First 2 Days in the Judith River fm of Montana- July 30-31, 2019

[PaleoNoel]

Hey everyone, I've entered the final week of my awesome 3 week excursion with PaleoProspectors! We finish in Northern Montana in the Judith River formation.

Monday we started at microsite which was easily accessed and a location I had some success two years prior- in 2017 I found a Troodon tooth here among other nice fossils.

It became readily apparent that this location was going to give us another productive day. Although I found no complete theropod teeth early on, I did find a number of partials and fragments, along with spit teeth and some crocodilian fossils.

The beautiful view from where we parked. 

Piece of crocodilian osteoderm

Some spit teeth, most likely hadrosaur.

The tip of a tyrannosaurid tooth 

A view from the microsite

 

And now for my big find of the day! A huge tyrannosaurid tooth.

I was so excited that I had to prep it out that night and I was happy with how it came out.

 

oh yeah I also found a lil croc tooth after this. 

Some more views of the site and who I'm collecting with

 

 

[PaleoNoel]

The second day was also spent at a microsite, except this time it was located down the valley and a mile away from where we parked. This ranch is certainly not for the faint of heart!

Here's a view from where we parked-

 

Here's the group reaching the microsite

 

Here's a pic of a partial hadrosaur crown along with a smaller spit tooth

And a nice size croc/gator tooth (for this formation)

 

A view from above of the group working the site

 

In the second half of the day I went with some other people to go prospecting around a site which had produced larger bones in years past, this took us over Rock Creek and several miles to a small butte.

 

Once we reached the site we began finding bone fragments and other fossils like this nice looking osteoderm.

And spit teeth

 

After poking around this area for a bit I found my best fossil of the day- a partial foot claw from an Ornithomimid

 

As we made the long trek back to the cars I stopped at a little spot where iron siderite and small pieces of bone were eroding out, I ended up finding a few nice fossils.

A croc tooth on the left and a partial tyrannosaurid tooth on the right were some of my last good finds for the day.

 

Stay tuned for the rest of the week!

[Ludwigia]

Congrats on that Tyrannosaurid tooth! And thanks for the series of reports on your trip. Very informative.

[Nimravis]

Great finds and pics- congrats.

[Troodon]

This is quite the tour you are on and indeed a productive day in the JRF.  The weather seems to be cooperating which is super.  Thanks for the continuing report

[sharkdoctor]

Living vicariously through your updates....keep'em coming! And thanks for all of the site pics. Beautiful!

[PaleoNoel]

6 hours ago, Ludwigia said:

Congrats on that Tyrannosaurid tooth! And thanks for the series of reports on your trip. Very informative.

 

6 hours ago, Nimravis said:

Great finds and pics- congrats.

 

3 hours ago, Troodon said:

This is quite the tour you are on and indeed a productive day in the JRF.  The weather seems to be cooperating which is super.  Thanks for the continuing report

 

28 minutes ago, sharkdoctor said:

Living vicariously through your updates....keep'em coming! And thanks for all of the site pics. Beautiful!

Thanks everyone! 

[Scipio]

Well done Noel! Looks like you have really developed the eye for collecting! I am curious, Did you find that big tooth near the bottom of the hill there or did you find it higher up? I only ask since I Found that big complete one last year near the bottom as well as that Tyrannosaur dentary near the same level.

Mike

[PaleoNoel]

6 hours ago, Scipio said:

Well done Noel! Looks like you have really developed the eye for collecting! I am curious, Did you find that big tooth near the bottom of the hill there or did you find it higher up? I only ask since I Found that big complete one last year near the bottom as well as that Tyrannosaur dentary near the same level.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I found the tooth closer to the lower level of the microsite but about 4-5 feet above where it levels out with the iron siderite wash. It seems that multiple people had passed it as they were hunting that area.

 

 

 

[Pemphix]