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  1. Dinodads

    Mysterious fossil

    My group found this weird fossil they have shared it with some paleontologist who are absolutely certain it is dinosaur, I don't want to sway anyone here. It is smaller then .5mm. Very smooth in some places. I was leaning more towards scute?
  2. L.S., Wanted to share this "mini ecosystem" in fossilized form. The photos below show a rhizome of Osmunda pluma Miller 1967, a member of the royal fern family, from the Paleogene of the Fort Union Group (probably the Sentinel Butte Fm.) near Glenn Ullin in Morton County, North Dakota. On the first photo you can see a central stele surrounded by "eyes", which are cross-sections through the petioles of the leaves of the fern (see for comparison this section made through an extant Osmunda cinnamomea rhizome). More to the top and bottom of the photo, parallel lines are visible. These are the remnants of a woody texture, probably of some kind of gymnosperm (see also the second image, a flatbed scan of the entire slab containing the fern rhizome). According to Miller (1967, p. 143) the fern was growing on a so-called "nurse log": when a tree in the woods falls over and starts to decay, this can provide an excellent opportunity for new plants to grow! See for example these lovely examples of modern nurse logs. Cheers, Tim Fern rhizome of Osmunda pluma Miller 1967 showing central stele and petioles The fern rhizome is embedded in a woody texture, interpreted as a nurse log.
  3. Klaus_Grizwold

    Fossil teeth ID

    I am not a tooth person, hope someone can help identify which animals these are from. I suspect most are Bison, with some elk mixed in as well. All were found along a river eroding through glacial Lake Agassiz beach ridge. Disregard the two bison petrous bones, I am going to send those in to get dated. Thank you.
  4. Mammoth Specimen Discovered North Dakota Geological Survey ‘One of the most complete mammoth skeletons found in ND ever’: Paleontologist explains discovery in Beulah Bella Kraft, KFYR, North Dakota, December 19, 2023 Rare Mammoth specimen discovered by miners near Beulah, ND Valley News Live, Fargo, North Dakota Miners saw a flash of white in the rock. It was an Ice Age mammoth tusk Daniel Wu, Washington Post, December 27, 2023 North Dakota Geological Survey Paleontology Happy New Year, Paul H.
  5. A new mosasaur, related to the genus Clidastes, has been described from the Middle Campanian Pembina Member of the Pierre Shale Formation of North Dakota near the town of Walhalla and has been given the undeniably cool name of Jormungandr walhallaensis, after the world serpent of Norse mythology! Zietlow, Boyd and Van Vranken, 2023. Jormungandr walhallaensis: a new mosasaurine (Squamata: Mosasauroidae) from the Pierre Shale Formation (Pembina Member: Middle Campanian) of North Dakota.
  6. Klaus_Grizwold

    Is this an Ice age megafuana toe bone?

    I found this toe bone (3rd phalanx) in North Dakota along a beach ridge of glacial Lake Agassiz. At first I thought it was from a large bison. But after looking at several bison skeletons, including a Latifrons, I don't believe it could be any variant of Bison. It is just too big, and the shape is different. I have added for reference in the first picture, a 3rd phalanx from a known modern bison to show the difference. It appears to be fossilized and is from a location where I have found numerous fossilized bison bones, teeth, and petrified wood. Going through Ice Age megafauna, the one animal I am suspicious of is the extinct elk, Cervalces Scotti. But they are very rare and I have yet to find a good close picture of this area of the animal.
  7. jodowinn

    Modern Skull find #2

    I found this skull also near Enderlin, ND.
  8. jodowinn

    Modern Skull finds #3 and #4

    These two skulls I found near Pingree, ND [the one without clovers], and near Adrian, ND. I believe they're from the same animal.
  9. jodowinn

    Modern Skull Find #1

    I found this skull near Enderlin, ND. I'm a surveyor and a collector.
  10. jodowinn

