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Hey gang, Going thru chucking things out of the garage piles and noticed this good sized, highly weathered chunk of bone which has some parallel grooves/marks that I'm interpreting as possible shark bites. Want to confirm that assumption and ask if that is the case, could the upper 3 somewhat parallel lines and the 2 lower lines be single bites showing 3 teeth and 2 teeth respectively? The one mark on the upper left seems to be slightly curved so would that be consistent with a different angle/different shaped tooth position? Just wondering what you all think? Regards, Chris

Anadara aequalitas has extra ridges on the outer lip. Is that common? Also looks like someone made a permanent home inside. Barnacle I’m assuming.

Another year gone by and time to do this year's Florida Trip report. As the title says, I am going to mix and match fossils with nature, art, and the great comradery experienced during my trip. To start with, lets provide a visual for those who have never been to Florida. They say the roads are paved with fossils. This is partially true in that fossils often form the base for which pavement is then applied. Here is an example of a bike trail in development. Thankfully I was able to extract a few nice finds before asphalt was applied. As someone recently said in a post, easy pickins!! This material was obviously screen washed. The Tamiami is represented more typically in the following photo. Still easy picking, but one must look a little closer to extract it's gems. I have developed an expansive collection of Tamiami gastropods, corals and bivalves over the years. So I limit myself to just one of each species encountered, hopefully improving on the quality in my collection. Here are some of this year's finds. I mentioned part of my report will deal with nature. Here is a snowy egret that was photographed at the motel we frequent. It is known by Virgil to those that stay here. As can be seen, he is quite friendly and comes into our room for snacks!! This interesting crab was seen at the beach frequently. As was this Manatee, which preferred waist deep water, allowing us to dip into the ocean with her. When visiting Florida, I am always blessed with an inland trip to hunt fossils with forum members. This year it was @Shellseeker that invited me on a hunt. Accompanying us was Steve (center), our guide, and my son, Tristan (on the left). Get a load of these shovels!!!!!!!!!! Initially, I suspected they were kidding and we would be using less colossal equipment. Maybe the length is needed to keep the gators at bay. It seemed to work in that No alligator was seen. Now just some of our finds. . This is fish, not shark vertebrae. SMALL bone of unknown source Fish tooth: These were just a few of our favorite finds. Now to regress back to nature. My wife and I met up with Jack (Shellseeker) and his wife on Sanibel Island for a lovely lunch. Say hello to Barb! Afterwards we drove through the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge and snapped a few pictures . The finds of the day came from Steve, who found this nice meg and gave it to my son. And then there is Jack who found this gorgeous Sloth tooth. Great job, guys! Just when Jack came up with this sloth tooth, I put him to shame with mine!!!!!! Hopefully those viewing this will not notice, mine is a dugong rib posing as a sloth tooth. Don't tell Jack! To be honest, Jack may be pulling a fast one on me. As I looked over my Florida pictures, I noticed something of concern. What is in Steve's mouth? Does it not appear to be the "tooth" in Jacks hand?? I will let YOU be the judge. During one day when my back was tired of fossil hunting, we visited the Salvador Dali Museum in St Petersburg. Dali was a surrealist artist who produces bizarre images in his works of art. As an example, here is a lithograph titled "Lincoln in Dalivision", when viewed from afar is a remarkable image of Abe. This is a museum worth experiencing if in the area. Where would a trip to Florida be without a bunch of shark's teeth to show off. Enjoy this pile of chompers. Like Dali, I enjoy surrealism so created this for you Another wonderful vacation must come to a close. Hope you enjoyed it!!

Found in landfill behind my building. Can’t seem to find pictures or info. Any help (as always) well appreciated

Not found in place, but in pile used by Florida Highway Dept. in Collier County. Stands exactly 2 inches from base to top of central ridge. Front is perfectly semi circular tapering to flat at rear.

