JimB88 Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 cool stuff Jim..Id go with sandalodus for the crusher teeth though; as psammodus tend to be more rectangular. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fossildude19 Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 More cool finds, Jim! Thanks for showing us. Regards, Tim - VETERAN SHALE SPLITTER VFOTM --- APRIL - 2015 __________________________________________________ "In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir ~ ~ ~ ~ ><))))( *> About Me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted May 9, 2016 Author Share Posted May 9, 2016 WOW, those are some neat finds!! Tony Thanks Tony! More cool finds, Jim! Thanks for showing us. Regards, Thanks Tim! I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I do. cool stuff Jim..Id go with sandalodus for the crusher teeth though; as psammodus tend to be more rectangular. Thanks Jim! Truthfully I am not confident in the IDs that I gave them. I am fairly sure that the ID of Deltodus is good for the bent one, see this here: http://www.lakeneosho.org/Miss8.html. But you might be right about the one in the rock, I will relabel it as sandalodus. I wish there was more literature on these teeth, the best resource is the Illinois Geological Survey Volume 6, written in 1875... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Awesome! Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PA Fossil Finder Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Awesome shark teeth! I wish I had a site like that around here! Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 Those teeth are simply fantastic! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Pocock Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 Very nice finds, thanks for the informative reports and the images of you finds Regards Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Been a while since I posted here, been very busy this past week, but I have three trips to post on: A trip to the Devonian Birdsong shale of West TN., a trip to the Cretaceous Coon Creek Formation of West TN., and a trip to the Bangor Formation quarry that I frequent. I will start with the Bangor Formation trip. My dad drove up for the week of father's day and wanted to go fossil hunting, so I took him to my favorite Bangor Formation quarry in East TN. It took a while to train his eyes to distinguish the black chert from bradyodont shark's teeth, but once he figured it out, he found quite a few teeth. We both did actually, and ended up with a total of 11. We could have found more I am sure, but it was extremely hot down in the quarry so we could only stay for a few hours. Here is the first tooth. My dad found it while splitting large blocks of limestone on their bedding planes. I told him not to waste his time breaking rocks, but this method actually proved to be successful for him, to my surprise. This tooth may not look much like a tooth because it is mostly covered in a thin layer of limestone that I need to clean off, but it is indeed a nice, quarter size Paleozoic crusher shark's tooth. It popped right out of the bedding layer when he broke a limestone boulder. Psephodus sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. He also found this nice tooth on a truck size boulder. Came to me asking me if it was a tooth, and indeed it is. There is quite a bit more of the tooth buried under the rock. If I ever feel like it, I will try to prep it out a bit. Cochliodus sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 My dad also found this tooth, it is small, but is in pretty good condition. Psephodus sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. Here is a good size but not so good condition tooth that I found underneath a tree on a large boulder. It was very difficult to extract. I spent a bit too much time on it, but in the end I am glad I got it. I am not sure on its ID, but the worn down ripples lead me to think it might be a Poecilodus sp. I am not confident in that ID. Poecilodus sp.? Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Those are some cool finds. Love the paleozoic shark teeth!! Tony Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 This next tooth is largely hiding inside this boulder. I really want to try prepping it out as it might be a nice one, but I don't have the proper tools unfortunately . Petalodus sp. Bangor Limestone Chesterian Series Eastern TN. Next up is this nice little Helodus sp. tooth. I really like the shape of these teeth. They are by far the most common tooth that I find in the quarry. I found three that day. Helodus sp. Bangor Limestone Chesterian Series Eastern TN. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 This is another Helodus sp. that weathered itself onto a 3D pedestal. You can actually see the bottom of the tooth. It is only attached to the rock on its edge. Helodus sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Another little Helodus sp. tooth I found sitting in a pile of weathered red crumbly matrix. Helodus sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. And finally some blastoids. These need to be prepped with the air abrader. Pentremites sp. Bangor Formation Chesterian Series Eastern TN. That is it for the Father's Day Bangor Formation trip, hope you all like these finds! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peat Burns Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Love those paleozoic shark teeth. Thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Those are some cool finds. Love the paleozoic shark teeth!! Tony Love those paleozoic shark teeth. Thanks for posting. Thanks Tony and Peat! Early sharks were very interesting creatures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Don, I have seen teeth including a couple of large Symmorium damaged by prep because the dealer/preparator thought he could etch Mississippian specimens out of limestone without buffering the acid (or perhaps he didn't know about that). You could tell the teeth weren't weathered but eaten into by acid. It's what happens when you're too much in a hurry or you just think you know what you're doing. Prep isn't for the impatient or the arrogant. Jess I wonder how phosphatic these teeth are. Might it be possible to etch them from the limestone matrix using buffered acetic acid? As I recall, with this technique you buffer the acid with sodium phosphate, which reduces the solubility of solid phosphate (such as the fossil) so it is not etched while the acid dissolves the carbonate (limestone) matrix. People use this approach for recovering conodonts from limestone. