Point A Dam .. Advice .. Wow, look at all of that rain !

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

  Ok, so it wouldn't be my first rodeo in a nice steady rain, or a torrent sans lightning of course.  But for those of you familiar with Point A Dam in Alabama would the weather report this week turn you off ?  Do you have a go-to for weather and water levels ? 

 

  I have a small window with my brother and he's been itching to get out with me somewhere .. anywhere .. and Point A is closest to us here in Gulf Shores.  We may huff it over to Florida if the weather looks too crappy .. but any advice would be welcome.  If you'd rather a PM I'd be fine with that too.

 

Thanks,

Brett

 

 

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

Well,

 

  That was a good scouting mission !  After doing some involved sleuthing myself ... (ie. I hit the search terms on the forum) .. we arrived at Point A Dam uncertain about the weather or how the water levels would treat us.  Having been hit with some serious rain in the past week the water was high .. almost 11 feet and the dam was pumping out water like a fire-hose.

 

  Undeterred by the rushing water in the river or the ominous turtle corpse that was staring at me from my first spot on the bank .... my brother and I braved the rain and biting insects and didn't turn up much at first.  My best find in the first hour was a surface collected tooth and that just makes you want to cry after all of the sand sifting. A superstitious soul at that point may have turned back but I poked and prodded the bank for a ways along the partially submerged formation and literally  fell right into our final hunting spot. (for those of you furrowing your brow in concern our dig was well away from any rushing waters or dangerous current, I'm not completely nuts)

 

  About waist/chest deep we decided this is where we would make our final stand and spent about an hour working the sediment.  Each of our sifters brought up about 1-3 teeth per pull so the time was well spent. Out of the 30-40 teeth we found in total these are my best .. most complete finds.  Bummer about the chipped tooth .. the teeth here can be extremely fragile with the ray plates just crumbling in your hands and I suspect it was my shovel that nicked it.

 

All in all it was a really peaceful and quiet (ok, the rushing dam was kinda' like a soothing sound machine) albeit wet exploration of the site.  It's always nice to come away with something the first time out. Next time I think we will wait until the water levels are lower.

 

Cheers,

Brett

 

[Calvin Jenkins]

Nice photos.  What is the tooth in the center, a relative of the Hemis?

[Trevor]

Excellent finds, glad you and your brother could make it out to hunt.

[Al Dente]

1 hour ago, Calvin Jenkins said:

Nice photos.  What is the tooth in the center, a relative of the Hemis?

 

Galeocerdo latidens.

[fossilselachian]

Your photography is unsurpassed!

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

16 hours ago, Al Dente said:

 

Galeocerdo latidens.

 

  Thanks everyone ... I'm still new to this time period for shark teeth so it is all new to me .... but I did find a nice thesis paper where the author surveyed this site.  Speaking of great images and information I thought this paper did a great job for the formation that she sampled.

 

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/wright1310391028/inline

 

Cheers,

Brett

[FossilDAWG]

10 hours ago, Brett Breakin' Rocks said:

 

  Thanks everyone ... I'm still new to this time period for shark teeth so it is all new to me .... but I did find a nice thesis paper where the author surveyed this site.  Speaking of great images and information I thought this paper did a great job for the formation that he sampled.

 

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/rws_etd/document/get/wright1310391028/inline

 

Cheers,

Brett

"Angela" is an unusual first name for a "he".

 

Don

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

4 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

"Angela" is an unusual first name for a "he".

 

Don

Perfect,

 

  Thanks for the typo catch .. have edited the post.  Moderator +1

 

Cheers,

Brett

[FossilDAWG]

Just pulling your leg a bit.  I often find myself assuming "he" but I've learned to check due to being called out a time or two myself.

 

Don

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

 

17 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

Just pulling your leg a bit.  I often find myself assuming "he" but I've learned to check due to being called out a time or two myself.

 

Don

   Sure, honestly it's important I agree wholeheartedly.  I have thesis students, albeit in a different field, and it seems to me like she did a very thorough and well planned excavation of the site (an estimated 500 gallons worth !).  The context for me sometimes is more important than what I find. I was impressed that slightly larger teeth are rare but do exist at the site with the Carcharocles auriculatus that she found measuring in at almost 2".  Pretty cool.

 

  I should also note that in my original image the teeth are specifically from the interface between the Tallahatta and Lisbon formations.

 

Cheers,

B

[FossilDAWG]

I found a C. auriculatus there that might have approached 2".  Unfortunately my shovel blade cut off the root and reduced it to fragments.  Ouch!

 

In the thesis, the bone bed is assigned to a lag deposit at the base of the Lisbon.  This differs from the earlier analysis by Case that puts the bone bed at the top of the Tallahata.  It is a lag deposit, and those are usually found at the base of a transgressive series, so the base of the Lisbon makes sense to me.  There are also scattered teeth in the layers of rotten shells higher up in the bank, and that is definitely Lisbon Formation, so the Lisbon could certainly have been the source of the lag deposit. However I have talked to Alabama geologists who say the lithology is not unusual for the Tallahata, so in the end I'm unsure what the actual formation is.  

 

Don

[Brett Breakin' Rocks]

20 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

I found a C. auriculatus there that might have approached 2".  Unfortunately my shovel blade cut off the root and reduced it to fragments.  Ouch!

 

 

 Oh man ... those days are the ones where I feel like packing up and heading for home.  haha ... Whoo boy that is a bummer.

 

  Reminds me of the time I laid my chisel right into a beautiful and probably immaculate 2-3 inch Trilo in the Marble Mountains (which is rare at the site) from a layer of shale that usually had amazing preservation and it was only after I pulverized it that I understood what I had just destroyed.

 

B

[Al Dente]

4 hours ago, FossilDAWG said:

I found a C. auriculatus there that might have approached 2".  Unfortunately my shovel blade cut off the root and reduced it to fragments.  Ouch!

 

In the thesis, the bone bed is assigned to a lag deposit at the base of the Lisbon.  This differs from the earlier analysis by Case that puts the bone bed at the top of the Tallahata.  It is a lag deposit, and those are usually found at the base of a transgressive series, so the base of the Lisbon makes sense to me.  There are also scattered teeth in the layers of rotten shells higher up in the bank, and that is definitely Lisbon Formation, so the Lisbon could certainly have been the source of the lag deposit. However I have talked to Alabama geologists who say the lithology is not unusual for the Tallahata, so in the end I'm unsure what the actual formation is.  

 

Don

 

When Case published on the reptiles in 1988 the references he used for the geology placed the outcrop in the Tallahata Formation. He has recently published on the sharks and rays with Cappetta and the geology in his paper has the tooth concentration at the base of the Middle Eocene Lisbon Formation. 

[Panhandle001]

We made it out to Point A today. The road is havily damaged from the rain and the river is deep and fast. Anything smaller than a pickip probably won't make it down and back. It is the deepest I have ever seen when I've went out. We found a few teeth. Most were broke but found a small pile of goodies.  Can anyone identify what the 2 cream colored pieces are in the top right of the large photo?

[ynot]

Nice haul.

The 2 in question look like horn coral.