I have recently expanded my fossil hunting to collecting and hunting different shells. Growing up in Florida I found it pretty easy to just overlook them and not take notice to how fascinating each one is. I recently found a nectar spot in Nokomis and one in Northport Florida that has quite a few different Scallop fossils. my issue is, I have been looking around on internet and on this page to identify them. There is so much information on this web site I can’t say enough how thankful I am for it. I have also found a study by the Florida Museum of Natural History about different species of Chesapectens found in SW Florida and in the Panhandle. I feel I’m finding conflicting information and would like to be certain upon what I have been finding. I live in Venice, FL and the areas I have been searching on are on the Tamiami Formation. All of these where found on new construction sites where they are digging a new lakes. i will attempt to put a link up of the study I am referring to. It was already posted in one of the threads I found on this pages, so some of you maybe familiar with it already.thanks in advace Brandon here is link to the report

Just wanted to share a few pictures of some of the Chesapectens i have been finding the past month at a construction site that a new lake was dug. As far as I know they are Chesapecten quinarius and Chesapecten madisonius sarasotensis. Normally I am looking for vertebrate fossils, but just recently expanded my view to invertebrates. I figured what the hell, there has to be something to them and half the places I search are full of them. Its been quite the journey and Im just sucked in now. Never thought that it would so fascinating and definitely has helped my understanding of the layers of time we sort through. I decided to lay out what I had last night just to get an idea what i had, I felt like a kid laying out my hot wheels lol. I also grabbed a few photos of them in the wall where I pulled some from. They were probably between 15-20’ below ground, thats a guess its hard to tell. thanks

One of the busy work tasks I’ve been doing is going through all of the micro teeth and matrix... repeatedly lol I found two teeth from Cookiecutter Creek micros that I am flat out stumped on. No clue. The first one is larger, 6mm or so. I can only describe it as very flat. The cusp sits at an odd angle on an odd root. I am not even sure it’s shark. The second is about 4mm and I have no clue. I didn’t see anything in the paper describing Isistius and Squatina that stood out as a possibility.

Hello Gang. I'm not sure if fossiling takes your focus off what you should be doing like it does me but yesterday I was supposed to be clearing an area out to make space for an upcoming wood working project. Well that exercise turned more into opening boxes and looking at fossils stored there and reliving why I had brought some of them home. It was a good thing and a bad thing! As many of you know the Tamiami formation has a boat load of invertebrate species and its fairly easy to acquire a bunch of material quickly so here are several shots to share with you all of some of the variants I've brought home over the past several years---Sarasota County, Plio-Pleistocene. There are occasionally also some pretty nice shark teeth that you can run across in the various spoil finds. Here are several of the common types I've found..Mako, Tiger, Meg and Carcharhinus sp. types... There are a number of barnacles and I'm fascinated by the different types but its the associated attachments that they are found on that really gets my eye. I believe here's a Ceratoconcha sp. group that has latched on to a good sized bone fragment and a Chesaconcavus sp. on a coral branch. I've picked up lots of damaged shells and here are two gastropods with showing what I believe are some type of shell repair. The larger one somehow survived the massive damage..I've read about how crabs have sometimes inflicted these wounds so if thats the case the crab must have been fairly good sized one. The smaller guy has some small damage near the tip of the spire and along the aperature. I'm intrigued by just general shapes and coloration differences so here's a few examples of some gastropods Neverita sp. and Chesapecten sp. that came home. The last shot is my favorite from the day...a Vasum (Hystrivasum) that has sponge boring damage, a good sized Balanus sp. growing on the spire and if you look close you can see small boring clams still in their bore holes on the top left of the specimen just beneath the barnacle. All for now. Hope you enjoy. Back to woodworking! LOL. Continued hunting success to you all! Regards, Chris

The sample image here was collected directly from a Drag Line operator's windrow in a lime rock mine in Southern FL just outside of Naples around the Sable Palm area of the Big Cypress swamp of the Everglades in 1997. The specimen has been completely removed from the limestone petrol (lime rock low density ls) matrix. What is interesting is the general shape of the specimen and how this 5 million year old specimen differs from the present day specimen at the same general location. I am guessing the seas of which the archaic specimens existed in were more challenging to exist in general as the specimen appears more elongate than present day specimen possibly for navigational purpose in higher energy seas than say today. Consequently the respiratory flower on top seems to be larger than today's comparable specimen as a direct consequence in the different morphology.

