Search the Community

Back on October 2017, I was hunting a Texas creek after a flood event and found a nice slab of shark's teeth. I took my wife Susie back to check out the area better. We went upstream to locate where the slab had washed down from. We found a matching location where the teeth had come out of the Eagle Ford formation in a shell hash pocket. The final size of this area was about 1 ft by 2 ft by 2 inches thick. We captured the remaining shell hash matrix in bags and took it home. Over the next few weeks, we used dilute white vinegar solution and ice picks to extract 150+ of these 4 mm to 15 mm wide Ptychodus teeth from matrix. My wife pulled out maybe 60 to 80 of them. In October 2018 communications with Shawn Hamm, I found out that the largest of these teeth were likely from a new Ptychodus species that Shawn was hoping to do a paper on. I then sent 40 of these teeth to Shawn. One month ago, I was contacted by Shawn to donate any more teeth that I was willing to give up for a new professional paper on that species (finally!). I went back through the remaining teeth (now in two clear plastic cylindrical containers) and other fossils from the pocket. I also gave him some of my best of these teeth found from other shell hash pockets nearby. I noted amazingly that over 95% of the remaining 110+ Ptychodus teeth had characteristics of the new species and that there were five different tooth file sets represented. I immediately sent them to Shawn along with other representative shark species. So, he may now have the first associated set of those teeth to study for his paper from the 2018 and 2024 donations. You just never know when an old fossil hunting trip can breath new life into the fossil record and a new understanding. My ignorance of Ptychodus matters in 2017 was replaced by mature knowledge in 2024 that subsequently opened my "eyes" to something I would have never seen before 2024. So, I recommend looking back at your old finds to hunt for new things you might now be able to see with your more mature set of "eyes"!

Hi guys my names Conley. My kids and I live in SE Colorado and have been digging and finding sharks teeth and various other fossils. Since we started looking 4 years ago we have found 300 teeth in a 1 acre spot. Some of the other fossils we have found we are not real sure what they have came from.

