fernwood Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Location: SE Portage County, Central Wisconsin, USA. Geology: South Western advance of Green Bay Glacial Lobe. Former Glacial Lake Oshkosh. Niagara Escarpment Debris. My land. Ordovician onward. I am still shaking. Went on first walk of the year in my fields. Found these, along with a few other fossils. Have never found any teeth, other than modern ones here before. My questions are: What are they? Look like shark to me. What era, species? Is this a significant find for my location? These look way too clean compared to my other fossil finds here. Is someone messing with me? Note that I only saw the upper ½” tip of the larger one sticking out of the ground. The smaller one had the base sticking out a little. Ground is still frozen here after about 1-2” on the surface. I used the screwdriver I had brought along to dig the larger one out. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeschWhat Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 WOW! Sharks in Wisconsin? Can't wait to see what the experts say! Lori www.areallycrappystory.com/fossils www.facebook.com/fossilpoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 That's very cool! I'd be marking out that area and going back to sift it carefully for anything else. It could be an erratic, or it could be someone who pitched their fossil collection. I think a return engagement to that spot is a priority! I really hope you marked it so you can find it again! ...How to Philosophize with a Hammer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernwood Posted March 18, 2018 Author Share Posted March 18, 2018 Easy to find, on my land. Waiting for the experts here to weigh in. Dunno why anyone would pitch anything in that location, as it is in the middle of my 39 acres, on the edge of a field, located next to 15 acres of woods. Only access is via my driveway and across the field. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brett Breakin' Rocks Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 34 minutes ago, fernwood said: Easy to find, on my land. Waiting for the experts here to weigh in. Dunno why anyone would pitch anything in that location, as it is in the middle of my 39 acres, on the edge of a field, located next to 15 acres of woods. Only access is via my driveway and across the field. These are odd ... the Carcharocles megalodon tooth and possibly Isurus desori (?) (mako) have the preservation and look of something that is reworked/lag deposit and generally found on the East Coast. In rivers/creeks/ land sites. The time range for a Meg and Mako don't fit the area if the geology is that old. I'd say that someone brought them in at some point. Or an erratic. Others will chime in ... Still cool. Cheers, Brett 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldigger Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I just looked it up and discovered that in the native tongue of Wisconsin, "Fernwood" translates to: "She that Walks with Screwdriver". You learn something every day! 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernwood Posted March 18, 2018 Author Share Posted March 18, 2018 22 minutes ago, caldigger said: I just looked it up and discovered that in the native tongue of Wisconsin, "Fernwood" translates to: "She that Walks with Screwdriver". You learn something every day! Ha ha. The name comes from my ancestors, the O'Ferns, who immigrated from Ireland. Our family farm that I grew up on was Fernwood. I had the screwdriver along, as I knew the ground was still somewhat frozen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 I am 99.99999999999999999999% certain these teeth are not from there. During the period these sharks were alive (Otodus megalodon and Isurus desori) the ocean was no where near covering Wisconsin. Somebody put those teeth there. 9 Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoppeHunting Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Either a Meg and his buddy the Mako sprouted legs and decided to go watch a Prehistoric Packers game, or those teeth were placed there. My gut instinct says it's the latter... 2 The Hunt for the Hemipristine continues! ~Hoppe hunting!~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeschWhat Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Couldn't they have been transported in by glaciers? Lori www.areallycrappystory.com/fossils www.facebook.com/fossilpoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 There are no ocean deposits north of Wisconsin young enough to hold those type of shark teeth. Not glacier transported. Maybe pre columbian natives brought them from the coast. Or a friend is playing a joke on You. 2 Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DatFossilBoy Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 43 minutes ago, ynot said: There are no ocean deposits north of Wisconsin young enough to hold those type of shark teeth. Not glacier transported. Maybe pre columbian natives brought them from the coast. Or a friend is playing a joke on You. But who the heck would go with their shark teeth, and just burry them randomly in the ground??? There must be another explanation,it’s just absolutely ridiculous to me. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernwood Posted March 18, 2018 Author Share Posted March 18, 2018 Still an interesting ind, no matter how they arrived. This was the extent of the last glacier that reached my land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 9 minutes ago, DatFossilBoy said: But who the hell would go with their shark teeth, and just burry them randomly in the ground??? There must be another explanation,it’s just absolutely ridiculous to me. People do all sorts of incomprehensible things. There is no accounting for the actions of others. 2 Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldigger Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Maybe someone 1/2 buried them in the ground with plans to let their grandkids or someone "discover" them on a hike and you happened to find them first. Kind of a geo-cache thing. