Potomac Miocene 7/5/19

[RCW3D]

I have to say that today was a fun day, I took @Darktooth and his family out for some fossil hunting along the Miocene areas of the Potomac. We had a beautiful day for it, just wish that the clouds that had been forecasted would have showed because it became extremely hot out there! Nevertheless, we persisted and spent about 5 hours looking for fossils and we were all wiped out by the time we got back. I know that Darktooth will be posting his own report, the following is just what my daughter and I found.

 

I had a great time with you Darktooth, I hope you and your family enjoy the rest of your vacation!

 

Total haul of our "small stuff"

 

Nice "doorstop" whale vert

 

 

A nice hastalis, really the only tooth I found

 

 

Crab, I just started to look for these. Never really had the eye for them before.

 

 

My daughter found this piece of fish jaw with a tooth in it. She really didn't know what she had but thought it looked neat and put it in her bag.

 

 

I found this fish vert in a chunk of matrix

 

 

A couple of small shark verts

 

 

A little ecphora

 

 

Now for the really cool find, definitely a trip maker and my best find this year...three attached verts that have been tentatively identified as marlin. Dr. Weems will get a look at them on Monday so I may get an updated ID then.

[Rowboater]

Great day of hunting!  The marlin vertebrae are really impressive!

[FossilDAWG]

Those marlin vertebrae would have made my day! 

 

Don

[smt126]

What an amazing find. I bet you guys were smiles ear to ear. I can't wait to try a little hunting there at the end of the month when I visit dc. I plan on going to matoaka beach for the day with the family. It sounds like it's nice whether you're looking for fossils or just chilling out.

[jcbshark]

Awesome finds for sure 

[Darktooth]

@RCW3D my family and I really appreciated you and your daughter meeting up with us yesterday. I enjoyed our time out there. The heat was a bit intense but that's how it goes sometimes. After we grabbed some lunch we headed to Mataoka cottages for a few hours. The beach was shaded for the most part, so we got some relief for a bit. The boys swam, while I looked for shells. We even found a few sharkteeth. We ended the evening with a Hibachi dinner at Sakura Japanese Steakhouse. That was delicious! Today we are headed to D.C.

I will post pics of our finds, when I get a chance. Thank-you so much for showing us a good time and for the fossils that you gave to my boys!

 

Sincerly Dave

[ynot]

Nice all around!

[Randyw]

Nice finds!

[RCW3D]

On 7/5/2019 at 8:06 PM, FossilDAWG said:

Those marlin vertebrae would have made my day! 

 

Don

 

Yeah, I can honestly say that I let a little squeal out when I saw it...of course it was a manly sort of squeal! 

[Ludwigia]

Those verts are FOTM material!

[Darktooth]

14 hours ago, RCW3D said:

 

Yeah, I can honestly say that I let a little squeal out when I saw it...of course it was a manly sort of squeal! 

Are you sure about that?

[RCW3D]

28 minutes ago, Darktooth said:

Are you sure about that?

Shush! 

[Darktooth]

12 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Those verts are FOTM material!

I agree Roger. And since I was there and saw them in person I can honestly say that the pics dont do them justice. 

[RCW3D]

16 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Those verts are FOTM material!

 

4 hours ago, Darktooth said:

I agree Roger. And since I was there and saw them in person I can honestly say that the pics dont do them justice. 

 

I'll submit it after Dr. Weems weighs in on the identification...definitely looks to be a big fish, having 3 together like that was pretty awesome.

[Randyw]

4 hours ago, Darktooth said:

I agree Roger. And since I was there and saw them in person I can honestly say that the pics dont do them justice. 

So you can confirm if it was a “manly” squeal or not?  Personally I would probably be squealing like a little girl being handed a puppy if I found that!

[hemipristis]

  Sweeet verts!  I'm a fish guy, and love this stuff!

 

Just a weee bit jelly.....LOL.

 

Not sure about the ID though. They look to me to be more like tarpon, or black drum.  But I think tarpon. 

Courtesy of fossil guy..co, here are photos of an associated grouping of small tarpon vertebra from Calvert Cliffs. I couldn't find any decent photos from a drum

[hemipristis]

In contrast, billfish vertebra are weird-day shaped, almost hourglass: wider the ends and narrow in the center.  

Inserted below are two photos, one from a fossil vert from Lee Creek , courtesy of elasmo,com.  The second is an online image of a marlin vertebral column, I circled an individual vertebra

 

 

[RCW3D]

@hemipristis, I'm not going to disagree with you, my own research when I got home had me questioning the marlin ID that I initially recieved and I asked some others for their thoughts. It is being checked out today by a real paleontologist so hopefully I'll get a better answer later. 

[Darktooth]

15 hours ago, hemipristis said:

In contrast, billfish vertebra are weird-day shaped, almost hourglass: wider in the middle and narrow in the center.  

Inserted below are two photos, one from a fossil vert from Lee Creek , courtesy of elasmobranchs,com.  The second is an online image of a marlin vertebral column, I circled an individual vertebra

 

 

So maybe this partial vert that I found could possibly be marlin? Here is a pic of the outer surface.

[Darktooth]

Here is a pic of the inner surface.

[RCW3D]

I'm still waiting for an official identification but after doing my own research, I believe they are tuna vertebrae. I happened to look at the Calvert Marine Museum's website and found this picture which looks to be what I found exactly (though much cleaner).

[RCW3D]

Just a quick update, Dr. Weems looked at the verts and identified them as swordfish. 

[RCW3D]

Change 2, the previous information was given to me second hand, Dr. Weems contacted me directly with the following information:

 

don't think this is a billfish of any sort.  The neural spines don't seem right for a billfish and the vertebrae are strongly interlocked.  What it does match nicely is the vertebral pattern found in scombrid fishes.  To my knowledge, only two kinds of scombrids in our area get to this sort of size:  Acanthocybium (wahoo) and Thunnus (tuna).  The vertebral centra are relatively short, and this is typical of Acanthocybium but not Thunnus.  Therefore, my opinion is that these belong to a large Acanthocybium.  A wahoo vertebra in this size range was illustrated in volume 3 of the Lee Creek set, so they did apparently get this large in the past.

 

In scombrids, the vertebral column can be subdivided into six regions.  Anteriormost, there are several or so vertebrae that have robust neural spines and no ribs.  Behind them are a series of vertebrae that have less robust neural spines, prominent ribs, but no haemal arches below the centra.  The first vertebra in your series belongs to the first sequence and the second and third belong to the second sequence, so the location of these vertebrae in the vertebral column is exceptionally clear and far forward.  This particular pattern of subdivision of the vertebral column is quite characteristic of scombrids so far as I can determine.

 

 

The pretty cool (and also somewhat disappointing) thing about this is that it will be retained and catalogued. I'm happy that I found something significant but a little sad that all I will have from it is pictures.