    Found near Turtle River

    We found this near Turtle River State Park outside of Grand Forks, ND. I'm thinking it's a Buffalo, Bison, or Cow molar but I'm unsure with the black.
  11. During a recent visit on April 25th, 2023 to the Field Museum, one of the best museums in all of Chicago, I stopped by the new Native Truths: Our Voices, Our Stories exhibit. I must say, it's a pretty good exhibit (perhaps my third favorite exhibit, only behind the Hall of Conservation and (one of the Museums's best and most accurate exhibits) the Evolving Planet)!!! The Native Truths exhibit shows and talks about the struggles and triumphs of the many Native American Nations from their origins to the modern day in blunt and extremely accurate ways. But there was one part of the exhibit that somewhat surprised me. It's a display case with several Late Cretaceous fossils from North and South Dakota alongside an interactive pad that talked about how the specimens were originally held by the Standing Rock Institute of Natural History. I'd never heard of the Standing Rock Institute of Natural History before. I was immediately intrigued but saddened to hear it closed due to lack of funding. I researched it a bit more and discovered it's located in Fort Yates, North Dakota. It's website is also apparently still up. https://srinstituteofnaturalhistory.com The museum was located in the heart of the Standing Rocks Reservation, home to the Hunkpapa, Sihasapa, Ihanktonwona, and Pabaksa bands of the Great Sioux Native American Nation. The Reservation itself is the result of the U.S. Government's continual and illicit breaking of Treaties with the regions Native American Tribes in order to grab as much of regions gold as possible in the 1870s-1890s. This is a very simplified explanation as to what happened as whole pages could be filled with with confirmed accounts of truly barbaric atrocities sections of the U.S. Government and the U.S. army inflicted on these Native American Nations at this period in time...something likely too graphic and horrifying to talk about on the forum. But I encourage you all to research it yourselves for if we don't learn or heed the lessons from history, we are doomed to repeat it. Anyways, from what could gather, the museum wasn't particularly large but still impressive in its own right. Opening in 2007, the Standing Rock Institute of Natural History is apparently the first tribal run museum to have it's own Paleontology Code of Ethics and at its height had 10,000 Paleontological specimens. I'm very sad to hear it closed due to lack of funding.
  12. Two new paddlefish from the Tanis site of the Hell Creek Formation https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-paleontology/article/new-paddlefishes-acipenseriformes-polyodontidae-from-the-late-cretaceous-tanis-site-of-the-hell-creek-formation-in-north-dakota-usa/198F2833C683EB6741591963ED92BFA6#
  13. (Note: I don't know why half of this is in bold, I wrote this in a google doc first and copy pasted it to here, and it defaults to bold without the ability to undo it. This tends to fluctuate. Easy to see though!) "Dinosaurs are overrated", Mike teased to me. We were sitting together at the flooded dig site of our mosasaur in the early morning hours, having just finished a jam-packed but enjoyable conversation about his research and other matters related to paleo. Naturally, dinosaurs were brought up, as our schedule had to work around my upcoming internship to the Hell Creek formation. "You're right" I chuckled back - yet we both knew otherwise. Our jabs were at the insane media attention that the Hell Creek mega fauna receive, not at the neglected fact that these animals were just that, animals. Mike at his core is a biologist, a naturalist even, studying mosasaurs and their evolution. I hoped that I would get a chance to really appreciate dinosaurs in that same naturalist-esque light in person. Dinosaurs are just different to dinosaur paleontologists, and I'm glad now that I got to immerse myself in that. The group I was meeting with was actually a duo - "Fossil Excavators" is a small non-profit with big research ambitions (based on some amazing material they've discovered) run by two awesome guys - Harrison Duran and Dr. Mike Kjelland. Some may know them from this discovery that circulated a couple years ago, of a Triceratops skull named "Alice" with an interesting brow horn deformity. