostly of the elongated "comblike" tooth plates of eagle rays (Myliobatis and Aetobatus) and there were very almost no serrated tail spine fragments. The dermal denticles are always interesting as they vary so much between species and location on the body. I love finding them as well.

I've reasonably washed the micro-matrix I collected over the weekend (surprising how the water never seems to run clean no matter how many times you flush it with fresh water). A nice sunny day with a good breeze helped to dry out the matrix which was spread out on a tarp on my driveway. It was so windy, in fact, that I had to weight down the corners with dive weights to keep the tarp from blowing over and tossing micro-matrix around. I did a little more sifting with a wire kitchen colander to winnow out a bit more of the fine sand once the matrix had dried out. I think I've got most of the fine dusty and sandy material removed from the micro-matrix but as it continues to dry I may have to give it another sift to clean it up a bit. The extra sandy grit doesn't really interfere with sorting through the micro-matrix but usually the last pour from the plastic Solo cup onto my paper plate results in a fair bit of sandy material which is easy to sort through.

I'm encouraged by the number of small shark teeth I saw just while handling the micro-matrix today. It appears to be reasonably well chocked with smaller teeth. My ultimate goal for this micro-matrix is to try to find a nicely colored Nurse Shark tooth that is less worn than the black ones that I've found from my Peace River micro-matrix. These tend to be pretty rare but I've got about 5 gallons of fresh micro-matrix that I'll be able to sort through over the next several months so I'm doing what I can to increase my odds of locating one. When I do (and I trust my lucky streak that I will), you'll be sure to see it posted here.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Khyssa]

I've dried about half of the matrix I brought home but it takes me a bit longer to do so since I spread it out on trays on my front porch. This limits how much sun hits the trays but means I don't have to worry about the wind or stray cats coming along and using it for a litter box. I've already found a number of small shark teeth, a couple pieces of sea urchin spines, a tiny sand dollar, and a fish grinding mill.

I usually find quite a few pieces of sting ray spines every time I visit Rattlesnake creek and other surrounding creeks. I've yet to find a completely intact one but what I do find usually still has the serrations along the edges. They also widely vary in size, sometimes they're long and skinny other times they are quite chunky.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Khyssa

[digit]

Well, call me impatient but I couldn't wait to scoop up a cup of my new Rattlesnake Creek micro-matrix and see what I could find in it.BTW: Instant gratification IS all it's cracked-up to be (sometimes).

Kara had mentioned that this location does seem to produce a number of crab claws and she was spot on. I've found a few of these in the micro-matrix from the Peace River and Cookiecutter Creek but they seem much more common here:

The micro-matrix is, as expected, producing marine micro-fossils with the usual composition: shark teeth, ray tooth plates, fish teeth including barracuda and drum fish "buttons" (pharyngeal teeth). I found a really nice intact mouthplate with a number of pharyngeal teeth associated. It's just about 1 cm tip to tip:

The colors of some of the teeth are truly spectacular. Given the monotone grayscale teeth I usually encounter from the Peace River this is like watching color TV shows for the first time after retiring that old black-and-white TV set. Younger members of this forum will marvel at the fact that there was once such a thing as black-and-white televisions (with less channels than I have fingers). The youngest members will momentarily look-up from their smart phones and tablet devices while binge-watching all episodes of some show from a video streaming service and ask, "What is a TV?"

The first image are some smaller teeth and the second truly micro (only a few millimeters across).

My ultimate goal in collecting micro-matrix from Rattlesnake Creek is to attempt to find a really nice Nurse Shark tooth. When I told Dr. Hulbert of my quest his comment was, "Lotsa luck--those things are not common." I take it as a good sign that in the very first cup of micro-matrix sorting that this popped-up. Not in the best shape and pretty tiny (only 3.5 mm across) but it does show some lovely color and I take it as a good omen going forward.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Grimlock]

YAY Ken! You finally have you nurse shark tooth. I know you've been questing for that one for a while.

[digit]

No more Nurse Shark teeth in this morning's cup of micro-matrix but lots of colorful small shark, ray and other fish teeth to make for an enjoyable start to my day.