Well, it's taken me a lot longer than I thought it would to write the second part of this trip report, mostly because I've been busy with school and several trips to other places across Texas collecting fossils, but also because I must have made about nine trips to the particular Eagle Ford formation creek site I wrote about in the first post. I've got a lot I could say, but I'll narrow it down to just the most exciting finds - I've still got another trip report covering two trips I took to Jacksboro/Mineral Wells and Post Oak Creek to write as soon as I'm done with this one! I'll link that first trip report here for anyone that wants to read it: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/126948-texas-shark-tooth-extravaganza/&tab=comments#comment-1377551 As I had located the specific lense in the shale with the most shark teeth on the very same day that I discovered the site, the next couple trips were spent breaking it up further and seeing what else I could find in the exposed sections. Although I came away with a respectable haul of nicely-preserved teeth I didn't find anything I hadn't already found before. Getting bored of finding the same Ptychodus and Squalicorax teeth I decided to climb up the small and now-dry waterfall that stemmed from a creekbed sitting almost on top of the shark teeth lense in the shale. I figured that it would be easier to look down and break up the rock layers than to look up at them above my head and hope they didn't land on me when ever I pulled out another chunk. Here's a picture of the site with the waterfall to the left. You can follow the bentonite seam from the right to the left with your eyes to see where the lense crops up in the creekbed (it's the sort of dark crevice just above the waterfall ledge). Very quickly I was rewarded for my exploration as I pulled out the largest Ptychodus tooth I had ever seen (at the time - a little hint as to what I'll be talking about in my Post Oak Creek trip report ). I'm generally pretty clueless when it comes to identifying most Ptychodus down to the species level, so if anyone could help me out I'd really appreciate it! Here's an in-situ picture: And another picture taken after I had broken it out of its rocky prison: With my enthusiasm rekindled I kept digging through the shale and was rewarded by another Ptychodus tooth, even larger than the last, that actually popped out directly into my hand before I had even seen it. I didn't get a picture at the time but it is in this photo I took after I got home. It has some really interesting surface wear that I reasoned was probably accrued during the shark's lifetime. Directly behind where I found the two Ptychodus teeth was the find of the day and maybe even the find of the year, although I didn't know it at the time. This is a picture of it still in-situ if anyone wants to take a guess as to what it was: It was a mosasaur vertebra! And the largest piece of bone I had found at the site so far, many times larger than the coniasaur vert from the previous trip. This is what it looked like out of the shale back home when viewed from the bottom: One of the transverse processes can be seen on the right as well as the two attachment points for the haemal arch, which is sort of like the spine that's on top of each vertabra but located on the bottom in the vertebrae that make up the tail. Now at the time I didn't think this individual vertebra was anything special. I had found mosasaur vertebrae before at the North Sulphur River, many of which were much larger than this one and in much better condition. I was pleasantly surprised that I had found one at this site but didn't think much of it and so it was pocketed to be looked at later. It wasn't until I got home and had a conversation with @Jared C who is much more informed when it comes to the Eagle Ford than myself that I realized this one bone might be much more important. That's because I had initially assumed that I was looking at the contact between the Eagle Ford and the Austin Chalk, making this particular shark tooth lense I had discovered the famous Atco contact. Mosasaurs are rare in Turonian age rocks but certainly not unheard of (Jared himself even found one two years ago!). But after reading several different university publications on this particular site I realized that this spot wasn't the contact between the Eagle Ford and Austin Chalk, but actually entirely Eagle Ford rock - specifically a subunit that placed it in the lower half of the formation. This meant that this one bone had come from the Cenomanian, not the Turonian, making it slightly older than the oldest known basal mosasaurines, both of which are also from Texas - Russellosaurus and Dallasaurus. Still not believing that I could have possibly been this lucky, I emailed Dr. Polcyn at SMU to get his opinion. He was the one to actually first describe both Russellosaurus and Dallasaurus and so I figured if anyone could tell me whether or not what I had found was significant it would be him. Jared has a pretty good relationship with Dr. Polcyn from his own mosasaur discovery so he was able to tell him to be on the lookout for my email. After a short exchange in which Dr. Polcyn expressed his interest in seeing the vertebra in person we arranged for me to meet him north of Dallas at a plesiosaur dig both he and Jared would be involved in. Meeting Dr. Polcyn was incredible. I've known of him for a long time since mosasaurs have always been my favorite prehistoric animal and he's definitely one of the leading researchers as far as they're concerned. I even remember seeing him interviewed for the news in 2005 when the Dallasaurus discovery was first made public and begging my grandparents to take me to the Dallas Museum to see their mosasaur skeletons. Dr. Polcyn was very interested in the vertebra when he saw it in person and asked me if I would be willing to donate it to SMU alongside the two Ptychodus teeth I had found next to it as they might be useful for dating purposes. I of course said yes as donating a fossil I had found to science has probably been my dream since I could first talk. We made plans for me to go back to the site and collect a large sample of the bentonite from the seam located beneath where I found the vertebra so it can be dated by SMU and the age of the bone confirmed. The bentonite being present at the site is extremely fortunate as it is one of the most conducive materials to dating sedimentary strata. Rounding out my finds for the day that I found the mosasaur vertebra was a pycnodont fish mouthplate: And also another nice coniasaur vertebra (I actually found several more but this was the best and the only one I got a good picture of): Not all of the animals I saw at the site were dead and many millions of years old though. In the same vicinity as the mosasaur vertebra was a toad that I had clearly disturbed in my search for associated bones. I apologized for my intrusion and replaced the front door to his little hole that I had inadvertently dug up. A much less welcome sight than the toad was an absolutely massive wolf spider that I spotted on a clump of shale I had been just about to pick up. On my way back to my car I finally spotted the pack of hogs that been so kind as to create a trail through the woods for me to follow on my first trip. I gave them a wide berth and continued on my way. This site has become one of my favorites, not only because of what I've found there but because I discovered it on my own after a lot of geologic map studying and old paper reading. I can finally say I understand Jared's Eagle Ford obsession! Until next time, - Graham