I saw this and thought it was pretty wild as I've been poking around in the Tamiami here in Florida for quite awhile--not sure I've ever noticed one. I dont have full access to the pdf but heres the abstract and article in ScienceDaily. @MikeR Regards, Chris https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190722132520.htm Cosmic pearls: Fossil clams in Florida contain evidence of ancient meteorite Date: July 22, 2019 Source: Florida Museum of Natural History Summary: Researchers picking through the contents of fossil clams from a Sarasota County quarry found dozens of tiny glass beads, likely the calling cards of an ancient meteorite. Share: FULL STORY Credit: © trahko / Adobe Stock Researchers picking through the contents of fossil clams from a Sarasota County quarry found dozens of tiny glass beads, likely the calling cards of an ancient meteorite. Analysis of the beads suggests they are microtektites, particles that form when the explosive impact of an extraterrestrial object sends molten debris hurtling into the atmosphere where it cools and recrystallizes before falling back to Earth. They are the first documented microtektites in Florida and possibly the first to be recovered from fossil shells. Mike Meyer was a University of South Florida undergraduate when he discovered the microtektites during a 2006 summer fieldwork project led by Roger Portell, invertebrate paleontology collections director at the Florida Museum of Natural History. As part of the project, students systematically collected fossils from the shell-packed walls of a quarry that offered a cross-section of the last few million years of Florida's geological history. They pried open fossil clams, washing the sediment trapped inside through very fine sieves. Meyer was looking for other tiny objects -- the shells of single-celled organisms known as benthic foraminifera -- when he noticed the translucent glassy balls, smaller than grains of salt. "They really stood out," said Meyer, now an assistant professor of Earth systems science at Harrisburg University in Pennsylvania. "Sand grains are kind of lumpy, potato-shaped things. But I kept finding these tiny, perfect spheres." After the fieldwork ended, his curiosity about the spheres persisted. But his emails to various researchers came up short: No one knew what they were. Meyer kept the spheres -- 83 in total -- in a small box for more than a decade. "It wasn't until a couple years ago that I had some free time," he said. "I was like, 'Let me just start from scratch.'" Meyer analyzed the elemental makeup and physical features of the spheres and compared them to microtektites, volcanic rock and byproducts of industrial processes, such as coal ash. His findings pointed to an extraterrestrial origin. "It did blow my mind," he said. He thinks the microtektites are the products of one or more small, previously unknown meteorite impacts, potentially on or near the Florida Platform, the plateau that undergirds the Florida Peninsula. Initial results from an unpublished test suggest the spheres have traces of exotic metals, further evidence they are microtektites, Meyer said. Most of them had been sealed inside fossil Mercenaria campechiensis or southern quahogs. Portell said that as clams die, fine sediment and particles wash inside. As more sediment settles on top of the clams over time, they close, becoming excellent long-term storage containers. "Inside clams like these we can find whole crabs, sometimes fish skeletons," Portell said. "It's a nice way of preserving specimens." During the 2006 fieldwork, the students recovered microtektites from four different depths in the quarry, which is "a little weird," Meyer said, since each layer represents a distinct period of time. "It could be that they're from a single tektite bed that got washed out over millennia or it could be evidence for numerous impacts out on the Florida Platform that we just don't know about," he said. The researchers plan to date the microtektites, but Portell's working guess is that they are "somewhere around 2 to 3 million years old." One oddity is that they contain high amounts of sodium, a feature that sets them apart from other impact debris. Salt is highly volatile and generally boils off if thrust into the atmosphere at high speed, Meyer said. "This high sodium content is intriguing because it suggests a very close location for the impact," Meyer said. "Or at the very least, whatever impact created it likely hit a very large reserve of rock salt or the ocean. A lot of those indicators point to something close to Florida." Meyer and Portell suspect there are far more microtektites awaiting discovery in Florida and have asked amateur fossil collectors to keep an eye out for the tiny spheres. But no one will be recovering microtektites from the original quarry any time soon. It's now part of a housing development. "Such is the nature of Florida," Meyer said. Peter Harries of North Carolina State University also co-authored the study. Story Source: Materials provided by Florida Museum of Natural History. Original written by Natalie van Hoose. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Related Multimedia: Images of the the microtektites Journal Reference: Mike Meyer, Peter J. Harries, Roger W. Portell. A first report of microtektites from the shell beds of southwestern Florida. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, 2019; DOI: 10.1111/maps.13299 Search withinThis JournalAnywhere Search term Christopher Meteoritics & Planetary Science Original Article A first report of microtektites from the shell beds of southwestern Florida Mike Meyer Peter J. Harries Roger W. Portell First published: 06 May 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.13299 Read the full text PDF TOOLS SHARE Saw this an thought this was pretty wild as I've been poking around in the Tamiami here in Florida for quite awhile. Abstract The Plio‐Pleistocene Upper Tamiami Formation (Pinecrest beds) of Florida is well known for its fossiliferous shell beds, but not for its extraterrestrial material. Here we report the first occurrence of tiny (~200 μm in diameter) silica‐rich microspherules from this unit and from the state. This material was analyzed using petrographic and elemental methods using energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDS). The majority of microspherules are glassy and translucent in reflected light with some displaying “contact pairs” (equal‐sized micro‐spherules attached to each other). Broken microspherules cleave conchoidally, often with small internal spherical vesicles, but most lack any other evidence of internal features, such as layering. Using the EDS data, the microspherules were compared to volcanic rocks, microtektites, and cosmic spherules (micrometeorites). Based on their physical characteristics and elemental compositions these are likely microtektites or a closely related type of material. The high Na content in the examined material deviates significantly from the abundances usually found in micrometeorites and tektite material; this is enigmatic and requires further study. This material may be derived from a nearby previously unknown impact event; however, more material and sites are required to confirm the source of this material. Because of the focus on molluscan fossils in southwestern Florida shell beds, microtektite material has likely been overlooked in the past, and it is probable that these microspherules are in abundance elsewhere in these units and possibly throughout the region.