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745760553/college-student-discovers-65-million-year-old-triceratops-skull So, while not an internship with a school, it was an internship nonetheless and I gained experience, inspiration, and friendships. As for friends, Harrison and two of the other interns, Dawson ( @Dawson Sensenig) and Piper, as well as our amazing photographer Brittany Nailon who took many of these photos I'll show later, deserve a special mention. We spent the first few days scouting for new sites, and to good success. Mike came across the best of these new sites, which we since have dubbed "The Graveyard". It's a river wash deposit, so there's very little that's articulated but there is a great diversity of species. Better yet, the matrix is the polar opposite of the hard shales and limestones I'm used to here in Texas. In this deposit at least, it was like digging through a sand box (delightful!). Here are some quick pics from that spot: Just such a picture perfect insitu for this vert, sitting at the base of a hill among lots of other scattered bone: This well preserved edmontosaur carpal that @Dawson Sensenig found big ol' gar scale from Piper I actually made fewer direct discoveries than expected (which is ok, we worked as a team and we're directed to a spot to dig so it's not like I'd be able to take much credit for finding something anyway ). I was however happy to find this (likely) Dromaeosaur claw Though, it paled in comparison with the find 15 minutes earlier close by, from another intern (cameron) - this awesome theropod claw shown below, maybe from Anzu wyliei. A tiny tooth that we assume to be the ever enigmatic Paronychodon: This Edmontosaurus metatarsal that Dawson spotted (though I'm holding it) A stingray tooth I found, because of course I will find something aquatic here - never far from my roots! A small, broken rex tooth spotted by our photographer Brittany and a dromaeosaur tooth: More Edmontosaurus material - jaw pieces and a rib: More edmontosaur materiel, this time from a different clay site - due to the more stable matrix, there was some articulation here, though just a few verts There was also the usual assortment of leaves and ceratopsian teeth. One cool thing that stood out to me was this seed preserved in ironstone. There were a few rainy days, and one of them we spent in eastern montana on the bearpaw shale, collecting campanian invertebrates. The storms up there were hard and brief, full of orange lightning. I also include a photo I took below of one of those cloud bursts: Our bearpaw formation cephalopods! The ammonites found by our group above were exquisite, and I was particularly excited about the nautiloid. It was also a day of firsts, in that for the first time ever, I accepted a fossil into my collection (yes, we got to keep our finds that day!) that I didn't find myself. @Dawson Sensenig discovered the ammonite shown right before the nautiloid, and graciously insisted I keep it. How could I decline? As a quick break from the fossils, I'll include some of the extant fauna of the hell creek we ran into, and some other shennanigans: Beautiful prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) I encountered while scouting high up on one of the many buttes: A gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer) I caught that may even be the same individual we initially discovered in our outhouse And a constant dig companion in some spots: In addition to the creepy crawlies, the landscape was one full of mule deer and pronghorn. I have a deep admiration and fascination for pronghorn, considering their vestigial speed from outrunning Miracinonyx. I had this idea that I would like to chase down/ follow a mule deer or pronghorn for as long as I could manage, as our ancestors did while persistence hunting. Needless to say my few attempts failed quickly - though I had sandals good for running, they were not good at guarding me from the cacti that flourish there. I was still pulling spines out of my feet two weeks later . Dawson and I became fast friends that shared a lot in common, (besides just a love for paleo). I helped resurrect an interest in climbing he had while he helped inspire an interest in running in me. There's not much to climb in North Dakota, but we did find a boulder that offered some fun. Here's Dawson and I below: (Dawson taking a moment to blink the sand from his eyes before trying the big move on this ridiculous little climb) (Myself dangling immediately after the big move...with eyes full of sand). There was a rib 20 feet away around the corner here. I also became great friends with our photographer, Brittany. Her goal is actually to primarily be a paleontology photographer, pretty cool. She also used both film and digital, and I'm particularly fond of the film shots (though I can't post all of them yet!) (And I can't help from shouting her out.... if you need someone (or know someone who needs someone) to photograph geologists or paleontologists... she's your gal!). Here are a few of the photos she took that I was there for: (Digging on the Edmontosaur rib) Dawson and I shaking plaster covered hands, with Harry, who guided the process, in the background. An environment shot of the "Graveyard" on film one of the days we were chased away by weather - that's me taking a photo of a butte in the distance Another environment shot of the beautiful Hell creek strata, also on film. another film shot from Brittany of myself while scouting - I felt right at home on these big sandy hills... ample practice from the steep, unstable Ozan exposures back home! Another film shot below of some of the crew: This photo above was a cool memory. There was no reception, but at the airport, before I left, I deliberately left a tab open with @Troodon's marvelous write-up on the forum about "The case for Nanotyrannus" (below). I opened it up to get to talk about it with the other interns, and Harry looked over us to see what the fuss was about. Seeing this, Brittany yelled "WAIT keep doing that! Don't stop!" and took this photo, as well as two others, as we talked over @Troodon's fantastic write up. EDIT: When I posted this (at 3 am) last night I completely forgot to include two other highlights! 