Warm Feb. Weather in VA & Low Low Tide = SCORE!!

[SailingAlongToo]

This past weekend in Central VA it was low 70s on Saturday and low 80s on Sunday with an extremely low tide both days, mid-morning. My wife and I, our buddy and 17 y/o son (TFF member Daleksec) and another friend of ours took the boat out on the Pamunkey River Saturday morning for a little fossil hunting / collecting. Since the tide was so low, we decided to start out with some surface hunting at a little beach with a nice Calvert Formation exposure. We immediately hit the jack pot and found some nice sharks teeth and random bone pieces. After finding everything on the surface we all started screening. (This is what my wife and I found Saturday.) The 3 buddies had this much or more in their bags for the day.

  

 

 

 

If anyone knows what this 1" piece of bone that looks like a jaw is, please chime in.

 

After a few hours of collecting and the tide coming in fast, Daleksec noticed an exposed vertebrae on the beach about 6 inches from where I had just picked up a tooth. After some quick exploration this is what we saw. My hand for quick scale. (Yes, I realize everyone's hands are different sized.) We were racing the incoming tide at this point. We didn't know how much of the skeleton was there since we didn't get to explore in either direction. I was pretty sure I saw a humerus and counted 12 vertebrae exposed before we covered it.

 

 

The tide came in and covered it all about 5 mins after we finished burying the exposed bones in matrix to protect.  The bones are literally sitting in the base of the Calvert Formation and right on top of the Old Church Formation. This Old Church exposure is the ONLY Oligocene exposure in VA. Obviously, our fossil plans for Sunday just changed and then we spent the rest of Saturday teasing Daleksec about the raccoons, opossums and deer coming to get "his" skeleton or at least running off with "his" skull.  :-) Everyone but he enjoyed the witty banter about "his" disappearing skeleton.

 

With the rising tide we decided to head farther up river to an Eocene / Oligocene contact exposure I know. Checked out the first small area and only 1 small tooth was found. My buddy wanted me to move him around a bunch of overhanging trees and snags. As I dropped him off on the bank (beach all covered by tide at this point), he walks over and picks up THIS!! He gets my attention and said, "I found something. I don't know what it is, but I'm not throwing it away."

 

 

This is the very 1st Squalodon tooth I've seen found at this Oligocene exposure in 7 years of collecting here. To say I was jealous was an understatement, but I'm glad if someone had to find it and it couldn't be my wife or me, it was him. 

 

This pretty much finished up our day and WOW, what a day it was.

 

Sunday in the next post.

 

[SailingAlongToo]

SUNDAY

 

After sending @MarcoSr insitu photos of the exposed bones, we talked by phone Saturday evening so he could give me pointers and recommendations on collecting priorities (what's most diagnostic, etc.) and the best ways to collect it. THANKS @MarcoSr

 

We met early on Sunday morning to make sure we were at our original spot from the day before when the tide dropped. Of course we were teasing @Daleksec  again about seeing raccoons running away with "his" skeleton.  We immediately started working to expose as much as we could and explore laterally from the vert column looking for the skull. Unfortunately, only broken pieces of the skull was found but we did recover the humerus and scapula along with a bunch of verts, some ribs, teeth and a couple more ear bones. (Unknown if the ear bones go with this specimen as of yet.) 

 

Once we recovered as much of the bone as we could find, we started screening again. While I was screening, the wife took a walk down the beach and found these. It's only the 2nd complete (mostly) atlas in our personal collection.

 

 

 

 

 

If anyone knows what this strange triangular bone is, please chime in.

 

The weather got up to low 80s on Sunday and we headed home early so my wife and I could take the dogs to the Dog Park.

 

More in next post.

[SailingAlongToo]

Once @Daleksec got home, he couldn't help himself and had to start sorting out "his" raccoon and opossum ravaged skeleton pieces. Here are part of what he has cleaned and lined out so far. He still has more to clean and fit together.

 

 

Teeth

 

 

 

Scapula and humerus

Hopefully, @Boesse will see this and can help us out with an ID or other info.

 

 

 

 

 

Once he gets everything cleaned and put together, we want to make some type of display stand for it all. Anyone got any suggestions??