It appears that people can find Plio‐Pleistocene microtektites associated with and inside closed clams of the Upper Tamiami Formation (Pinecrest beds) of Florida. Maybe enterprising fossil collectors and citizen scientists could look for and find microtektites in other outcrops of Pinecrest beds. The paper is: Meyer, M., Harries, P.J. and Portell, R.W., 2019. A first report of microtektites from the shell beds of southwestern Florida. Meteoritics & Planetary Science. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/maps.13299 Blog post about micrometeorites in your house gutter Can you Really Find Micrometeorites in Your Gutter? Well... Phil Plait, Bad Astronomy. May 16, 2019 https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/can-you-really-find-micrometeorites-in-your-gutter-well Flecks of Extraterrestrial Dust, All Over the Roof The New York Times, By By William J. Broad https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/science/space-dust-on-earth.html Genge, M.J., Larsen, J., Van Ginneken, M. and Suttle, M.D., 2017. An urban collection of modern-day large micrometeorites: Evidence for variations in the extraterrestrial dust flux through the Quaternary. Geology, 45(2), pp.119-122. Open access https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/45/2/119/195213/an-urban-collection-of-modern-day-large Yours, Paul H.

By any chance does anyone recognize these little orb/circular structures/features in some of the damaged Vermicularia tubes in these shots? Not sure if they might be simply immature bivalves or something else? I pried out a few of them and I'm no wiser as they are so small and I dont see any real features/markings under magnification... The two that I pried out are approx .5mm wide but the others still in the tubes are a bit bigger. The 2nd and third frames in the 2nd photo makes them look like something that could be a small echinoid with star shaped markings but that might be deceiving. they actually look more like absolutely smooth micro PVC endcaps, not spheres/orbs. In my other recent Garage finds thread Adam had a good question about operculums and I dont even know if they had one or not...So if you all have any insight I'd love to hear/know.. Thanks for the help. Regards, Chris

For awhile now, I have been trying to pin down this scallop. I think it is an argopecten, possibly comparilis, or evergladesensis, but the images I can find on line of those, seem to show ribs that are rounded on top. These shells have very flat ribs, with a very slight indentation running down the center of each. The shells are offset a bit. I found them in the northern most edge of ochopee member of the Tamiami formation, along with euvola hemicyclica, and a really lovely little urchin test, the exact name of which I don't recall as I sit here typing. I have a collection of 30 different sizes I am trying to put together in a ryker box, but have not yet done so, because I just don't know the id...a friend suggested I check out dimarzipecten crocus....but that kind of obscure reference is wa-a-ay beyond me. I'd rather put to use someone's knowledge, if you know what it is, would you please take a moment and explain Why you i.d. it as you do. Much appreciated.

Was looking at some stuff in the garage today and in the Spondylus sp. pile I had this chubby little guy. Seems to be a loner as I dont have anything else quite shaped like it...I was thinking it might be actually in Chama family but the others I have appear to be more round and this guy seems to be elongated. I cant find anything similar to it in some of the online references I looked at. Has anyone run across something similar and if its a Chama sp. know what the species is? It's got a couple of the typical clam borings and worm tubes and maybe a little Plicatula sp. attached to it as well to make it extra special. Sarasota Cnty, Florida. Plio-Pleistocene, APAC spoils, Tamiami Formation? Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Chris