1) On one of the rain days, we drove into the small town nearby and rented out a theater for $75 an hour, and watched two episodes of David Attenborough's "Prehistoric Planet". I was pleasantly surprised by this documentary, it was tastefully done and very engaging. The ammonite scene was so beautifully made that it may as well have brought a tear to my eye . If you haven't seen it, you should! 2) Our team had beers at a little diner with Robert DePalma and his team (from the Tanis site). It was cool to get to know those guys, considering their impressive position in the field of paleontology they hold at the moment. Tanis was in the same "neighborhood" as some of our sites! Before my conclusion, I just want to include the two CRAZY finds Harry made with Mike and the rest of the team right after I left: While I was there, I was very keen to find mammal material. There's a very significant site that we were working on towards the end dubbed "Alexandria's library" (due to the wealth of rare specimens it has produced for the team in the past). I only got to be involved in working the site for a couple days, as the newer Graveyard site was able to be investigated thoroughly and efficiently in our time there. The main day I spent working at Alexandria's library was spent with Dawson slamming away at ironstone capping a hill, so that we could get to the fossiliferous sands and clays below. We finished the job but didn't get a chance to actually investigate the fruits of our labors there. Upon returning to the newly revealed sands, Harry then finds a DIDELPHODON JAW! As luck would have it, the big finds came in quickly after I left, with another amazing find that would've given me a heart attack (so it's probably for the best...) ...yeah. I was stunned when he texted me this. I'm so proud these guys. And so that was our time there, and I'm influenced. Never have I felt so inspired and driven to the paleo goal as I do now. There was a moment of I had at the graveyard site that I will never forget. I was crouched, moving into a neighboring butte with a screw driver. I had my friends at my side, similarly driven and exceptionally knowledgeable, and each deeply focused on their task at hand. We were damp, as a sudden cloud burst caught us red handed an hour before. The sun was out again and the clouds were scattered but full of color and depth - the sort of beautiful sky you can expect in a waning afternoon after a strong storm. I looked out over the three buttes that dominated the sky line at this site, and finally settled a thought that I've been brooding on for months. I will fully commit to paleontology. This is what I want my life to be, and I'm willing to face the elephant in the room (money) if it means that I get to do what I was doing, right then and there, for the rest of my life. This is a life well lived. Paleontology is a sacred science, one of deep wonder and a wide range of demanded skill. Not only is a paleontologist a multi-disciplinary academic, excelling at the very least in both geology and biology (while often proficient in chemistry and physics) - a paleontologist is also an explorer and adventurer, with dirt under his nails and probably an ache in his back . It's a gritty science that occupies two worlds. Not only that though. What strikes me is the sheer amount of totally untouched potential still locked away in the rocks. A modern biologist has to look hard to find something new, in a place usually isolated. You and I might walk into the greenbelt by our neighborhood and stand a plausible chance of discovering something either unnoticed or just flat out never seen before. That is something special. Being a paleontologist today is like being a naturalist at the turn of the 20th century. We have the entire world open to us. And so that was the 2022 Hell Creek expedition. I do have a closer appreciation for dinosaurs now, and I even have a few exciting ideas concerning them on the horizon...but I must say it's a pleasure to be back to this hallowed, marine deposited ground. I missed our big lizards and sharks. Onwards and upwards!
  14. Hello, I am making a great of in-situ pictures of my fossil hunting trips for this year. We now have a foot of snow in the ground so fossil hunting season is over. ☹️ These pictures occur in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota. Mostly Cretaceous aged sites but some Eocene from ND. They are mostly tooth related. I hope everyone likes in-situ pics as much as I do!
  15. Hello, I found this nice large, 4" long, leaf yesterday in ND. Is it a hickory leaf? Found in the Ft. Union formation. Thanks for any help.
