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Explorer2099

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My family and I usually visit the Frio River in Leakey, Tx every summer. A few years ago we were all set to go swimming but upon arriving we saw that the part of the river we usually frequent had dried up. I decided to make the best of it and explored the dried river bed looking for anything interesting when this isolated chunk of rock caught my eye. I picked it up off the ground, took it home with me, put it in a drawer and forgot about it. A few months ago I found it while doing some cleaning and realized it had to be something more than just an oddly shaped rock. I cleaned it with water and a toothbrush after reading online that that's a simple way to clean fossils. A friend of mine with limited knowledge of fossils suspected it was some kind of fossilized coral or sponge. What I originally thought was matrix does look a lot like syringopora, but I can't find pictures of any prehistoric coral fossils that match the appearance of that hot dog in the center! I saw a sperm whale tooth on this forum that looks similar but I'm not sure if what I found feels like a tooth. It feels way too smooth to me. I love fossils and I own some shark teeth, coprolite, and a little trilobite, but those were all bought. If whatever this is turns out to be something, then it would be the first fossil I've ever acutally found myself. I'm still really new to this so please forgive me if I am asking silly questions or submitting this incorrectly. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! 

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Welcome to TFF!

It is a fossil but not a coral or a tooth.

The outer part looks like tube worms, not sure about the "tooth" part.

Tony

Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection

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Aahh the ole Frio river, good memories.

By all means, welcome.

Your specimen is a fossiliferous mix of tube worms and the tooth like item may be more of the same just a different species. Your specimen is limestone sometimes referred to as dolomite. Just a ten cent word for limestone.

The toothy part of your stone could just be a burrow but for now sake I would go with tube worm.

Keep picking and it won't be no time and you will be trying to figure out how you are going to display your collection.

Jess B. (Bone2stone)

It was a rock on the ground.

You picked it up and took it home.

Now that action made it a specimen.

 

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I'm not sure the age of the rocks where this was found but if it is Cretaceous, I think you have a rudist. The tube like things are part of the outer shell and the tooth like object is sediment that filled the hollow center of the rudist.

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That was also my thought.

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

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Thanks for the replies! I did find a geologic map of Texas showing the age of surface rocks in the area to be from the upper Cretaceous. Maybe that will narrow down the possibilities. It does match the appearance of thalassinoides burrows made by crustaceans or worms but still seems smoother than all the photos I've seen on the internet. But I guess that could just be a result of other environmental factors at work or my untrained eyes. Any other suggestions are still welcome!

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Did some more digging (sorry) on the net and found it to be an albian caprinid rudist, most likely an icthyosarcolite. As a matter of fact there another fossil I.d. post here of a better preserved specimen. http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/35558-fossil-id-please/

 

Thanks Al Dente you were right on the money. And I appreciate all the help. This was fun!

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Interesting would be the other end view of the specimen, not shown in your pictures. Could you post a picture of that transverse section?

" We are not separate and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way. "

Thomas Mann

My Library

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  • 6 months later...

I live in Uvalde, Tx.  About 39 miles from Leakey and I too have found a fossil on the Dry Frio river and it looks alot like what you show in the pictures Explorer2099  I have found a multitude of fossils on the dry frio river bed..  oysters are very common to find if you know what to look for.  I just recently found a few large ammonites in some limestone about the size of a beach ball and I found some fossilized eggs that were encased in stone but not loosely like concretions or nodules are.  I had to chip the rock away to expose all of it.  Frio River is an ancient river and was born somewhere in the early cretatious period.  Some areas have dinosaur tracks and even heiroglyphics have been found in a few caves.  I live 7 miles from this river and I hike up and down it about 3 miles a day.  Every time I go I find something very interesting to bring home. I'm like you Explorer2099, I have no clue what those are in your pics.  It's marine life no doubt.  It could be some kind of extinct worm.  It's freaky looking whatever they are.  Posting up some pics of mine 

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