My Adventures in Time

[TNCollector]

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.

Thanks for the kind words! This site is strictly Lower Devonian, there should not be any Middle Devonian represented here. Pseudoatrypta is the most common brachiopod I found there.

[ynot]

Lots of nice pieces -- and only 90 minutes to collect all that!!! WOW!!

Tony

[FossilDAWG]

Very nice! I am very fond of brachiopods and you scored an excellent selection.

Don

[Fossildude19]

Great finds! Nice variety.

Thanks for showing us!

Regards.

[TNCollector]

Lots of nice pieces -- and only 90 minutes to collect all that!!! WOW!!

Tony

Thanks! The fossils were literally stacked on top of each other. I was happy that I stopped by to grab them.

Very nice! I am very fond of brachiopods and you scored an excellent selection.

Don

Brachiopods are indeed really interesting. This site provided a good variety of species and really improved my collection.

Great finds! Nice variety.

Thanks for showing us!

Regards.

Thanks!

[JimB88]

Good stuff Jim! Love the diversity..especially the button corals!

[TNCollector]

Good stuff Jim! Love the diversity..especially the button corals!

Thanks Jim, the button corals were a nice addition to my collection.

[TNCollector]

I have done quite a bit of collecting this fall, but have not had much time to post things. 

 

I went Paleozoic shark tooth hunting several times. The places that I normally go to are starting to dry up. Paleozoic shark fossils are very uncommon, so it is not hard at all to exhaust a locality pretty quickly. On the other hand, I have found a few new spots that produce teeth, but the drive is further.

 

Here is a little tooth I found recently in a quarry that I frequent pretty often. Decent teeth are starting to get really really difficult to find there, so I was pretty happy to find this one. it is not very large, and is pretty weathered, but it is not in terrible shape. Scale in centimeters.

 

Chomatodus sp.

Bangor Limestone

Mississippian, Chesterian

East Tennessee

 

Here is a classic heartbreaker. It is a chimaera tooth, but is missing a good chunk of it. Still, I was excited to find it was 1 of the two decent teeth I found that day, and the chimaera teeth are pretty rare. Once again, scale is in centimeters.

 

Deltodopsis sp.

Bangor Limestone

Mississippian, Chesterian

East Tennessee

 

One of my favorite fossils I have found recently is this large blastoid. The large ones are exploded 99% of the time, so I was very lucky to find one like this that is intact.

 

Pentremites sp. blastoids

Bangor Limestone

Mississippian, Chesterian

East Tennessee

[TNCollector]

Here are some fossils from a trip to one of my favorite Oligocene sites in Mississippi. This site is small but produces some neat specimens, and unlike here in East Tennessee, the matrix is sand and clay, not solid limestone. The site represents a very shallow beach/reef environment. Vertebrate remains are uncommon, but they are there. Shark teeth are almost always very small, which gives even more indication that this area was very shallow. The vertebrate remains almost always occur in a thing lag deposit with an abundance of shell and coral material. Unfortunately, this site has not had many paleontological surveys, so I cannot identify the majority of these specimens. I am also not at all well-versed in Tertiary fossils in general, so please, if you have any suggestions for IDs, please let me know!

 

One of the most interesting things about this site is the diversity of well-preserved invertebrates. This includes scaphopods, echinoids, a few crabs, corals, and many types of bivalves. Anyway, enough talking, here are some pictures! 

 

Sample of the shark teeth. There are several sand tigers, the large one in the middle is probably a Hemipristis, and the large one in the bottom right is probably a (insert ID here???). There are also some interesting fish and ray teeth. The Enchodus-like teeth on the top row confuses me because it looks identical to an Enchodus tooth, but as far as I understand, those were extinct at that time. The item in the top right is piece of a crab claw, I am not sure why I put it in this box of vertebrate fossils...

 

Vertebrates

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

Next up is a beautifully preserved scaphopod. I find lots of broken ones, but this one is in very good condition and looks pretty awesome sitting in the matrix. Scaphopods are not commonly preserved around the world.

 

Scaphopod

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

This is a beautiful large echinoid. Unfortunately the top part is missing, but it is still the best one I have ever found.

 

Echinoid

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

 

 

[TNCollector]

Here is a photo showing some of the specimens I have found at the Oligocene site.

 

Two nice bivalves on the same piece of matrix.

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

This little fella was a pain to prep. The shell material is extremely thin and the matrix is practically sand. Unfortunately this resulted in the destruction of most of the two claws. Either way, it is a cool little crab, I don't get to find these very often at all.

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

Here are some large bivalves

Oligocene

Mississippi

 

And finally, a ray tooth, shark vertebrae, and some interesting inverts.

Oligocene

Mississippi

[JimB88]

Hey, good stuff Jim! Specially the blastoid and scaphopod! A shame about the Deltodopsis (though thats not unusual for them.)

[TNCollector]

13 hours ago, JimB88 said:

Hey, good stuff Jim! Specially the blastoid and scaphopod! A shame about the Deltodopsis (though thats not unusual for them.)

Thanks Jim! The scaphopods are really neat. Next time we meet up I'll have to give you a few of my fragments. I have gathered up a small horde of them that is taking up considerable space in my display cabinet.

[ynot]

Looks like some good finds!

Congratulations!

