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This weekend I find myself northeast of Dallas, hoping that I might manage to catch a glimpse of Monday’s solar eclipse. I figured while I was in there area I’d try my hand at fossil hunting the Cretaceous Ozan Formation in the North Sulfur River near Ladonia. It’s a fairly famous fossil hunting site which is open to the public, so I was quite excited to give it a go. When I arrived I noticed that quite a few people were in the same spot, some hunting for fossils and others enjoying the water on a cool day. Someone in the parking lot was showing off a huge Scapanorhynchus tooth they had found, which I was able to identify for them. My hopes were quite high, but pretty quickly I realized that the North Sulfur River wouldn’t quite be the fossil buffet I had imagined. Fossils seemed to be few and far between, so imagining that the area near the park entrance was simply heavily picked over I walked about a mile and a half west to try to get to fresher pastures. Alas, the only fossils I netted myself today were Inoceramid clams, some baculites (the red-zone ones, not the pretty black ones) and two fairly large grypheid oysters. Oh, and some petrified wood too. I found zero vertebrates, save for a bone fragment. I don’t fault myself. Although I was not the first to arrive, I was the last to leave. I combed over just about every gravel bar I came across, remembering @PaleoNoel’s advice: “It pays to be thorough.” At one point I walked back to my car to replace my sopping wet hiking boots for my water shoes, and kept on pushing. But it did not net me much. I have to say I’m slightly disappointed. Maybe I’m just spoiled rotten when it comes to fossils having grown up on the Front Range. But I will say, this is the hardest I’ve ever worked for a few crappy baculites. I talked to some other fossil hunters, and most seemed to be having about the same luck I had. But one person had managed to find about a half dozen shark teeth, a mosasaur tooth, very nice black baculites, and a partial mosasaur vertebra. The proof that there were treasures out there to be found drove my persistence, and ultimately amplified my frustration. Perhaps I went at a bad time - a lot of people are in the area for the eclipse and I was told that it had been a while since there had been good flow. Maybe that’s just the way it goes at this site. Nonetheless, I’m considering trying again within the next year. My sister lives in Waco, and I heard that unfortunately the North Sulfur River won’t be accessible to fossil hunters past 2025 due to the removal of the dam that exposed the rock unit in the first place. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful day and it’s always fun to discover new things! As much complaining as I did in this post it is super awesome to find my own fossils from a new rock unit for the collection! I caught a diving beetle too, which I intend to take home and add to my aquarium (I have an aquarium specifically for diving beetles, but they aren’t out yet in Colorado)! Some pictures for your enjoyment:

Pierre shale, Millwood. Western Interior Seaway, Campanian.

Good morning y'all! First post here so lemme know if I am breaking etiquette or something ^^ I'm very much so a novice when it comes to identification, and am having trouble with this particular specimen. I know for sure this guy comes from the Pierre Shale in Wyoming, and it was found several years before my time. I am leaning towards Platecarpus because of the lithe frame and smaller size (appx. 300.0 cm from dentary to articular), and the fact that it seems to only have 11/12 teeth.

Was jogging on trail in NE Kansas today near areas we found Crinoids, brachiopods, fusulinids prior. The hole in this rock caught my attention. Looking closer, it has the shape of a jaw and it looks like teeth. It reminds me of the shape of a Xiphactinus jaw. It’s probably nothing. But what if ? Whether it’s “just a rock” or not, there are some shapes on this that looks like teeth or bone joints. Does anyone see anything in these pictures? my 6 year old daughter says, “it’s never just a rock Dad”. What are your thoughts???

From rocks in Colorado, evidence of a 'chaotic solar system' University of Wisconsin-Madison, February 22, 2017 http://news.wisc.edu/from-rocks-in-colorado-evidence-of-a-chaotic-solar-system/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170222131512.htm http://www.astrobio.net/also-in-news/rocks-colorado-evidence-chaotic-solar-system/ The paper is: Ma, C., S. R. Meyers, and B. B. Sageman. Theory of chaotic orbital variations confirmed by Cretaceous geological evidence. Nature, 2017; 542 (7642): 468-470 DOI: 10.1038/nature21402 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7642/full/nature21402.html Related paper: Sageman, B. B., J. Rich, M. A. Arthur, G. E. Birchfield, and W. E. Dean, 1997, Evidence for Milankovitch Periodicities in Cenomanian-Turonian Lithologic and Geochemical Cycles, Western Interior U.S.A. Journal of Sedimentary Research, Section B: Stratigraphy and Global Studies Vol. 67 (1997) No. 2. (March), Pages 286-302 http://www.earth.northwestern.edu/research/sageman/PDF/97.Sageman.etal.pdf Yours, Paul H.