I went on this hunt about two weeks ago, but only am getting around to posting it now. It was a great day at a new spot close to my usual stomping grounds. I was hunting under a bridge the week before when someone walking the path next to it asked if I had any luck - his name was Leo, and we actually recognized each other as both of us have posted about some of our finds on reddit before. (PS - pardon the picture quality, most of these are screenshots from video) He invited me to hunt with him at a spot of his on the same creek close by sometime. I was of course quite curious about where that could be, as I thought I've already done some pretty boisterous trekking along this creek before in pursuit of fossils. Since he immigrated a couple years ago, he passed time walking his dog along this creek, and discovered there were fossils around that way. After training his eye a bit more than a year and half (about twice as long as me!) he's practically mastered this stretch of creek, and he's yielded a few fantastic spots. We shared some spots in common, but those that I didn't know about far exceeded my expectations for this creek. We chose a cool weekend, a week after a strong storm. I didn't film or take any pictures until about an hour in, but there were a couple small cretaceous teeth, and a nice quality bison tooth. All his finds. After an hour or so, I was finally getting into the rhythm of things. It usually takes an hour or so for me to break into a new spot, and to start spotting things. My first real find set the tone for the rest of the day: Here it is insitu: And once I pulled it out: This was my second Mosasaur tooth (likely Tylosaur) from the Ozan around here. My other one is larger, and better preserved, but this nonetheless had both of us blowing our tops off with excitement. About 5 seconds after picking this up, Leo picked up another tooth, this time Scapanorynchus, sitting 10 inches away. It's an epic memory On the same gravel bed, Leo then found our target for the day. He showed me some of the Ptychodus specimens he's found at this spot - all large, perfectly preserved, and from several different species. I was really crossing my fingers for one of equal stature this day. Leo, maybe about 10 minutes after our mosasaur meltdown, then pulls this beauty out of the gravel: It's a little more worn than his others, and this one is much darker, but still great quality and HUGE in my eyes. I know Ptychodus mortoni can sometimes get substantially larger, but this is by far still the best tooth I've ever laid eyes on. It's also in better condition than this screenshot implies. The air was electric now - the energy for at least two hours afterwards was full throttle, as we both were expecting to turn our head any minute and make the next great find. Here are some highlights (chunkasaur piece from me, the great Mosy vert from Leo) (Piece of what would've been a great Ptychodus from me) (Great Bison tooth from Leo - I have NEVER managed to find a completely black bison tooth from this area. I've found maybe 10 or 11, all at various stages of preservation, but never a fully fossilized (black or orange) tooth. Quite jealous! These seem to be casual finds for Leo!) (Squalicorax hiding in the gravel from me) (Some chunks like this are strangely reminiscent of wood, rather than bone... could this be petrified driftwood?) (Enchodus palatine from me) (Scapanorynchus - ol' faithful) (Particularly wrinkly mammal enamel - not so sure of my initial ID of bison I had in mind ) (Cretolamna (I think) sitting in the gravel, from me - I'll gladly be corrected if I'm wrong) Then, Leo made the next great find. If we were fired up before, NOW we were in another dimension... two big mosasaur teeth in 40 minutes!?? This was nuts! We moved maybe 20 more meters up again - this was all still on the same bend of the creek. Leo was hoping for arrowheads this whole time - me not as much - before this day they didn't really interest me... but all it took was one good find. Here was my first point of the day, and my second point ever - first insitu and then in hand. It was ID'd as a "Darl", and would've tipped an Atlatl dart. The age is between 1,000-3,000 years. A few meters away, Leo found this rib with strong signs of preservation, but not fossilized yet - It was quite late in the afternoon, and Leo still wanted to get me to a big exposure he thought I'd like. On the way there, we chatted, with me learning a bit about points while he learned a bit about fossils. We finally made it to a grandiose exposure - the tallest one of it's nature I've ever seen. Dark clays and shales filled the bottom half, and I'm sure this was where many of the fossils we found were washing down from. Ironically enough, it was not Cretaceous stuff that stood out here . I found my third point- this one broken in half. It's a "Perdenales", and is between 2,000-3,000 years old Close by, there was a large bone half buried in the gravel - I think it's the lower leg bone of a bison, that would be below the knee: And last but not least, some other finds we made heading back before the sun went down. One of the bison teeth I found, with phosphate starting to leech in the cracks of enamel to begin the fossilization process, the top of a point that Leo found, and a completely bizarre deep red piece of mammal enamel (I assume Bison). The picture doesn't do it justice - it's deeply blood red. It was a great day, and I'm grateful to Leo for showing me around his hunting grounds. Can't wait to see what last nights storm will do for this place!

Hello, my friends. This tooth was found in Ternopil region of Ukraine. Cenomanian stage

Hi all - found a small outcrop in an area mapped as “Eagle Ford Group and Buda Limestone undivided.” I filled a plastic bag with crumbly matrix and have so far found 2 Ptychodus teeth amongst other shark and fish teeth and fragments. Can anyone help narrow down an ID on these two? I’ve also included a photo of some of the matrix I gathered. Curious if anyone can tell the age or more details based on its appearance and the IDs of these teeth. Thanks!