  16. 'Hell fish' likely killed by dinosaur-ending asteroid is preserved in stunning detail Joanna Thompson, Live Science, October 12, 2022 Four exceptional fossils represent newly described species. https://www.livescience.com/3d-sturgeon-fossils-tanis The open access paper is: Hilton, E.J. and Grande, L., 2022. Late Cretaceous sturgeons (Acipenseridae) from North America, with two new species from the Tanis site in the Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota. Journal of Paleontology, pp.1-29. Another open access paper is: DePalma, R.A., Smit, J., Burnham, D.A., Kuiper, K., Manning, P.L., Oleinik, A., Larson, P., Maurrasse, F.J., Vellekoop, J., Richards, M.A. and Gurche, L., 2019. A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(17), pp.8190-8199. Yours, Paul H.
  17. (Note: I don't know why half of this is in bold, I wrote this in a google doc first and copy pasted it to here, and it defaults to bold without the ability to undo it. This tends to fluctuate. Easy to see though!) "Dinosaurs are overrated", Mike teased to me. We were sitting together at the flooded dig site of our mosasaur in the early morning hours, having just finished a jam-packed but enjoyable conversation about his research and other matters related to paleo. Naturally, dinosaurs were brought up, as our schedule had to work around my upcoming internship to the Hell Creek formation. "You're right" I chuckled back - yet we both knew otherwise. Our jabs were at the insane media attention that the Hell Creek mega fauna receive, not at the neglected fact that these animals were just that, animals. Mike at his core is a biologist, a naturalist even, studying mosasaurs and their evolution. I hoped that I would get a chance to really appreciate dinosaurs in that same naturalist-esque light in person. Dinosaurs are just different to dinosaur paleontologists, and I'm glad now that I got to immerse myself in that. The group I was meeting with was actually a duo - "Fossil Excavators" is a small non-profit with big research ambitions (based on some amazing material they've discovered) run by two awesome guys - Harrison Duran and Dr. Mike Kjelland. Some may know them from this discovery that circulated a couple years ago, of a Triceratops skull named "Alice" with an interesting brow horn deformity. https://www.npr.org/2019/07/26/745760553/college-student-discovers-65-million-year-old-triceratops-skull So, while not an internship with a school, it was an internship nonetheless and I gained experience, inspiration, and friendships. As for friends, Harrison and two of the other interns, Dawson ( @Dawson Sensenig) and Piper, as well as our amazing photographer Brittany Nailon who took many of these photos I'll show later, deserve a special mention. We spent the first few days scouting for new sites, and to good success. Mike came across the best of these new sites, which we since have dubbed "The Graveyard". It's a river wash deposit, so there's very little that's articulated but there is a great diversity of species. Better yet, the matrix is the polar opposite of the hard shales and limestones I'm used to here in Texas. In this deposit at least, it was like digging through a sand box (delightful!). Here are some quick pics from that spot: Just such a picture perfect insitu for this vert, sitting at the base of a hill among lots of other scattered bone: This well preserved edmontosaur carpal that @Dawson Sensenig found big ol' gar scale from Piper I actually made fewer direct discoveries than expected (which is ok, we worked as a team and we're directed to a spot to dig so it's not like I'd be able to take much credit for finding something anyway ). I was however happy to find this (likely) Dromaeosaur claw Though, it paled in comparison with the find 15 minutes earlier close by, from another intern (cameron) - this awesome theropod claw shown below, maybe from Anzu wyliei. A tiny tooth that we assume to be the ever enigmatic Paronychodon: This Edmontosaurus metatarsal that Dawson spotted (though I'm holding it) A stingray tooth I found, because of course I will find something aquatic here - never far from my roots! A small, broken rex tooth spotted by our photographer Brittany and a dromaeosaur tooth: More Edmontosaurus material - jaw pieces and a rib: More edmontosaur materiel, this time from a different clay site - due to the more stable matrix, there was some articulation here, though just a few verts There was also the usual assortment of leaves and ceratopsian teeth. One cool thing that stood out to me was this seed preserved in ironstone. There were a few rainy days, and one of them we spent in eastern montana on the bearpaw shale, collecting campanian invertebrates. The storms up there were hard and brief, full of orange lightning. I also include a photo I took below of one of those cloud bursts: Our bearpaw formation cephalopods! The ammonites found by our group above were exquisite, and I was particularly excited about the nautiloid. It was also a day of firsts, in that for the first time ever, I accepted a fossil into my collection (yes, we got to keep our finds that day!) that I didn't find myself. @Dawson