Any idea how this was formed? was it a rock that had lava flow cover it? That’s what I thought at first. the shape on one side almost looks like a mold. Did the lick test and tongue stuck to the wishbone looking part. Can this be a bone? Any thoughts ? this was found in Northeast Kansas near an area we found some Crinoid and fusulinid fossils.

In the last three and a half months I'd say I finally had the true college experience - always tired, hungry, and getting strangled by ochem 2 . But, my last final was yesterday, so time for a long overdue trip report. I'll go consecutively, with brief notes on the sights and interests encountered along the way, culminating with a prep update on the Plesiosaur I found over the summer with @Ptychodus04 and Joe. Unfortunately, the block containing the Coniasaur from the same trip hasn't been scanned yet. I'm also twiddling my thumbs for updates August/September: At this point, I was still settling in after moving to college station, and was keen to assess the potential the area had. Being so close to Whiskey Bridge, I made 4-5 trips. Eocene stuff isn't my forte but I found an interest in it quickly. Here are some highlights: Two prongs from the primitive cuttlefish Belosaepia ungula. I was fortunate to find both of these the same day. These occasionally get nicknamed "cuttlefish beaks" due to their superficial resemblance, but are really the "horns" that tipped the posterior end of the cuttlebone. This is a vestigial character that some modern cuttlefish genera still have traces of. For those who are interested in Belosaepia, here's a link to a webpage Professor Thomas Yancey made of the animal. You might also want to read his paper on it. https://lakeneosho.org/Belosaepia/index.html Some other Eocene highlights: Pristis lathami sawfish rostral tooth. Another smaller one was found the same day as the Belosaepia specimens Exciting in situ of Galeocerdo eaglesomi Once removed: October rolled around the hunts dropped off for the most part, as now the semester was picking up. Despite this, excavations became the theme of October. The best of which was finally, after long last, exhuming the bulk of the mosasaur from last year. For those who haven't seen the trip report or updates, in September 2021 my step brother and I found a basal mosasaur at my favorite Eagle Ford site. Those weekends were used for extracting the cervical verts and back of the skull, which was initially all that was revealed. In the February that followed, I poked around, just in case there was more bone, and found the end of the tail. This led us to tackle the site again a week later, and we immediately found more than the two of us could handle. We woodglued the block back and crossed our fingers that it would outlast the weather. Thankfully, it did, and with my dad, @JohnJ and @LSCHNELLE , we retrieved what might be the rest of the skull, as well as (hopefully) a significant portion of the body locked away in some large blocks in a heinous hail mary. It was epic, and only possible due to the leadership and excavation savvy of John and Lee. Due to its research interest, I can't share photos yet, but thankfully attention on the specimen is strong and consistent now, and prep is in full swing. However! One thing I can show is a super odd Ptychodus tooth dug up by John as we trenched around the skeleton: Turns out it was pretty lucky Lee was there, he's the forums go-to Ptychodus expert and speculates that this may be P. anonymous symphyseal (none are known of yet). Ptychodus researcher Shawn Hamm said he hasn't seen something like it yet. THAT is some good bycatch! The weekend after, I joined in briefly on a Plesiosaur dig in an unusual location with @GPayton and some SMU folks. That was also exciting - but can't share photos of that either (yet!) The October paleo scene rounded out with a short hunt at an old favorite spot. Preservation and quantity weren't of their typical splendor, but I was still very happy to see these, especially in such a scenic area. First: a heartbreaker: Next, a reworked P. mortoni tooth found in Pleistocene matrix: Other highlights: Followed by a monster P. martini / P. marginalis tooth. Very river rolled, and the strata that would support both is in the area: November/December: Academically the most difficult two months I've had, so definitely needed some creek therapy Here are the results: First - a visit to my favorite comanche peak fm spot. This tiny, extremely rich site has yielded dozens of Heteraster c.f. texanus, a Tetragramma sp. that I've posted on here before, and a monster Tetragramma my step brother Christian found (which I just realized I haven't shown here before - here it is the day of, vs after prep). That was over the summer. This time, I brought some good friends to the site for a night hunt. They're my rock climbing friends who were interested in the boulders of the area, and I thought I'd introduce them to paleo as well. Our best result this time was probably this Heteraster weathering out of its little pocket. It was a cool in situ. November also found me out in my best Austin chalk site. This was the area I found a Hadrodus sp. incisor in August of 2021. At the time, I was still quite a noob, so assumed that I was in the Ozan. Rather, this site is a contact of the Austin chalk and Ozan. I'm unsure of the member of the Austin chalk here, but I don't think it's the upper most. My suspicion is Dessau. The Hadrodus situation is complex - it was found as very, very recently tumbled out of formation, so technically in float, but I'm 99% sure now it originated in the Austin chalk present, rather than the Ozan layer above. This opens up the possibility of H. marshi, known only from the holotype Othniel Charles Marsh found "somwhere" in the smoky hill chalk, the Kansas equivalent to the Austin chalk, and thus even rarer than my previous ID of H. hewletti, known from the Mooreville chalk (roughly equivalent in age to the Ozan). That said, H. priscus has an assumed range that extends this far as well. The research on the genus is sparse, so there's a lot work I get to do on my end to organize the available information and make my own determinations. Regardless, I visited the site again and it was nautiloid galore. I found 6-7 Eutrephoceras coming out of the marl-y chalk in a small area. Another find of note from this site was my first Pycnodont tooth (Hadrodus being a Pycnodont has fallen out of opinion, so this now is my first): My only other cretaceous hunt in November/December was a brief lower Eagle Ford excursion. Here are the notable results: Cretoxyrhina mantelli and Ptychodus occidentalis (the latter found in gravel) Also worth note - this pretty scene after popping out a Ptychodus tooth that's been sitting on my desk at home for some time. This one was found at the same site as the Pliosaur tooth in my albums: Thanksgiving break had me in the East Texas Miocene, hunting petrified wood of the Catahoula fm. The scenery of the land there, especially during fall, is astonishing. I will include some landscape photos in a following post in response to this. This honker piece of palm wood was my best find. One thing to note as well is the Oklahoma Permian matrix gifted to me by @historianmichael. It is astonishingly rich, full of Orthocanthus teeth. My favorite find so far is the jaw fragment below, which I should try to get ID'd soon. This matrix kept me sane on the days weeks I couldn't make it out. My final highlight is the prep progress I made this semester on the block of Plesiosaur vertebrae co-discovered with Joe and @Ptychodus04. A&M, I must admit, is quite lacking in their vert paleo realm (though it's great for inverts). Their paleo prep lab has no equipment, so, I got to work with an exacto knife and, all things considered, I think this specimen is turning out well That's it for the last few months. That said, I'm ready to take a nap and then decompress by hitting some freezing creeks, trying to find the rest of the Plesiosaur above, and romping around huge Ozan exposures for the next few weeks