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Oh yeah, that's a heartbreaker. It happens to all of us. I like the idea of putting a piece of tape on a tooth sticking out of rock while you try to chop around it but you can also drop a little superglue on the tooth and right around it to help keep them together. Give it a few minutes to set. Fossils are almost always more crunchable than the rock that contains them. Next site was a spot that I showed Jim for the first time. It is the Bangor Limestone, and contains some cool finds! I found several teeth and some neat inverts. Jim found a large conularid, a rarity for this formation. I spent quite a while busting this large tooth out of the rock. Nearing the end, I scream, Jim looks over....we both knew what happened, it busted in about 30 pieces. I picked up as much as I could and spent a few hours gluing it back together under the microscope at home, but it is still really busted up. Regardless, it is the largest cladodus I have ever found, and at least I got the tip. Cladodus sp. giant_cladodus.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted June 28, 2016 Author Share Posted June 28, 2016 Oh yeah, that's a heartbreaker. It happens to all of us. I like the idea of putting a piece of tape on a tooth sticking out of rock while you try to chop around it but you can also drop a little superglue on the tooth and right around it to help keep them together. Give it a few minutes to set. Fossils are almost always more crunchable than the rock that contains them. Yeah, I normally coat the teeth in rubber cement so that if they break I have all of the pieces, but this one was largely covered in rock, so I didn't realize how big it was and didn't coat it adequately. It is a sad feeling when you realize that a fossil was perfectly fine for 340 million years and I come around and break it in less than 10 minutes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimB88 Posted June 28, 2016 Share Posted June 28, 2016 hey, good stuff there Jim! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted July 2, 2016 Author Share Posted July 2, 2016 hey, good stuff there Jim! Thanks! It was a really fun trip. After the 4th, I will post another report on my trip to the Devonian of West TN. Tune in, there are lots of very nice inverts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 (edited) This trip report is a bit late, but I have been super busy with work. Finally have the time to show off my finds. Early in June I set off to West Tennessee to visit friends and of course search for some fossil goodies. I intended to search the Cretaceous of MS, but unfortunately Mother Nature decided to thunderstorm the day I chose to fossil hunt, so my muddy Cretaceous site in MS was out of the question, instead, I tried a site I have been intending to search for a long time, the Devonian Birdsong Shale. The birdsong shale was at one point a thriving reef ecosystem with all kinds of invertebrate life. It is known amongst scholars to produce a diverse assemblage of exquisitely preserved fossils from this reef ecosystem. The day started off pretty rough with thunderstorms rolling in and out every hour or so. I honestly would have probably preferred for it to just constantly rain, because every time it stopped raining, the heat from the sunlight would rapidly evaporate the water off of the rocks, creating a sort of outdoor sauna. It was not comfortable hunting, and anyone in their right mind would of skipped the trip, but I had travelled too far not to get any fossils out of it. The formation here is a clayey shale, very loose and very sticky. The fossils were all loose, and were so abundant that they were literally stacked one on top of the other. I only stayed for 1 and a half hours or so, but still brought it a good haul. I also went to a Cretaceous site in TN, but I will post on that later on. Here are the finds! Lots o' fossils Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Pseudoatrypta brachiopods (mostly) Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Pseudoatrypta brachiopod Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Leptaena acuticuspitada brachiopod Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Edited July 22, 2016 by TNCollector 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 (edited) Dicomyorthis oblata brachiopods Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Obturamentella wadei brachiopod Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Macropleura macropleura brachiopod? (I am not sure about this one, any help is appreciated) Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Edited July 22, 2016 by TNCollector 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 (edited) Meristella atoka brachiopods Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Levenea subcarinata brachiopods?? (some might not be, I am not sure) Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Streptelasma strictum horn corals Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Pleurodictyum lentinularum corals Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Edited July 22, 2016 by TNCollector 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted July 22, 2016 Author Share Posted July 22, 2016 (edited) Edriocrinus adnascans parasitic crinoid on Pseudoatrypta brachiopod host Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Dalmanites retusus trilobites Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN Platyceras gastropods (I think??) Birdsong Shale Member of the Ross Formation West TN That's it for now! Edited July 22, 2016 by TNCollector 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffrey P Posted July 22, 2016 Share Posted July 22, 2016 Very cool finds. That's a great haul for an hour and a half. Congrats. Is the site Lower Devonian or Middle Devonian? Most appear Lower Devonian but Pseudoatrypa I've only found in the Middle Devonian of Western NY. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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