Claw from the Eocene of Virginia

[PyritizeMe]

Reminds me of a bone like material , also the raptor claw that the dr. In Jurassic park carried around

[Mike from North Queensland]

Lovely little find and Its good to see that it could be identified down to an Owl. Always like the small specimens as I enjoy collecting them myself.

Having about a ton of matrix in the shed I can always look through that when I can not go out in the field and collect and usually get a few nice finds.

 

Mike D'Arcy

[MarcoSr]

20 hours ago, siteseer said:

 

Hi Marco Sr.,

 

Yeah, I've gone through hundreds of pounds of it by now over the past 15 years or so.  I've found all kinds of stuff but usually small bird and mammal bones.  Some of the bones are beautifully preserved.  I learned about carefully going through matrix from the late Father Floyd Jenkins, a Jesuit priest who taught at Loyola Marymount.  Back in the 90's I spent a few afternoons with him in his lab.  He was going through a quantity of Early Miocene badlands matrix looking for "insectivore" and other oddball vertebrate remains at the time, doing it for a researcher.

 

Jess.

 

 

Jess

 

I just spent 15 months full time searching Oligocene badlands matrix from my sons' ranch in Nebraska.  One of the researchers who is studying the specimens is interested in "insectivores".  I did find a good number of insectivore teeth and jaws.

 

Marco Sr.

17 hours ago, PyritizeMe said:

Reminds me of a bone like material , also the raptor claw that the dr. In Jurassic park carried around

 

There is a lot of similarity between the features of dinosaur raptor claws and bird raptor claws.

 

Marco Sr.

[MarcoSr]

3 hours ago, Mike from North Queensland said:

Lovely little find and Its good to see that it could be identified down to an Owl. Always like the small specimens as I enjoy collecting them myself.

Having about a ton of matrix in the shed I can always look through that when I can not go out in the field and collect and usually get a few nice finds.

 

Mike D'Arcy

 

Mike

 

When I was younger I spent all my time surface collecting in the field.  As I got older I started to collect and search matrix in addition to regular surface collecting in the field.  Now I spend much more time collecting and searching matrix than I do regular surface collecting.  Probably because so many sites that I used to collect are now closed to fossil collecting and the remaining sites are now over collected by surface collectors.  I'll bet you don't have that problem near as much in Australia.

 

Marco Sr.

 

 

[SailingAlongToo]

@MarcoSr always finds the best "stuff" in his micro-matrix.   I on the other hand, do not have the patience to sift/sort micro-matrix, unless of course, I'm collecting it for Marco to sift/sort through.  

[MarcoSr]

8 minutes ago, SailingAlongToo said:

@MarcoSr always finds the best "stuff" in his micro-matrix.   I on the other hand, do not have the patience to sift/sort micro-matrix, unless of course, I'm collecting it for Marco to sift/sort through.  

 

Jack

 

I hope to get a lot of matrix on the December trip.  Hopefully the weather will hold up.  Rob and the boys haven't been doing well with the weather lately.

 

Marco Sr.

[Mike from North Queensland]

Marco Sr in Australia the big problem is the land mass is shaped like a dish so you get limited exposures from the rivers or road cuts so a lot of the surface is reworked or not eroding down fast enough to expose much material. Then the same issue world wide, private fenced property where some idiot has shot up the stock thus now no-one can get permission. Lucky for me the council quarry at Richmond is used to attract tourists and is quite rich in fossil material if you know what to look for. As such most tourists dig down to the rich matrix layer then leave making it so easy to collect the matrix. Only problem is its a five hour drive each way from home. If I had the contacts there is some nice material closer but access without stepping on toes is the issue. Other spots will yield tons of limestone corals but how much do you want when its mostly in huge boulders.

 

Mike