Hey all! I have this tooth that appears to be a cretodus. It has plications on both the labial and lingual faces, with the lingual plications being smaller than the labial. Cretodus so far. Iy measures 3.88 mm in height and 3.42 mm mesio-distally, The problem arises with the accessory cusps. Welton and Farish state that Cretodus semiplicatus only has one accessory cusp on each side of the main cusp. Although one side of the cusps is missing, the other side obviously has two cusps. Was Welton and Farish mistaken, or is this tooth not even cretodus? Thanks! Randy

Eagle Ford Group, Post Oak Creek, Sherman, TX, USA I'm curious to know the identity of these shark teeth so help from experienced fossil hunters would be much appreciated!

I watched the Dinosaur Apocalypse videos on PBS narrated by David Attenborough, link to TFF thread posted here, http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/123230-tv-tonight/&tab=comments#comment-1345385 I will let others debate the specifics in the other thread, I don't have the experience to criticize/celebrate any of it. Something I noticed in the second video, The Last Day, was this map of the United States depicting the Western Interior Seaway at 17:44 in the video. Here are a few cities in the area I plotted. Everything else I had heard and all the other maps I've seen have shown the Western Interior Seaway much farther east than this map, east of the Rocky Mountains, running north to south through the great plains. Is there something I missed? It seems like a fairly large error seeing as the Western Interior Seaway played an important part in the videos. I'd appreciate any and all help, thank you.

Is anyone aware of any Glyptoxoceras sp. in the Coniacian? @doushantuo, I know that you are good at digging up information like this. Can you find anything?