Here is my trip report originally inspired by an announcement by Fossil Beach after noticing a large pile of shell hash laden material for parking lot fill that was spotted on Bradenton Beach. For reference, here is the original posting that instigated this trip: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/60966-fossil-shell-pile-at-bradenton-beach/ Kara (Khyssa) used this information to plan a (rather soggy) fossil hunting trip a couple of weeks ago when when was heading down to Tampa for a fossil club meeting. Her trip report (and her wonderful finds) is available through this link: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/61170-fossil-shells/ Through this forum, the source of the material in this pile was determined to likely be from SMR Aggregates of Sarasota. Jack (Shellseeker) had provided a great document from the Southeastern Geological Society (SEGS) that provided a great insight into the Pinecrest Beds of the Tamiami Formation that are very biodiverse in terms of shelled mollusks (over 1000 species recorded). For convenience, I'll repeat that link here as well: http://segs.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/SEGS-Guidebook-No-56.pdf And now onto the trip report itself. My mother was in town visiting for a couple of weeks from the chillier latitudes of the Chicagoland area. She had planned spending the last week of her trip over on Sanibel Island on the gulf coast of Florida. A friend of hers had rented a condo there for a month and she figured she'd chill-out Sanibel style for the last part of her trip. Rather than making the 3-hour trip to Sanibel to drop her and return on the same day, I was looking for something else to do on this roadtrip. We earlier had considered stopping at the Peace River and doing some fossil hunting on the return leg of the trip but this year the river flatly refuses to drop to a huntable level. We made a quick stop at the boat ramp in Arcadia to show my mom what the Peace River looks like (albeit in flood stage) so she can better picture what it looks like since I've told her many stories about past fossil hunting trips on that river. This is what it looked like when we passed through Arcardia--not quite ready for prime time yet. We continued west and soon arrived at Bradenton just in time to meet Pete for lunch. He's an ex-coworker of my wife's who was in Florida doing the snowbird thing. Post lunch we drove the final few miles to the bridge crossing over to Bradenton Beach (and the bumper-to-bumper traffic--and it's not even high-season). With the great intel provided by Fossil Beach we quickly spotted the shell pile and remarkably found parking spaces nearby on the beach side. We crossed over the street and noticed that in the lot where the big shell pile was dumped that there was a police car parked in the shade of the nearby trees. I walked over to the car and asked the officer if there was any problem with us scrummaging around in the pile to look for some fossil sea shells. His words were, "Knock yourself out." I joked that I hoped to be a bit more careful than that but he missed my dry sense of humor and stated that it was only a figure of speech meaning to do as I like. I smiled and thanked him taking his response taking it as tacit approval that he had no issues with us collecting shells before they are plowed into a crunchy mess in some nearby parking area. We walked over to the pile and immediately saw the incredible density of shell hash in this paving material. As expected, much of the material was hopelessly crushed and broken given its less than gentle handling from its origin to this pile. With a little bit of searching (and sometimes with the aid of a poking stick--a screwdriver would have been a good idea) we started to find some nice shells that were still intact. We walked around the pile and up one side to a little caldera like valley that had formed at the top. You can see in the last photo below from the top of the pile the steady line of traffic just a short distance from the pile.