I did, however spot an unusual (for me) tiny shark tooth that has me guessing. This little one is only about 4.5 mm across the base of the root and around 5 mm along the long edge of the blade. It is novel solely due to the presence of the side cusp(s). There is an obvious side cusp on the side toward which the main cusp angles and there appears to be a bit up a "bump" in the enamel at the other side of the tooth that is subtle but apparent when looking at the tooth under magnification but, unfortunately, does not photograph very well. Basically, there appears to be a faint "notch" at the base of the long edge of the main cusp and the enamel is ever so slightly raised past this notch. The tooth does not really resemble the tiny Tiger Shark or Sand Tiger teeth which I know to have additional side cusps. The root is too flat and not as U-shaped as I'd expect for a posterior Sand Tiger tooth. It also doesn't seem to have the correct "bend" that I'm used to for the various species of Tiger Shark teeth that I'm familiar with from locations in South Florida.

Any clues would be appreciated. I'll cross-post this in the Fossil ID section of the forum as I may get this image in front of more eyes in that area.

I love little mysteries.

Cheers.

-Ken

[ynot]

Kool tooth!!! Good find Ken!!

Tony

[digit]

I love novelty and micro mysteries like this. Could turn out to be something very common but I haven't seen a tooth quite this shape before so it's a learning opportunity for me.

I'm getting closer to nabbing that perfect Nurse Shark tooth. I was able to sort through a little more micro-matrix while scanning some receipts on a flatbed scanner (adequate opportunities for multitasking which I took advantage of with another cup of micro-matrix). I found another Ginglymostoma tooth with really nice color and a nice high central cusp with an accompaniment of relatively unworn side cusps leading down each side. A tad bit of tip damage on the primary cusp but other than that the enameled portion is quite nice. The root on this one is pretty worn away so we're not quite up to my museum quality specimen yet but I'm making progress.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Khyssa]

You're getting closer! With as far down as you dug you should have a nice range of finds hiding among all the matrix you collected. I really need to make a set-up like you have. It makes collecting micro matrix so much easier.

[digit]

Here's a few new teeth from this micro-matrix. Two unusual shark teeth that popped up recently. The first is really quite tiny (only 3mm from root to tip). Part of one of the lobes of the root seems a bit worn down but I don't think there was much more to this tooth's root so I suspect it may be a symphyseal of some sort. The other tooth (a mere 5.5 mm from root to tip) appears to be juvenile Sand Tiger tooth (based on the curvature and one remaining side cusp). A quick check of Elasmo.com shows similarity with their photo of the first lower anterior. http://www.elasmo.com/cunningham/sc_ctaurus.html

-Ken

[digit]

Though the micro-matrix from Rattlesnake Creek has produced mainly late Miocene marine finds (shark, ray and other fish teeth) I did, unexpectedly, find a few tiny mammal molars yesterday.

The first one I originally though would be a Sigmodon (Cotton Rat) tooth but looking closer at the cusps it seems to lake the characteristic sinusoidal curvature. Once again I apologize for the lack of depth of field and sharpness in these tiny images but my current digital microscope seems incapable of resolving truly tiny specimens. This little one has a crown only approximately 2.0 x 2.5 mm with the height to the longest root of only about 2.5 mm.

I figured that this might be one of the few Pleistocene teeth (like horse teeth) that are occasionally found in the Gainesville creeks. The color is much lighter than the Sigmodon teeth that I've found in Peace River micro-matrix but many teeth from Rattlesnake Creek have more colorful preservation. The next tooth I found is undoubtedly modern and makes me question if the darker tooth might just be river stained instead of permineralized. This lighter tooth has a rounder crown that is approximately 2.5 x 2.5 mm with a height of about 3.0 mm. With a size this small I have to assume it comes from some sort of small rodent--maybe a squirrel?

You never know what will turn up when sorting micro-matrix.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Al Dente]

I'm pretty sure this one is Hemipristis. The little side serrations are typical for some tooth positions.

[digit]

Ah, yes. I do see the multiple serrations now. The curvature of the tooth reminded me of some of my larger Sand Tiger teeth. Investigating images online I came across this page:

http://homepage2.nifty.com/megalodon/b1hemipristis.html

I would agree that this appears to be one of the lower anterior (symphyseal or nearly so) teeth from a Hemipristis (and a young one at that). Something new and interesting for the micro collection.

Thanks for the pointer in the right direction.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Foshunter]

Ken, Where do you find the little display boxes?

Tom

[digit]

No tiny display boxes--simply a photographic illusion.