Hey all, I'll try my best to be brief but detailed in my question, but I'd like it to be a discussion as well, if there is one to be had. From what I understand, the Western Interior Seaway had what appeared to be too many large, active predators for a similar environment to support, especially when one considers how shallow the seaway was. There were the many species of Mosasaurs, with other large predators like Xiphactinus, with the typical western interior seaway sharks as well. This would make me think that that there are two possible outcomes - either an absolutely enormous supply of prey at the lower trophic levels, or some serious competition among the predators of the higher trophic levels...or maybe both. Now, I understand niche partitioning plays a role. For example, evidence suggests Squalicorax primarily scavenged, while Cretoxyrhina were likely sight oriented, agile top predators. While that may put these particular sharks away from competing with each other, other predators, for example, did theoretically fill the same niches as Cretoxyrhina. For example, the fact that Xiphactinus, Cretoxyrhina, and some large Mosasaurs can all be found in the same locales sometimes suggests not only that that these large, agile, theoretically "top predators" not only lived at the same time, competing for (probably) the same prey, but were in each other's neighborhood as well. How is this possible, or sustainable? Now, perhaps I have my time lines wrong, perhaps a million years this way or that..So this is where I have a few more species specific questions. For example: Tylosaurus is a genus that can be found, for example, in the north sulfur river, and is late Cretaceous. Mosasaurus maximus is also late cretaceous, and the one specimen I know of that comes to mind was found in Austin, supposedly in the "Navarro" formation, whereas the NSR is Ozan. While I couldn't find an exact age for the Navarro, both are late Cretaceous, and at first glance there's not much to suggest that M. maximus and Tylosaurs were much different from each other... did they really evolve to be in direct competition? The same could be said with Cretoxyrhina and Cretodus. I found shockingly little about Cretodus on the web, but what I did find was that they were able to determine from that lovely speciman from Kansas that at least Cretodus houghtonorum could reach somewhere around 22 feet in length, whereas it's thought Cretoxyrhina could achieve lengths of 26 feet. Again, these are both large active predators that (I think) lived at the same time, and if looking at the teeth on Cretodus, it does seem reasonable to think that they were active predators - putting them in direct competition with each other and the rest of the active seaway predators. If you made it this far through my ramblings, thank you! If you know more than me please chip in - I'm quite specifically curious about Cretodus's role in the the food web, but have a broader interest too in trying to understand how all these mega sized predators co-existed with one another.

Good Afternoon! Came across this rock yesterday, looks like a tooth to me, but I'm no expert. Went out during the storm yesterday and got some great points, tools and some coral as well. In the same area I come across mostly those bottle cap shells, coral and oyster fossils. Found in Austin, TX down near the pleasant valley bridge on the east side. Thanks for the help!

Last summer, on the last day of a long weekend of backcountry fossil hunting around Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan, my friend and I decided to stop our canoe at a beach where on a previous morning I had found a large baculites cuneatus specimen. This beach was an outcropping of a unit of the Bearpaw formation known as the Demaine sand, and dated roughly to the late Campanian. The locality was chock full of golfball to softball-sized nodules, each with a delicate, coalified fossil inside, ranging from crustacean parts, chips of driftwood, to loose vertebrae. It wasn't long before I was looking down at a split nodule containing the symmetrical lines I knew were a skull. So of course, I assembled it together as best as I could, wrapped it in a sock, and we loaded back into the boat to head home. Some typical terrain in the area. The formerly glacial South Saskatchewan River carves deep into the marine clays and sands of the Bearpaw formation: The nodule, rather unceremoniously wrapped in a wool sock: And unwrapped. Note the cervical vertebra just above the posterior end of the skull, and how part of the end of the snout is missing (sorry about the lack of scale bar, there's a photo further down the post with proper scale): I sent a photo to a paleontologist friend, and was quickly referred to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, who of course were eager to accept the fossil (not to mention that I was technically legally obliged to hand it over, per the Saskatchewan Heritage Property Act... But it's what I wanted to do anyway!). About a month later, my friend and I met with two other paleontologists down at Lake Diefenbaker to deliver the fossil (this time more carefully wrapped in a shoebox...) and to show them the site where we had found it. One long and wet trip in the zodiac raft later, we were there. We assisted in the collection of more samples, this time coming up with an even broader variety of flora and fauna, including a small crinoid, some wood chips with amber, and some more decapods. One of the two paleontologists was excited to suggest that the locality probably represented a near-shore lagoon environment, and that the museum would likely be back to do some more work there at a later date. Unfortunately, we were unable to do so that summer because of the seasonally rising water levels of the lake, which flooded the site, but I've been told that my friend and I will be invited to assist with the operation again this following season. As for the fossil, it has since been delivered to McGill University to be CT scanned. Apparently, distinguishing the bone from the matrix has been long and tedious work, and not much news has reached us since the specimen was delivered some time last September. Here is an individual slice from the CT scan, from near the back of the braincase - notice how porous the bone material is, which is apparently another indicator that this skull belonged to a juvenile: I have been in close correspondence with the paleontologist from the Royal Sask. Museum who will be writing the paper to describe the find, but everything is more or less at a standstill until the work on the CT scan is finished. It's been a rather long wait, but I'm looking forward to its publication - I have been told that the museum intends to hold a press conference after the specimen has been described, and that my friend and I will be credited and involved in the reveal. So far, the museum has kept everything about the discovery deliberately vague, aside from a brief mention in a press conference, which informed an article that circulated around the Canadian media late last summer: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/scientists-in-saskatchewan-discover-new-multimillion-year-old-fossils It's been an exciting and fulfilling experience overall, and I can't wait to get back into the field, this time with a more meticulous and careful attitude, knowing that there's scientific potential to be had from my future contributions. Anyway, here are some more photos from the lab at the RSM, with scale bar: Decapod claw: Crinoid crown: Thanks for your attention.