I'm going to try to clean this off again tomorrow.. anyone have a guess? It's about 3.5cm

Hey Gang, Started trying to put away some more of the stuff in the garage and ran across an echy in matrix that I found and had dismissed as unidentifable as it had this encrustation that I just couldnt seem to remove at the time....Well been playing it with most of the day I now see a majority of the test is there and I was thinking it looks like a Schizaster...wondering what you all think? Anyone have any similar finds from Sarasota County? All I could find that seemed close was a Eocene Schizaster from the Ocala Limestone. I am working in APAC spoil piles in Sarasota County and its all Plio-Pleistocene there so that presents a dilemma if its S.armiger (Clark) as that seems to be much older in age .... this seems to be heart shaped but almost round 2.9cm long X 2.7cm w and 2.5 cm tall. Also looks maybe more similar to an Eocene Schizaster ocalanus listed in the Florida MNH Galleries specimen 183665 but I'm just guessing...orafice positions look closer than the Agassizia's pictured in the gallery that are of early Pleistocene age (and coincidentally from the Caloosahatchee which is present at the site) and are similar in overall test shape. http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/invertpaleo/display.asp?catalog_number=183665&gallery_type=Florida%20Echinoidea Any help is appreciated. Edit: added dimensions and photos/comments about S.ocalanus. Regards, Chris

I love taking these trips to SMR Aggragates for 2+ MYA shells and an occasional vertebra fossil, Not a lot of time , lots of rain water around, and mostly smaller fossil shells, This was last Sunday and I also spent National Fossil Day helping out at the South Florida Museum on Saturday, When the Peace River is out of season, I look for hunting where ever I can. This pretty little Mako came my way on Saturday and some nice shells on Sunday. SMR is always rewarding. I have a bunch of larger shells to clean and sort. That can be fun also with a lot of matrix mixture inside the bigger shells. Enjoy, Shellseeker

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a topic asking for help with some mollusk IDs. MikeR kindly identified them for me, and suggested that they were from the Upper Pliocene Pinecrest Beds of the Tamiami Formation. Today I'm posting the rest of that batch of fossils. These were collected from the same site as the last bunch. This time, I have an idea of what they might be, I'm largely looking for confirmation or correction. My IDs are based entirely on the Florida Museum of Natural History image galleries online. All scales are centimeters, with half-cm marks. First, a conch. Is this Melongena corona? Second, a murex. Phyllonotus globosus? Third, a miter shell. Pleioptygma ronaldsmithi? Fourth, a wentletrap. Pyrazus scalatus? Fifth, a thorny oyster. Arcinella cornuta? I have several more that I'll post in the comments.