I went to the local home improvement store to pick up some "paint chip" color sample cards in various neutral earth tones to use as backgrounds for photographing many of my micros. For micros that are less two-dimensional than most shark teeth I needed a way to position the item so I could get other angles (like the occlusal surface of a tiny rodent molar). Initially, I used my big pink fingers to try to hold the item steady under the digital microscope while clicking with the other hand to take the photo--took lots of trial-and-error attempts. I was going to pick up some modeling clay (Plasticine) to use as a base to hold these items but as I really needed very very little I thought about the tacky (removable) adhesive that is used these days for hanging things like posters. The only problem is that the material I found in my local store was a bright sky blue. That make for a rather unusual background and messed with the color making it difficult to white balance the photo. Juliana (old bones)--who takes some of the most excellent micro photos I've seen on this forum--saw my plight and kindly sent me a packet of similar material only in a neutral white.

I've used that material when trying to position micros for photographs. Over time I've flattened and folded the material and tried to press it flat to make for a nice smooth surface but the piece I'm using is slowly picking up bits and pieces of impurities (specks of sand and colored lint and who knows what else). I think it's time to pull off a fresh piece for my next set of photos. So while it might appear that the specimens are being held in a tiny Riker Mount they are in fact just temporarily sitting on some slightly tacky white clay like material.

My wife found a 7-compartment weekly pill case at a dollar store one day and thought she might be able to use it to hold small amounts of spice mixtures (which she never did). She donated it to the micro cause when I started sorting micro-matrix. Instead of side-by-side chambers with fold-down lids that snap in place, this odd little pill case consists of a series of stackable round containers (about 4 cm in diameter) that screw together, one on top of the other, with the base of one acting as the lid of the one below it. They come in a festive rainbow series of colors as well and hold my coarsely sorted micros at arm's reach on my desk. I have shark teeth in one container, ray teeth and barbs in another, drum and other pharyngeal "button" teeth in one, miscellaneous fish teeth (porgy, barracuda, etc.) in one, etc. One is reserved for special delicate items and I have a cotton wad placed inside so that they don't get tossed around. In that container I have things like my Isistius (Cookiecutter Shark) teeth, some of the tiny symphyseal shark teeth, and my growing collection of rodent dentition (incisors and molars).

Maybe one day I'll graduate up to better display boxes but for now this keeps my little collection of micros compactly stored. They are all so small that I really need to spill them out on a piece of paper and get my 10x photographer's loupe to show them to anybody anyway.

So the short answer would have been--I have no idea where to find small display boxes (but I rarely do short answers).

Cheers.

-Ken

[Raggedy Man]

Ken, Where do you find the little display boxes?

Tom

If you search ebay for small white boxes, your only problem would be picking the best deal...lol

[digit]

I've been busy lately finishing some coral reef survey trips in the Caribbean but I'm done for the year now (with little time to spare) and trying to catch up on things here at home. I've been able to sneak in a little micro-matrix sorting before I start my other tasks for the day and so I've been able to continue my quest for some nice specimens of Ginglymostoma (Nurse Shark) teeth. I haven't pulled any nice ones out of the Rattlesnake Creek micro-matrix for some time but this morning I was rewarded with an early Christmas present--two reasonably complete teeth. I still struggle to capture these tiny subjects well with my inexpensive "digital microscope" which is really a low quality webcam on a stand. I may have to break down and spend some big bucks on a nice macro lens for my Canon DSLR along with a ring flash to adequately light the micros. I've tried to photograph these two teeth in three orientations with the "microscope" as well as seeing how well I could image the pair from both sides with the "super macro" setting on my little point-and-shoot Olympus. For objects of this size it seems to be a toss-up as to which produces better looking images. I think the real breakthrough will come with a proper macro lens on a camera which I can adjust the f-stop to increase the depth of field (possibly aided by some focus stacking software for added effect).

With the digital microscope:

With the point-and-shoot:

Cheers.

-Ken

[digit]

I had another interesting surprise in this morning's cup of micro-matrix--a tiny mammal tooth. This one looks a bit different from the Sigmodon (Cotton Rat) and vole molars I've found in the past. As the fossils in this micro-matrix are virtually all marine in nature and given the color and condition of this tiny tooth, I strongly suspect this is or a more recent origin. Anybody able to recognize a possible former owner based on these grainy photos? I'll try cross-posting to the Fossil ID area as well to see if I get any response there.

Cheers.

-Ken