 

[Trevor]

Excellent trip report and awesome finds!

[Boesse]

Whoa! Nice cetacean specimens. 1) The skeleton is quite nice. I highly recommend checking back up on the site in the future for additional material, as it could be quite scientifically significant. The teeth are unusual for the Calvert Fm. (if that's where this is from) and are typical of iniid and platanistid dolphins like Goniodelphis and Pomatodelphis.

 

The tooth is quite interesting, but alas not Squalodon - it's too old, and too small. This is from something more like a waipatiid dolphin or even Agorophius pygmaeus. Old Church Fm. or something similar?

[RCW3D]

Yet another river I used to fish frequently with absolutely no idea of what was there! So very cool! Great finds!

[ynot]

Nice finds! Congratulations for the racoon leavings.

Tony

[Boneheadz]

Awesome stuff Sailing! I really liked those Hemis from the first day and also some really nice makos!

[Ropterus]

Wow! You guys did great! Congrats!

[jcbshark]

Excellent find, congrats

[SailingAlongToo]

6 hours ago, Boneheadz said:

Awesome stuff Sailing! I really liked those Hemis from the first day and also some really nice makos!

 

Thanks Boneheadz. When I went to post the photo of Theresa's and my Sunday teeth, I realized I had not taken a photo while I had them lying out together drying. :-(  We did just as well screening for 90 mins on Sunday but now all the teeth from the weekend are grouped together.

[Boneheadz]

18 hours ago, SailingAlongToo said:

 

Thanks Boneheadz. When I went to post the photo of Theresa's and my Sunday teeth, I realized I had not taken a photo while I had them lying out together drying. :-(  We did just as well screening for 90 mins on Sunday but now all the teeth from the weekend are grouped together.

Haha that's cool, looks like you got yourself a pretty killer spot down there

[MikeR]

Nice finds Jack!  I haven't been able to get out much lately.  So jealous!

[Ludwigia]

Fantastic finds! Congrats!

[abctriplets]

Wow, we've got to get over to central VA from our SW location

[SailingAlongToo]

On 2/18/2017 at 3:37 PM, MikeR said:

Nice finds Jack!  I haven't been able to get out much lately.  So jealous!

 

MikeR,

 

You are always welcome to go with us anytime. Hop a flight into RIC or PHF and we will pick you up and you can stay with us. If it's above 45F and not too windy (waves), we are taking the boat somewhere interesting. We hit 3 different ramps this past weekend and have 5 different boat ramps within 1 hour drive from the house and another 4 within 90 mins. Tide and wind/wave forecast usually dictates where we go. 

 

If the wind/temp precludes boating, we can walk-in to a bunch of spots too.

 

Hope to see you soon.

Jack

[SailingAlongToo]

On 2/16/2017 at 10:03 PM, Boesse said:

Whoa! Nice cetacean specimens. 1) The skeleton is quite nice. I highly recommend checking back up on the site in the future for additional material, as it could be quite scientifically significant. The teeth are unusual for the Calvert Fm. (if that's where this is from) and are typical of iniid and platanistid dolphins like Goniodelphis and Pomatodelphis.

 

The tooth is quite interesting, but alas not Squalodon - it's too old, and too small. This is from something more like a waipatiid dolphin or even Agorophius pygmaeus. Old Church Fm. or something similar?

 

 

Bobby, @Boesse

 

I took some better photos of the arm bones. Hope they help make a more definitive ID. We went back yesterday and found a few more ribs, couple more teeth, pieces of other verts and what looks like some skull pieces (though not many.) As you recommended, we collected all of the random bone within 6 foot of the main skeleton. Also, as you recommended, we are contacting the CMM so they can chime in.

 

Thanks,

Jack

 

 

[Boesse]

That is a weird humerus indeed! To my knowledge there is no published humerus that looks like this specimen. We don't know what the humerus of Zarhachis or Pomatodelphis looks like, or Goniodelphis for that matter. So if the teeth, or any additional remains are found that can narrow down the ID, this would be a really useful specimen!

[deutscheben]

Dang, those are incredible finds!

[Vieira]

Amazing finds

 

Thanks for sharing.