PaleoNoel Posted January 27, 2019 Author Share Posted January 27, 2019 I had a number of nice finds from that site that day- I found a tiny but nice quality Edmontosaurus tooth A tiny myledaphus A little croc tooth My best find from the site- a Richardoestesia tooth Here's a Thescelosaurus premaxillary tooth which I originally thought was a croc/ alligator 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
belemniten Posted January 27, 2019 Share Posted January 27, 2019 Wow!!! Thanks for the great trip report Your finds are amazing and your pictures are great 1 Many greetings from Germany ! Have a great time with many fossils Regards Sebastian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted January 27, 2019 Author Share Posted January 27, 2019 7 hours ago, belemniten said: Wow!!! Thanks for the great trip report Your finds are amazing and your pictures are great Thank you! There's still more to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted January 27, 2019 Share Posted January 27, 2019 Looking good so far! 1 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...
dalmayshun Posted January 27, 2019 Share Posted January 27, 2019 what a cool trip. The wind carved sandstone feature would have been worth it all by iitself. But congrats on everything else. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted February 3, 2019 Author Share Posted February 3, 2019 The first half of the fourth day was meant for prospecting for new sites. After traversing the hills and gullies for an hour or so finding essentially nothing, I decided I would call it quits on this section of the ranch if I didn't find anything of note within the next half hour. Luckily, as I continued through some washes I found a nice alligator tooth on sitting on the surface of one of the rises. Following the tooth, I found a scute nearby and a disarticulated but nice size Hadrosaur ossified tendon. I wrapped this area up and headed back to the cars to have my sandwich and think about where I wanted to head next. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted February 3, 2019 Author Share Posted February 3, 2019 On the second half of Day 4 the group split up. Some went with Steve to help at the bone bed, a few went to prospect for new sites while others went to already established ones within a reasonable range of one another (to make for easier regrouping). I decided to go back to the site where I had success at on Day 2, the one located three oil rigs down from the turn off. I knew this site still had plenty to offer and I was pleased by my success I had that afternoon. This time I was with only one other fossil hunter and we scoured the hillside and hilltop for whatever we could find, which turned out to be an nice assortment of fossils (mostly crocodilian material). Here are some shots from the field- Croc scutes in situ Here's the biggest and best croc scute I found on the trip. I found 2 crocodilian vert that afternoon, from two different parts of the body. I believe one is cervical and one is dorsal but I don't remember what the consensus was one my original ID post about them. Here's the last theropod tooth I found on the trip, a little Acheroraptor with a nice rusty brown color with a white strip going across it. Unfortunately, in the field the Iphone camera decided to focus on my hand more so than the tooth. Pictures of the tooth at home 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Amateur Paleontologist Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Very nice field trip - absolutely love the stuff you found Especially the theropod teeth! Looks also like a really nice place to collect* I'll be sure to try something like that in the near future!! -Christian *At the same time, that might also be because I'm rather partial to badlands (aren't they beautiful? ) Opalised fossils are the best: a wonderful mix between paleontology and mineralogy! Q. Where do dinosaurs study? A. At Khaan Academy!... My ResearchGate profile Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted February 5, 2019 Author Share Posted February 5, 2019 13 hours ago, The Amateur Paleontologist said: Very nice field trip - absolutely love the stuff you found Especially the theropod teeth! Looks also like a really nice place to collect* I'll be sure to try something like that in the near future!! -Christian *At the same time, that might also be because I'm rather partial to badlands (aren't they beautiful? ) Absolutely beautiful. No hill, wash or mesa is the same out there and it's so vast that you suddenly feel just like the ants working under your feet by your fossil sites. You realize how tiny we really are. Simply a wonderful landscape! