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1st time at the Peace River Florida


Atomic_Monkey

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The last year or so I have gotten back into fossil hunting which I loved when I was young (45 now). With a 9 year old son that loves it too (I have even converted my wife a little!).  We were invited to look for fossils in a small creek accessible by foot on 4-28-18.  Less than a foot deep where we dug and sifted by hand and small garden shovel for about 4 hours. Mostly found a couple hundred small sharks teeth that we will donate to a science facility here that will put them in a sand box and let children find them at a class/event.  An interesting bone that looks like a socket joint piece, and a few other things...

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Mostly Bulls and Lemons here

 

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Cool socket of some kind (hoping I don't find out its a chicken bone someone threw in the creek!)

 

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Tube worms or coral / sponge maybe..?

 

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4-30-18 we made our first trip to the actual Peace River and rented a canoe at The Canoe Outpost for the day.  I have read about fossil hunting there a little (a good bit from this forum) and knew to look for gravel bottom and that deeper banks could be best.   We just paddled north about 1.5 - 2 miles and found a nice sandy bank on the inside of a bend to put the canoe on.  As I waded out I could feel the rocks crunching under my feet and it seemed to go down about 12" so we set up and started digging/sifting (1/4" mesh). Found some nice 1" teeth in the first half hour and there were generally a small tooth or two mixed with some various sizes of turtle shell etc. on each screen.  Never found a real gem on the trip but did get a nice gator tooth and a few other teeth including barracuda. Some interesting bones and shell fossils that I kept as well.  When I dug down I got about 12" of mud and gravel, under that was a white clay like sediment that contained nothing.  I have heard digging deeper can produce  better finds, maybe next time I will prod for a deeper gravel bed.  All in all for not knowing much of where to go it was a great day, and I surely can't be disappointed with some nice tiger shark teeth and the Gator tooth...Also found the largest sting ray plate I have seen so far. 

 

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Just one more screen full I promise! 

 

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This was close to The Canoe Outpost...(We did not dig here!)

 

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The ID section of the forum helped identify the far right tooth as barracuda and the second one as alligator.

 

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The better of the teeth.  Also found a couple hundred more small ones to donate.

 

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Bivalves

 

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Not sure what this is, looks like piece of broken tooth coming out of a root.....

 

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Interesting bones.

 

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turtle shell pieces I believe

 

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Not sure about this either, maybe a skin plate of some kind.

 

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My wife claimed this turtle shell fragment for the peace sign.

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Great Finds! Have a few Peace River Fossils but have never been there myself. Looks like an awesome spot! :dinothumb:

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Nice report and finds! Congratulations on a good hunt!

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I like Trilo-butts and I cannot lie.

 

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Cool finds...the Peace is a great place to find all kinds of critters remains and traces...I'm thinking the one unknown "broken tooth" is actually barnacle and the other unknown "skin plate" is a ray dermal denticle. Is this shark tooth broken and does it have a very small cusp on the right side? 

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Thanks for sharing the report. 

Regards, Chris 

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Thanks @Plantguy   I'll take barnacle! For a tooth it would have seemed strange that the tooth color was the same as the root so that would make sense. I have seen post of Ray dermal denticles a while back but wasn't sure  if that's what this was or something similar, so thank you for  identifying that for me! The shark tooth is not broken and is in great shape here is a close-up. Looks like a small nub of a cusp.. But seems to be a tooth from near the hinge of the jaw, or a juvenile I guess so I'm not as good with off-shape teeth like those.. I thought it was likely a bull shark tooth from near the hinge at first guess.

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Also found one of these at each location. The first one we found we threw it out thinking it was man-made. When we found one at the Peace River I realized it might be something. No idea what this is or what it is from.

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18 minutes ago, Atomic_Monkey said:

Also found one of these at each location. The first one we found we threw it out thinking it was man-made. When we found one at the Peace River I realized it might be something. No idea what this is or what it is from.

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That is a sea urchin spine.

 

 

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45 minutes ago, Atomic_Monkey said:

Thanks @Plantguy   I'll take barnacle! For a tooth it would have seemed strange that the tooth color was the same as the root so that would make sense. I have seen post of Ray dermal denticles a while back but wasn't sure  if that's what this was or something similar, so thank you for  identifying that for me! The shark tooth is not broken and is in great shape here is a close-up. Looks like a small nub of a cusp.. But seems to be a tooth from near the hinge of the jaw, or a juvenile I guess so I'm not as good with off-shape teeth like those.. I thought it was likely a bull shark tooth from near the hinge at first guess.

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That’s a Meg! From a juvenile or very posterior of course, but a meg nonetheless:meg::dinothumb:

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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3 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

That’s a Meg! From a juvenile or very posterior of course, but a meg nonetheless:meg::dinothumb:

That would be awesome! When they're this small do they not always have the dark area beneath the root?

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9 hours ago, Atomic_Monkey said:

This was close to The Canoe Outpost...(We did not dig here!)

 

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Aw come on, he just wants to snuggle!

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Atomic_Monkey said:

That would be awesome! When they're this small do they not always have the dark area beneath the root?

They actually do (it’s called bourlette), it’s just very thin and usually a bit worn, which is the case in your tooth. It’s there just very thin, and in some places rubbed off.

“...whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Charles Darwin

Happy hunting,

Mason

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19 minutes ago, caldigger said:

Aw come on, he just wants to snuggle!

Yeah, I know how those gators work... First they snuggle, then they rob the sandwich in your cooler! 

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They like to win you over before they mooch a meal. 

"Hey buddy, ya got any diet sodas to go with this?"

 

 

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Nice finds, and a nice report, thanks for sharing. :)

Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

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On 5/4/2018 at 11:49 PM, Atomic_Monkey said:

Tube worms or coral / sponge maybe..?

 

I believe that these are fossilized tree roots... especially true if you found them in a creek. 

You found a MEG :yay-smiley-1::yay-smiley-1: on your 1st trip to the Peace River... the river gods must love you..  10 years ago , it took me over 10 months to find my 1st Meg in a River that had tens of thousands of Megs... I was dumb as a rock when it came to fossil hunting. I am better now. :megdance:

The White Queen  ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast"

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Good finds, as a local Arcadian who has spent much time digging, I agree with every ID. The only one that would have stumped was the sea urchin spine. I too, thought they were man made, my guess was some king of ceramic insulator.

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On 5/5/2018 at 8:35 AM, Atomic_Monkey said:

Thanks @Plantguy   I'll take barnacle! For a tooth it would have seemed strange that the tooth color was the same as the root so that would make sense. I have seen post of Ray dermal denticles a while back but wasn't sure  if that's what this was or something similar, so thank you for  identifying that for me! The shark tooth is not broken and is in great shape here is a close-up. Looks like a small nub of a cusp.. But seems to be a tooth from near the hinge of the jaw, or a juvenile I guess so I'm not as good with off-shape teeth like those.. I thought it was likely a bull shark tooth from near the hinge at first guess.

 

 

Yes Barnacles are good. We have some really bigun's and more modest ones around here and their infills like yours remind me of little volcano cones!. 

 

Yay! those little Megs are sneaky good! Congrats! 

Regards, Chris 

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Looks like you had a great day hunting, congrats :fistbump:

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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