Sensenig discovered the ammonite shown right before the nautiloid, and graciously insisted I keep it. How could I decline? As a quick break from the fossils, I'll include some of the extant fauna of the hell creek we ran into, and some other shennanigans: Beautiful prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) I encountered while scouting high up on one of the many buttes: A gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer) I caught that may even be the same individual we initially discovered in our outhouse And a constant dig companion in some spots: In addition to the creepy crawlies, the landscape was one full of mule deer and pronghorn. I have a deep admiration and fascination for pronghorn, considering their vestigial speed from outrunning Miracinonyx. I had this idea that I would like to chase down/ follow a mule deer or pronghorn for as long as I could manage, as our ancestors did while persistence hunting. Needless to say my few attempts failed quickly - though I had sandals good for running, they were not good at guarding me from the cacti that flourish there. I was still pulling spines out of my feet two weeks later . Dawson and I became fast friends that shared a lot in common, (besides just a love for paleo). I helped resurrect an interest in climbing he had while he helped inspire an interest in running in me. There's not much to climb in North Dakota, but we did find a boulder that offered some fun. Here's Dawson and I below: (Dawson taking a moment to blink the sand from his eyes before trying the big move on this ridiculous little climb) (Myself dangling immediately after the big move...with eyes full of sand). There was a rib 20 feet away around the corner here. I also became great friends with our photographer, Brittany. Her goal is actually to primarily be a paleontology photographer, pretty cool. She also used both film and digital, and I'm particularly fond of the film shots (though I can't post all of them yet!) (And I can't help from shouting her out.... if you need someone (or know someone who needs someone) to photograph geologists or paleontologists... she's your gal!). Here are a few of the photos she took that I was there for: (Digging on the Edmontosaur rib) Dawson and I shaking plaster covered hands, with Harry, who guided the process, in the background. An environment shot of the "Graveyard" on film one of the days we were chased away by weather - that's me taking a photo of a butte in the distance Another environment shot of the beautiful Hell creek strata, also on film. another film shot from Brittany of myself while scouting - I felt right at home on these big sandy hills... ample practice from the steep, unstable Ozan exposures back home! Another film shot below of some of the crew: This photo above was a cool memory. There was no reception, but at the airport, before I left, I deliberately left a tab open with @Troodon's marvelous write-up on the forum about "The case for Nanotyrannus" (below). I opened it up to get to talk about it with the other interns, and Harry looked over us to see what the fuss was about. Seeing this, Brittany yelled "WAIT keep doing that! Don't stop!" and took this photo, as well as two others, as we talked over @Troodon's fantastic write up. EDIT: When I posted this (at 3 am) last night I completely forgot to include two other highlights! 1) On one of the rain days, we drove into the small town nearby and rented out a theater for $75 an hour, and watched two episodes of David Attenborough's "Prehistoric Planet". I was pleasantly surprised by this documentary, it was tastefully done and very engaging. The ammonite scene was so beautifully made that it may as well have brought a tear to my eye . If you haven't seen it, you should! 2) Our team had beers at a little diner with Robert DePalma and his team (from the Tanis site). It was cool to get to know those guys, considering their impressive position in the field of paleontology they hold at the moment. Tanis was in the same "neighborhood" as some of our sites! Before my conclusion, I just want to include the two CRAZY finds Harry made with Mike and the rest of the team right after I left: While I was there, I was very keen to find mammal material. There's a very significant site that we were working on towards the end dubbed "Alexandria's library" (due to the wealth of rare specimens it has produced for the team in the past). I only got to be involved in working the site for a couple days, as the newer Graveyard site was able to be investigated thoroughly and efficiently in our time there. The main day I spent working at Alexandria's library was spent with Dawson slamming away at ironstone capping a hill, so that we could get to the fossiliferous sands and clays below. We finished the job but didn't get a chance to actually investigate the fruits of our labors there. Upon returning to the newly revealed sands, Harry then finds a DIDELPHODON JAW! As luck would have it, the big finds came in quickly after I left, with another amazing find that would've given me a heart attack (so it's probably for the