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Hello, I noticed an intro forum and thought I'd say hello to my fellow rock and fossil enthusiasts. I live in Oklahoma, which sadly doesn't have much in the way of rockhounding, but one thing we do have is fossils. Given that we were inundated--twice!--in our ancient history, a lot of them are marine fossils, but we also do have some terrestrial vertebrates, which is pretty cool too! My favorite is a marketing strategy by the state...OOOOOKLAHOMA! Where Saurophaganax came screaming down the plains! Anyway I'm grateful to be here and look forward to networking with other fans of old stuff! (Really old stuff, that is!)
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FossilGirl11 joined the community -
RockyLizard changed their profile photo -
Last batch for Now!! This beauty is 12.5 inches. It was so full of dirt and shell and heavy that I thought it was whole.
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I just need to positive think myself into finding a complete giant beaver incisor... No wait! A giant beaver skull...
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Exactly !!!! Possibly a coincidence , but the above Mastodon Tooth was found March of 2012, In the Peace River at a location 1/4 mile upstream from where I was digging today. It is the power of positive thinking!!
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I'm just relieved that ptychodus isn't a ray, after I've been imagining them as sharks all this time
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Next set! The big one is 5 inches! I added pics before i washed them. Full of shells and dirt/ clay.
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This shell was still hinged. Full of clay. The teeth are crazy cool. The inside is different than I've seen also!
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I am late to the discussion. Very cool to see two more completely articulated Ptychodus! Based on just one tooth, this larger one looks like Ptychodus marginalis. It appears to be about 5' long. Before Shawn saw the one in Hillsboro (which he thought was Ptychodus anonymous), he said the following in his NMMNH Bulletin 81 extract: "Based on all available data, the systematic position of the Ptychodontidae should be placed within its own order, the Ptychodontiformes within the Neoselachii at the base of the Superorder Galea." In that paper he concludes that Ptychodus rugosus and other younger species were likely fast swimmers and ate ammonites and squids. So, that "fast swimmer" part is not new. The position in the hierarchy is slightly different. He had them in Galeamorphii also, but as a separate order (Ptychodontiformes) not under Lamniformes.
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Ok this is a fossil Hill ! Ha ha! On private land. They told me the hill was there when the arrived. It will soon be spread out for a new house. so sad. Here what I've found so far. 1st picture of the Hill!!
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Right, but what I'm needing to learn is how to write down a likelihood for a cladogram, but sounds like that's the point of contention in paleontology. Perhaps we're lucky in physics to have such precise models haha. I'm planning to devote some time this Summer to studying this, do you have any useful pedagogic references? Yes, Bayesian inference can be viewed as an expression of the scientific method, where you update your prior beliefs based on new data. Schematically, we wish to know the conditional probability of our model given the data, the "posterior". Bayes' theorem allows us to relate the posterior to a prior distribution multiplied by another conditional probability distribution, the probability of the data given the model, the "likelihood", all normalized by something called the "evidence" (the likelihood marginalized over all model parameters - though this isn't always necessary to compute in Bayesian inference, it is in nested sampling which I'm less familiar with). A class of algorithms, Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMCs), allow one to produce approximately independent samples of the posterior by "exploring" the likelihood space. How this is actually done is not something I can explain very concisely in a TFF post, if you're curious, a popular method is the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. There are multiple additional layers on top of this including differential evolution and parallel tempering (aka simulated annealing) to address issues with efficiency and exploration like local maxima.
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zkazyak changed their profile photo -
Or the patella from an arthritic seaman.
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Pretty neat, maybe there's a complete Mastodon molar in that spot... You did say you felt there was a ''special'' fossil somewhere there
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The tooth fragment below this Mastodon is Mammoth....
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What the heck is this? Glad you got out!! Jp
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The patterns on the first pic of object 1 remind me of enamel fragments from mammal teeth, but the last picture less so.
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Member Of The Month - Time for a change? Please give your opinion.
Top Trilo replied to Fossildude19's topic in Member of the Month
In order, @AgrilusHunter, @Jesse, @DevonianDigger and @CBchiefski. For one reason or another, after a couple years, they left. -
How to know age of conch shell? fossil? on Southern California beach?
Corey lakin replied to Corey lakin's topic in Fossil ID
Poche beach is in the city of either San Clemente or Capistrano beach, Orange County California. I’m finding articles siting this area does have fossils from the Miocene age. -
Member Of The Month - Time for a change? Please give your opinion.
Wrangellian replied to Fossildude19's topic in Member of the Month
I'd like to know who these members are (or were):.jpg.08a9629e0735e9b6a5c97eccb2c0ada8-ed.jpg.a57d156715231e64a7ba4498d9b43fa3.jpg)
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Pennsylvanian Cordaites principalis leaf and Cordaites borassifolius Stern bark
ntloux replied to ntloux's topic in Member Collections
Bockryan and Mark, The greenish coatings appear to be some type of lichen or moss growing on the specimen. There are a few areas where the carbonized section has peeled away but mostly it is fossil with partial covering by lichen and/or moss. Nick -
Out hunting today. Friend Dave, last hunt of the Season, a snowbird heading North. I was not finding much and he was, so he invited me to come dig in the hole he created. I started finding interesting fossils and , kept on thinking I am about to find a really good , rare fossil. I found some shark teeth and even a Meg. I found some pieces of Mammal teeth and a piece of fossilized wood.... A pretty little Glyptodon osteoderm A couple of Bullas, One Dolphin, maybe Stenella... The other... Whale.. Interesting .. Do whale Bullas come this small. Finally, I stopped looking for that "special" fossil.. I was hunting my favorite river, with a friend, it was warm and the sun was shining.... An unusual thing happened. Fred Mazza charters Peace River Fossil Hunting. As we were hunting a large group passed by. One women did a double take as she paddle a canoe past us and said to me " I know your face." As she passed she asked "Are you on some blog"? Answer: I am Shellseeker on TFF. Response I knew it was you!!! I think she recognized my Avatar... Black Wetsuit and baseball cap... Enjoy.
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Member Of The Month - Time for a change? Please give your opinion.
fossilcrazy replied to Fossildude19's topic in Member of the Month
Participation is a broadband of posting topics. In the past, I thought the largest membership audience were avid collectors who would "check out" a topic posting of their particular interests and comment when they got the urge. The waves of change brought a larger influx of " look what I found, can you tell me what it is?" members. I love helping people find some incite to fossils. If a member is basically too lazy to do minimal research; why just hand them the answer? I am certain the best members are self taught and are driven to broaden their knowledge. The shear numbers of newest members give me the sense, why am I posting if no one reading cares. Just tell me what I've got. Worst yet - how much is it worth. These days it's log in, glace, hop right off. -
RCBusack joined the community
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Member Of The Month - Time for a change? Please give your opinion.
Fin Lover replied to Fossildude19's topic in Member of the Month
To me, this sounds like a good amount of continued participation.- 138 replies
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How to know age of conch shell? fossil? on Southern California beach?
Corey lakin replied to Corey lakin's topic in Fossil ID
It was found on Poche beach in Orange County ca. thank you for responding! -
Ocean polished and halved geode I suppose
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Member Of The Month - Time for a change? Please give your opinion.
Top Trilo replied to Fossildude19's topic in Member of the Month
At most 97.3% (181 out of 186)
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