Arlington, TX Shark tooth ID

[KimTexan]

I found this a couple weeks ago. I have been fossil hunting for almost 30 years y’all and this is my first little tooth ever!

The person I was hunting with said shark teeth were very rare in the area we were hunting in.

As best I can tell it was found in the Woodbine Formation, but there is also Alluvium, Grayson and Main street limestone and Fluviatile terrace formations within a mile or less, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Grayson, Alluvium or Fluviatile. I’m still learning what all those look like.

We were kind of high up above a creek, maybe a mile away. There were pyratized shells around with tiny irregular urchins and a few small to medium ammonites and lots of oysters with both valves. There were also small Mariellas. There wasn’t any solid rock though, mostly crumbly cream colored soil/limestone.

Can anyone tell me what type of shark it came from? It is about 1.5 cm long.

[Macrophyseter]

Adorable little tooth! As for the ID, I may be wrong, but I think that could be a Scapanorhynchus. Nice find!

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Can't help you, but may we see little see urchins ?

 

Coco

[bone2stone]

It sounds like you described a Grayson deposit. (Oysters with both halves-Graphaea)

In the oyster bed part of the Grayson you won't find much of anything else.

(Small echinoids) That's something not found in the Woodbine.

Arlington west side or north side?

North would be Woodbine and west would be Grayson.

In any event it looks to be a acid riddled Cretolamna maybe Woodwardi.

(Been some debate about woodwardi and appendiculata)

I think and I could be wrong I believe there are no Cretolamna in the woodbine.

Get with Bill and hit some grayson with him and his bunch from the Dallas Paleo.

I ran across him at a Grayson deposit out west side Arlington last year at a spot I have been hunting for many years.

 

Hope this helps.

[bone2stone]

1 hour ago, Coco said:

Hi,

 

Can't help you, but may we see little see urchins ?

 

Coco

Good point Coco

Yeah that could be one of the determining factors.

[KimTexan]

7 hours ago, bone2stone said:

It sounds like you described a Grayson deposit. (Oysters with both halves-Graphaea)

In the oyster bed part of the Grayson you won't find much of anything else.

(Small echinoids) That's something not found in the Woodbine.

Arlington west side or north side?

North would be Woodbine and west would be Grayson.

In any event it looks to be a acid riddled Cretolamna maybe Woodwardi.

(Been some debate about woodwardi and appendiculata)

I think and I could be wrong I believe there are no Cretolamna in the woodbine.

Get with Bill and hit some grayson with him and his bunch from the Dallas Paleo.

I ran across him at a Grayson deposit out west side Arlington last year at a spot I have been hunting for many years.

 

Hope this helps.

 

This site was in North Arlington. North of Lake Arlington. The area looked a lot like this only I didn’t see any thin distinct layering to speak of.

There were these really cute mini sea shell hoodoos. There is a pyratized Texigraphaea oyster perched on one here on the right.

There was also a lot of other pyratized stuff. I found a a good size  pyratized (10 inches) ammonite that had mostly disintegrated and left a pile of crystals.

I believe I have been in the Grayson in Hurst and it had the gray marl with regular echinoids, Mariella brazoensis, Waconela wacoensis and llymatogyra in the vicinity.

 

@Coco

 I’ll have to take pics of the urchins tonight when I get home. They were maybe 12-15mm. The smalles I’ve seen.

 

[Herb]

really cool looking site

[KimTexan]

Here are a few more things I did take pics of already that I found at the site. They’re next to a dime for scale. They’re very tiny.

 

The little turitella (spelling?) piece is 9 mm long.

 

I’m not sure what the simi circle is. I think it’s part of an ammonite, it is 5 mm.

 

The adorable little gastropod is about 5.5 mm by maybe 7 mm tall at most.

 

I’m not sure what the 4th is. It looks like it may have been an ammonite, but I’m not sure.

 

[KimTexan]

@Coco

I put it on a dime for scale.

Here are pics of the adorable little echinoid. It needs some cleaning up, but that is the tiniest urchin I’ve ever found and I think it’s just precious.