best...) ...yeah. I was stunned when he texted me this. I'm so proud these guys. And so that was our time there, and I'm influenced. Never have I felt so inspired and driven to the paleo goal as I do now. There was a moment I had at the graveyard site that I will never forget. I was crouched, moving into a neighboring butte with a screw driver. I had my friends at my side, similarly driven and exceptionally knowledgeable, and each deeply focused on their task at hand. We were damp, as a sudden cloud burst caught us red handed an hour before. The sun was out again and the clouds were scattered but full of color and depth - the sort of beautiful sky you can expect in a waning afternoon after a strong storm. I looked out over the three buttes that dominated the sky line at this site, and finally settled a thought that I've been brooding on for months. I will fully commit to paleontology. This is what I want my life to be, and I'm willing to face the elephant in the room (money) if it means that I get to do what I was doing, right then and there, for the rest of my life. This is a life well lived. Paleontology is a sacred science, one of deep wonder and a wide range of demanded skill. Not only is a paleontologist a multi-disciplinary academic, excelling at the very least in both geology and biology (while often proficient in chemistry and physics) - a paleontologist is also an explorer and adventurer, with dirt under his nails and probably an ache in his back . It's a gritty science that occupies two worlds. Not only that though. What strikes me is the sheer amount of totally untouched potential still locked away in the rocks. A modern biologist has to look hard to find something new, in a place usually isolated. You and I might walk into the greenbelt by our neighborhood and stand a plausible chance of discovering something either unnoticed or just flat out never seen before. That is something special. Being a paleontologist today is like being a naturalist at the turn of the 20th century. We have the entire world open to us. And so that was the 2022 Hell Creek expedition. I do have a closer appreciation for dinosaurs now, and I even have a few exciting ideas concerning them on the horizon...but I must say it's a pleasure to be back to this hallowed, marine deposited ground. I missed our big lizards and sharks. Onwards and upwards!
  18. Hello, I'm looking at the following three listings for plant fossils, specifically Palaeocarpinus sp. "reproductive structures" with seeds. These are all said to be Paleocene age from the Sentinel Butte formation, North Dakota, and are all 70-100mm wide slabs. 1. 2. 3. I'm specifically wondering 1. if any of these seem enhanced, as I've heard sometimes is done with white shoe polish, and 2. whether they all seem to be the same species? For some reason the first two listings seem a bit different from the third with not as clear contrast with the matrix. I'm unsure if that's because of possible enhancement, different species/locality, or the first two are just worse specimens? The third visually looks the best to me. Thanks!
  19. I have 2 small selections of shark teeth that I recently acquired in a collection that I had purchased. These teeth are supposed to have been collected in North Dakota and South Dakota. The first selection was collected on 4-3-1986 in Moffit, North Dakota in the Cannonball Formation, which was referenced by the collector as being Paleocene (58 MYO). The next selection was collected in Edgemont, South Dakota from the Late Cretaceous, Green Horn Formation. Any help on these would be appreciated. Thanks
  20. I've been posting Fox Hills Formation fossils from a recent trip but I feel that those are a poor representation of the often spectacular preservation and diversity of the Fox Hills Formation. Because of that I've decided to post some of my better Fox Hills specimens from North Dakota. We'll start with some lovely ammonites. Jeletzkytes nebrascensis is common throughout the Fox Hills Formation in the Timber Lake Member (perhaps a bit less so in North Dakota) and is a typical flagship species for the formation. This microconch from Emmons County is the largest complete J. nebrascensis I've collected. The slash mark is an unfortunate result of removing an ammonite from directly atop this one before I was aware of this one. I think it turned out well despite that.
  21. Tigereagle12345

    Potential T. Rex Bone?

    I found this bone on a fossil hunting trip in North Dakota, it was identified as a theropod, probably a T. Rex. Can anyone verify this claim? Thanks for any responces! (The ruler is mesuring in centimeters)
  22. Nimravis

    Pelecypod from North Dakota ID

    I am looking for help on some pelecypods that I recently acquired. The Id states that they are Paleocene in age and from the Tongue River Formation of Riverdale, North Dakota.
  23. Stephy0923

    Help with ID

    We found this while along the Missouri river in Bismarck North Dakota. The river is extremely low and we were aways out where the waters are normally deep.
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