Rapp creek hunting

[Rowboater]

Made two trips to the creek while worrying about Dorian; one trip to the beach, but not much there (picked clean by Labor Day visitors? Only one olive shell and a few bleached, worn small teeth.) 

I pooled the stuff collected in trips from the same general area in the creek. 

One of the trips I used a slightly coarser screen, followed by a window screen in response to @MarcoSr excellent recent post "What are you missing????".  Since my teeth are micro-sized to begin with, I was sure that there would be lots of new stuff to sort through.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed in my initial characterization of the "fines". I cannot see well looking about in the creek, but am very near-sighted and think I can see most of what is there at home (but will retry with a different substrate spot; the spot I was digging was fine gravel and shell bits).  I do see more smaller drum teeth.  Some bone bits and a few angel shark teeth (may have damaged the roots on them as well with the double screening, always wondered if screening was why my cowshark teeth were often rootless?)  No nurse shark or cookie-cutter shark teeth yet, but still intrigued.

The two trips were mostly sand tiger teeth, mostly rootless or small root spikes.  Some were glossy and nice but I'm guessing the gravel takes its toll.  A couple of verts, a small piece of a bonito nose(?), a bunch of angel shark teeth (a few with broken triangular bases; I stood them up for the scan).  A bunch of drum teeth (and small round rocks, not shown).  One ugly worn cowshark tooth.  One for sure small mako, and a few that I cannot see any serrations on (micro mako teeth?) More serrated triangular teeth than usual for me, mostly gray sharks, but one worn-on-the-tip hemipristis.  Two tooth pieces, one relatively flat with what looks like hemi-serated edge of enamel, and one heavier, triangular edge with finer serrations that I think, hopefully, is a smallish megalodon.  If so, this is the first meg that I have seen from the creek since a kid found a big one thirty years ago there (teeth were much more plentiful, but meg teeth were always rare there).

 

 

 

 

[Rowboater]

With the drum teeth, there were three (can only find two) pieces with glossy small points on them, wondering if some sort of skate or ray denticle?

 

[Khyssa]

Nice finds with some unusual colors

[Darktooth]

Nice finds! I am curious about the light color tooth in the middle of pic#2 in post #2

4 hours ago, Rowboater said:

 

 

[MarcoSr]

22 hours ago, Rowboater said:

One of the trips I used a slightly coarser screen, followed by a window screen in response to @MarcoSr excellent recent post "What are you missing????".  Since my teeth are micro-sized to begin with, I was sure that there would be lots of new stuff to sort through.  Unfortunately, I was disappointed in my initial characterization of the "fines". I cannot see well looking about in the creek, but am very near-sighted and think I can see most of what is there at home (but will retry with a different substrate spot; the spot I was digging was fine gravel and shell bits).  I do see more smaller drum teeth.  Some bone bits and a few angel shark teeth (may have damaged the roots on them as well with the double screening, always wondered if screening was why my cowshark teeth were often rootless?)  No nurse shark or cookie-cutter shark teeth yet, but still intrigued.

 

 

I took fine gravel home from Paleocene sites at Liverpool Point/Purse State Park along the Potomac River in Maryland for years.  I found both location and time of year radically effected the quality/quantity of what I found in the gravel.  Most spots I only found a few worn specimens.  However, I found several spots through trial and error that had lots of high quality specimens.  I've found that with gravel you tend to do better if the gravel is close to a cliff or bank with exposed fossil formations that slough/erode regularly.  I've also found that I find more high quality specimens in the spring after the freeze/thaw puts lots of formation on the beach from the cliffs.  Specimens do spread out fairly quickly in gravel so you don't get a high fossil density like you can in transgression/regression lens in formations themselves and the specimens can get beat up fairly quickly by the constantly moving gravel.  It's all about trial and error sampling.  You will find many more dud gravel areas than productive ones.  Formation transgression/regression lens are much more productive as the fossils get concentrated in them.

 

I search lots of Miocene high fossil density formation lens in Virginia for small vertebrate fossils as part of the vertebrate fauna studies that I help with.  I don't find cookie cutter teeth at all and I rarely find nurse shark teeth.  I also don't find a lot of angel shark teeth so I'm surprised by how many you find.  However, I do find lots of cookie cutter, nurse and angel shark teeth in the Eocene formations of Virginia that I search.

 

Marco Sr.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rowboater]

@Darktooth I believe the light colored tooth with the apparent 'cusp' is a worn cowshark tooth (but have been wrong before).

 

@MarcoSr Good information!  I look forward to hunting 'microfossils and teeth' again when cooler.  It was probably not the best time when hot, humid and the creek water largely turned to mud.  It is reassuring that your finds tend to vary by location.  Have some ideas now where to try again and will eventually post what I find.

[Fossildude19]

Don't know how I missed this, but these are some great finds!  

 

[ynot]

Nice finds and report.

Thanks for sharing.