Tony

[TNCollector]

I went on a scouting trip last weekend to try and find some Pennsylvanian goniatites. Unfortunately, I did not find the right layer, so I gave up and went down the road to a roadcut I hunt every now and then. This roadcut has produced some really nice Paleozoic teeth in the past, including the earliest occurrence of Magactenopetalus (now housed at AMNH) and a Petalorhynchus tooth that may be a new species. Unfortunately, there isn't much erosion of the fossiliferous layer, so new material is hard to find, but this one trip did end up working out pretty well for me, because this recent drought exposed several new rocks that were previously underneath a small ditch filled with water.

 

I only found one tooth but it is a nice one. When it was found, the only part visible was the tips of each cusp and a tiny part of the crown. After prepping it with a needle and vinegar, this is what was revealed. It is is very good condition, the missing bit on the tip is likely from natural feeding wear. I think it is pretty cool that there are some crinoids and an Archimedes bryozoan in the same spot.

 

In the past, the genus Glikmanius was called Cladodus, but it has since been reclassified.

 

Glikmanius occidentalis

Pennington Formation

Late Mississippian

East Tennessee

[JimB88]

wow, thats a good one Jim!

[ynot]

Very nice find!!

 

Tony

[FossilDAWG]

What an exquisite little gem!

 

Don

[TNCollector]

On 11/13/2016 at 3:32 PM, JimB88 said:

wow, thats a good one Jim!

 

On 11/13/2016 at 4:50 PM, ynot said:

Very nice find!!

 

Tony

 

On 11/14/2016 at 7:53 PM, FossilDAWG said:

What an exquisite little gem!

 

Don

Thanks fellas! It is a nice little gem. I was very excited to find it. I have not found many good teeth recently and most cladodontid teeth I find are busted up, so this was a refreshing find.

[Fossildude19]

Beauty! 
Congratulations!

Regards,

[ynot]

On 11/13/2016 at 11:31 AM, TNCollector said:

I went on a scouting trip last weekend to try and find some Pennsylvanian goniatites. Unfortunately, I did not find the right layer, so I gave up and went down the road to a roadcut I hunt every now and then. This roadcut has produced some really nice Paleozoic teeth in the past, including the earliest occurrence of Magactenopetalus (now housed at AMNH) and a Petalorhynchus tooth that may be a new species. Unfortunately, there isn't much erosion of the fossiliferous layer, so new material is hard to find, but this one trip did end up working out pretty well for me, because this recent drought exposed several new rocks that were previously underneath a small ditch filled with water.

 

I only found one tooth but it is a nice one. When it was found, the only part visible was the tips of each cusp and a tiny part of the crown. After prepping it with a needle and vinegar, this is what was revealed. It is is very good condition, the missing bit on the tip is likely from natural feeding wear. I think it is pretty cool that there are some crinoids and an Archimedes bryozoan in the same spot.

 

In the past, the genus Glikmanius was called Cladodus, but it has since been reclassified.

 

Glikmanius occidentalis

Pennington Formation

Late Mississippian

East Tennessee

Seems like a good candidate for VFOTM.

 

 

[TNCollector]

22 minutes ago, ynot said:

Seems like a good candidate for VFOTM.

 

 

Good idea!

[Raggedy Man]

On 11/13/2016 at 1:31 PM, TNCollector said:

I went on a scouting trip last weekend to try and find some Pennsylvanian goniatites. Unfortunately, I did not find the right layer, so I gave up and went down the road to a roadcut I hunt every now and then. This roadcut has produced some really nice Paleozoic teeth in the past, including the earliest occurrence of Magactenopetalus (now housed at AMNH) and a Petalorhynchus tooth that may be a new species. Unfortunately, there isn't much erosion of the fossiliferous layer, so new material is hard to find, but this one trip did end up working out pretty well for me, because this recent drought exposed several new rocks that were previously underneath a small ditch filled with water.

 

I only found one tooth but it is a nice one. When it was found, the only part visible was the tips of each cusp and a tiny part of the crown. After prepping it with a needle and vinegar, this is what was revealed. It is is very good condition, the missing bit on the tip is likely from natural feeding wear. I think it is pretty cool that there are some crinoids and an Archimedes bryozoan in the same spot.

 

In the past, the genus Glikmanius was called Cladodus, but it has since been reclassified.

 

Glikmanius occidentalis

Pennington Formation

Late Mississippian

East Tennessee

 

I love this cladodont tooth. Next to hemi's they're my second favorite. Great find! Is that a vert above and to the left or is it a columnar segment from a crinoid?

[TNCollector]

8 minutes ago, Raggedy Man said:

 

I love this cladodont tooth. Next to hemi's they're my second favorite. Great find! Is that a vert above and to the left or is it a columnar segment from a crinoid?

@Raggedy Man Cladodont teeth are certainly very cool. The item above and left is unfortunately just a columnar segment of a crinoid....

[jpc]

that is a really cool little tooth.  Good find.

[Ridgehiker]

Yes, one of the nicest Lower Carboniferous teeth I have seen.  A real gem. It looks even better in matrix.  

 

just a note on identification of an islolated tooth this old.  I try and ID mine but always keep open the possibility that it can be on an entirely new genus.  I classify similar teeth to Cladodus but do it more as a 'catch-all'.  

 

I rarely go out just to look just for Paleozoic teeth. However, when I find one there are usually more in adjacent rock faces...its as if I have to tune my eye to concentrate on them and not other fossils.  Perhaps this is because there are so many crusher teeth and they don't stand out as obvious as the biters ( like your superb specimen).