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 32 minutes ago, DatFossilBoy said: But who the heck would go with their shark teeth, and just burry them randomly in the ground??? There must be another explanation,it’s just absolutely ridiculous to me. No telling who or why they were put there, but a person did it. 2 Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernwood Posted March 18, 2018 Author Share Posted March 18, 2018 No one should be walking through my corn fields hiding teeth randomly for kids to find. I found them about 200 yards from the road and about 5 rows in from the edge of my woods. Middle area of field, Northern edge. I will add them to my fossil collection. Thanks for the replies and ID info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 14 minutes ago, sixgill pete said: No telling who or why they were put there, but a person did it. Maybe they were brought in from the coast by an English sparrow, I heard that they fly coconuts from Africa to England all the time. 4 Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys." Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough." My Fossil collection - My Mineral collection My favorite thread on TFF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westcoast Posted March 18, 2018 Share Posted March 18, 2018 Our distant ancestors did carry exotic pieces very considerable distances. Are there any archaeological sites on or near your land? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeschWhat Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 I got it! A prehistoric sharknado. Seriously, indigenous people transporting/trading them makes sense. Surely they were as curious as we are. 2 Lori www.areallycrappystory.com/fossils www.facebook.com/fossilpoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 23 hours ago, ynot said: There are no ocean deposits north of Wisconsin young enough to hold those type of shark teeth. Not glacier transported. Maybe pre columbian natives brought them from the coast. Or a friend is playing a joke on You. Hi Tony, Right, you can say the meg was transported but there still needs to be a Miocene-Pliocene marine layer to scrape the teeth from. If there are none north of Wisconsin, then that's not the answer. An arm of the ocean did dip into North Dakota for a while but that last happened in the Paleocene. The meg and the "mako" also appear to be from different deposits although you can find something big and beat-up next to something comparatively delicate at many sites. I think the closest meg locality might be the east coast of southern Canada - teeth dredged from offshore. The idea that Native Americans picked up items from one area and took them elsewhere is used as an explanation for similar finds, and that did happen, but scientists don't like to just use that in the absence of other evidence (other items from the same area not found there). It becomes a string of maybes stretching credibility. Whale and walrus fossils have been identified in Michigan (Holman, 1975) but these appear to be isolated Pleistocene bones (plus one partial skull) that could have been transported or perhaps explained as wayward individuals traveling upriver but never getting back out to sea. I think these were the fossils that someone could have carried and lost sometime in the recent past. Maybe the other fossils found could be a clue to the group's origin. Jess Holman, J.A. 1975. Michigan's Fossil Vertebrates. Educational Bulletin #2. Publications of the Museum. Michigan State University. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted March 19, 2018 Share Posted March 19, 2018 On 3/18/2018 at 10:52 AM, fernwood said: Easy to find, on my land. Waiting for the experts here to weigh in. Dunno why anyone would pitch anything in that location, as it is in the middle of my 39 acres, on the edge of a field, located next to 15 acres of woods. Only access is via my driveway and across the field. What other fossils did you find? Please provide a photo or two if you can. People dump all kinds of stuff everywhere. Sometimes, garbage men find money. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimravis Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 On 3/18/2018 at 6:09 PM, fernwood said: No one should be walking through my corn fields hiding teeth randomly for kids to find. I think I figured this one out- here is a quote from a not so great movie: I think He Who Walks Behind The Rows is dropping teeth. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernwood Posted March 20, 2018 Author Share Posted March 20, 2018 18 hours ago, siteseer said: What other fossils did you find? Please provide a photo or two if you can. People dump all kinds of stuff everywhere. Sometimes, garbage men find money. As a newbie here, is it worth or even allowed, for me to post my finds? Most do not have positive ID's. They were ID's by the local Natural History Museum Director, UW Geology Dept. Chair and the local rock/fossil expert. I have about 20, with tentative ID's and at least another 100 with no ID, but potential. Lots of glacial deposits here, mostly from Niagara Escarpment, glacial lakes and volcano's. Not only fossils, but rocks/minerals common in Canada. Mostly coral, sponge, algae, but a few plants/bones. Just trying to make sense of everything I am finding. All, finds are from about 25 acres of my land. I am not that far from the local unit of the Ice Age Trail. doubt that this matters, but might provide a clue for some, ie transport of items long ago. No ARcheological sites (Native American) on my land. Only ceremonial sites previous owner constructed. Could she have been using the teeth for something? All of the sites I found had modern deer skulls/jaws arranged a specific way in trees and on the ground. Might be worth investing those sites more to see if I find any other ancients. Thanks for the thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shellseeker Posted March 20, 2018 Share Posted March 20, 2018 11 minutes ago, fernwood said: As a newbie here, is it worth or even allowed, for me to post my finds? Most do not have positive ID's. They were ID's by the local Natural History Museum Director, UW Geology Dept. Chair and the local rock/fossil expert. I have about 20, with tentative ID's and at least another 100 with no ID, but potential. Welcome to the forum, it is here to share fossil finds among an interested community... You have an opportunity to educate us on something curious and new... Please do 5 The White Queen ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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