Washing and soaking didn’t remove the matrix. I’ll have to take more aggressive measures. It’s pretty darn cute so I think it’s worth it.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Yes, that little echinoid is just so gorgeous! 

[KimTexan]

Thanks @Tidgy's Dad

 

It could be a full grown adult for all I know,  It has this cute chubby baby cheeks look to it. I haven’t had time to get out my echinoid books. Please don’t anyone spoil the fun and tell me the ID if you know it. I want to give it a go at ID’n it myself.

If TFF had a cutest fossil of the month I might have 2 contenders here with this and the gastropod.

[Nimravis]

5 hours ago, KimTexan said:

This site was in North Arlington. North of Lake Arlington. The area looked a lot like this only I didn’t see any thin distinct layering to speak of.

Kim- This looks like a very cool looking place to collect.

[KimTexan]

I got the echinoid cleaned up a bit more and she is half translucent, which just makes her all the more a beautiful little gem.

It is a difficult quality to capture well, but I think you can see a bit of it here.

 

So what material would that be? Calcite is the most common thing around here that I can think of which is close to that. Can calcite psuedomorph?

I know you all have not been in on this post, which has morphed into something altogether different from the original fossil, but you all know North Texas fossils

@BobWill, @erose @JarrodB and @JohnJ What material do you think echinoid is, the translucent part? John and Erich know their echinoids well too.

 

Also, I thought it was a Mecaster of some kind, but I cannot find any echinoid in the William Morgan book I have that lacks pores pairs on the frontal ambulacrum. So can you give me any hints?

[BobWill]

Calcite is the only thing I know of with that look that we find here. Sometimes it's just the outer layer of a fossil or just part of it but I haven't heard of anything else it might be.

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Nice sea urchin but I can't help you

 

Coco

[bone2stone]

The echinoid cinched the deposit and the graphy. Grayson.

Lots of that grayson in that general vicinity.

Hemiaster Calvini, your little irregular echie. (And its a beauty)

There is two species of holaster in that area as well.

Sometimes we get lucky and find a good spot and fill our pouch with nice goodies.

BTW: Lake Arlington is sorta west side and to the south a bit.

It is not in the north Arlington area.

[sixgill pete]

@KimTexan

 

Possibly Schizaster?

But it really reminds me of Eupatagus or a Linthia that we find here in the Eocene of North Carolina.

 

@Plax what do you think.

[Plax]

I see what you mean Six. Reminds me of a Hemiaster in the Peedee I've only seen a couple of times.

[KimTexan]

On 12/5/2017 at 7:33 PM, Nimravis said:

Kim- This looks like a very cool looking place to collect.

It had some cool stuff. I had never been hunting where there was pyratized stuff. The person I was with said it was very picked over. Most of the stuff is laying on the flat surface and in shallow ravines that snake through the area.

The ammonite that had basically disentigrated left a pile of crystalline cubes which was cool. I couldn’t see any of the ammonite left, but I picked up part of what was there to dump the crystals into my hand and it was this. That was about all that was left of the ammonite.

 

19 hours ago, bone2stone said:

 

BTW: Lake Arlington is sorta west side and to the south a bit.

It is not in the north Arlington area.

Thank you for the ID and taking the time to look at it. The missing pore pairs on the frontal portion threw me. Also it is much smaller than what is described in the book I have.

I have Morgan’s book with a pic of the Palhemiaster calvini, but it looks like it has pores at least at the top of the frontal ambulacrum, but the pic is not clear on that feature. This genus species is generally larger than what I have, but the book doesn’t give a range. I guess this could be a juvenile of the species.

I have no idea what the other examples of this species look like, but the area that would equate to 5th plate protrudes peculiarly, almost like a little Mohawk, ridge or fin.

I found 2 other urchins that day, but their tests are damaged, but from what I can see they don’t have the ridge on plate 5.

 

The location is north of 180. I’m not sure what the boundaries of Arlington are, but I’d consider that north. It is on the west side of Arlington though, but I wasn’t thinking of my position from East to West when I was there. I had to go look it up.