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 I really need to wrap this trip report up, I started it back in January and I've procrastinated this long to finish it. Luckily I'm on the last day at this point, but before I show you those finds I'll show off some other stuff that I found interesting. Here's a closer look at the Richardoestesia tooth I found on an anthill on day 3. And here's a find from day 4 which I had not shared yet. As I mentioned before, the microsite where I found the croc jaw, vertebrae and one of the acheroraptor teeth I was also finding pieces of petrified wood in a conglomerate along with freshwater mollusks. The bivalves were mostly fragmentary but I some of the snails were in solid condition. Here is the best sample from that conglomerate. I found these fossils fascinating as you don't generally think of the lance formation producing wood and gastropods. These two were combined on one piece. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 Here's the best solo chunk of petrified wood I found that day. Circled in red are a two other pieces I found, in blue are fragments of tyrannosaur teeth (did not find those that day) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 Finally I've gotten to writing about the final day. We got up about a half hour earlier than usual and headed down to a ranch north of Lusk, Wyoming which was about 80 miles south of where we were staying in Newcastle. Instead of lance formation dinosaurs this ranch had white river fm. oligocene mammals on one section and cretaceous marine (which I believe was pierre shale) on another. This is how the day would be split up. We started on the oligocene section of ranch and I quickly understood how the White River formation had earned it's name. The place was a moonscape, spare the patches of grass which covered certain areas around the rises and gullies of an space that resembled a drained pond as it was below where we were parked and surrounded on all sides by the typical grass and sage. Here's a view of the landscape, greener than I remember. My memory of white ground covering everything is probably due to me looking down at it the whole time! Here's the first mammal tooth I found that day, I posted an ID on it a while ago and several thought it might be an unerupted mesohippus tooth. Here it is at home: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 Here are some more teeth and jaw sections. Not pictured are the pieces of bone and turtle shell which were a common find out there. A leptomeryx jaw section And a little tooth w/some of the jaw still attached Here's what I believe is an oreodont tooth Here's what I'm pretty confident is also an oreodont tooth. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 My best find from this spot was a section of what I believe is dog jaw, possibly Hesperocyon. It has one incomplete tooth in the jaw but was clearly not from an herbivore. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 The second half of the day was spent on an open field where a few outcroppings had marine fossils exposed. Mostly made up of Inoceramus bivalves and gastropods, however the goal was to find some ammonites. I was one of the first to find one and it was a nice Scaphites. Following that, I would find a few other pieces of ammonite, including a crystalline cross section of what was probably another scaphites. Once I brought some material home and broke into it I found a few more cool pieces such as bacculites and gastropods. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tidgy's Dad Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 What a fascinating thread with the most wonderful text, photos and fossils. Thank you very much for sharing all this with us. Life's Good! Tortoise Friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pemphix Posted March 3, 2019 Share Posted March 3, 2019 Thank you for sharing this very amazing trip with a lot of nice pictures and good report ! This trip is still on my bucket list, but still no time for that...i need to hurry up with that.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 3, 2019 Author Share Posted March 3, 2019 4 hours ago, Tidgy's Dad said: What a fascinating thread with the most wonderful text, photos and fossils. Thank you very much for sharing all this with us. 16 minutes ago, Pemphix said: Thank you for sharing this very amazing trip with a lot of nice pictures and good report ! This trip is still on my bucket list, but still no time for that...i need to hurry up with that.... Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ynot Posted March 4, 2019 Share Posted March 4, 2019 Looks like a lot of fun (and nice fossils) came out of Your trip. Thanks for sharing the adventure. 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...
Monica Posted March 4, 2019 Share Posted March 4, 2019 I love the ammonite-bivalve piece as well as the baculite - congrats on the awesome finds!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaleoNoel Posted March 4, 2019 Author Share Posted March 4, 2019 13 hours ago, ynot said: Looks like a lot of fun (and nice fossils) came out of Your trip. Thanks for sharing the adventure. 7 hours ago, Monica said: I love the ammonite-bivalve piece as well as the baculite - congrats on the awesome finds!!! Thank you! I'll be sure to do a report on the next trip I take. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xiphactinus Posted March 4, 2019 Share Posted March 4, 2019 great report! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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