Good Afternoon all! I have found what appears to be a bone fossil. I would love some help if possible identifying it. It was found in Austin, TX in a stream bed. I did the lick test, and my tongue stuck to the porousness, (not that it is scientific, but I figured id add it, just something I read online). Along with the pictures of the potential bone, I also included a photo of all fossils I have found in the same area, coral, oysters and other random shells. All have been found on the surface, do digging, including the bone. The round stone is coral from the end Permian extinction, I know that much from my research, but the bone I am guessing is from around the time of the western interior seaway when this area opened up again. Hope I have provided enough information!

Hi again from West KY. Hope these photos are OK. I've wrestled with them for a couple hours now. (LOL) This was found with some others while I was walking a creek in the Jackson Purchase area of KY, Graves County to be exact. This was on the surface, as were the others, all near each other. They look to have been washed out, as the banks of the creek are, in some places, as high as 15 - 20 ft. The other side was cut out in the 1800's to make a railroad track. The ruler didn't come out clearly, but, this measures about 9mm x 7mm x 5mm, weighs 552g. This area is known to have been under water, but most of the fossils I find are the small ones. When I saw this, I wondered if it was possible to have had a creature this large swimming HERE? That led to learning about the Western Interior Seaway, and yes, it DID reach here, (very exciting!). After researching this and another bone found with it, I came to think that it was a possible cetacean with signs of Osedax, during the Cretaceous perhaps. (?) After reading about Osedax, I found that now, the various species usually are separate from each other, but that in the W.I.S., many species would feed off of the same bones. *I added a photo of one of the others found with it. Just the one. I've second-guessed myself 1000 times about this and the other "bones", looked for other things that seemed more plausible, and been through tons of photos, websites, & scientific papers. The University of KY website didn't help to squash my excitement - here's a quote from them: "Cretaceous sediments are almost completely absent in Kentucky; only small areas of Cretaceous deposits occur in and near the Jackson Purchase Region in extreme western Kentucky. During most of the Cretaceous, Kentucky was land. If Cretaceous sediments covered any of this land, they have since been eroded away. However, during latest Cretaceous times, sea level rise coupled with subsidence in the Jackson Purchase Region led to deposition of coastal sediments in environments that included coastal plain, river, delta, and shallow sea. Because of the limited outcrops in the flat Jackson Purchase Region, very little in the way of fossils have been found in the Cretaceous sediments there. The most common fossils are coalified tree limbs. The potential exists for dinosaur fossils to be found in these sediments in Kentucky. Much more new research needs to be done on the Cretaceous in this region." I know some of you all can help, and it's very much appreciated! Even if it IS nothing more than a coral or whatever, at least I will know!

I appreciate all the feed back on my handful of Sulfur River finds and im enjoying being on here and being able to share my love for fossils with y'all. Here is a very special find for me I found it the day after being in a major car accident that I was very lucky to be able to walk away from with only bruises. The Flight museum I use to work for was not to far away from a secret creek that I use to hunt during lunch break, It had earlier formation's of the Western Interior Seaway, Austin Chalk, Kamp Branch etc. I've found several good Ginsu shark teeth aswell as Ptychodus Whip, and other good sharks teeth along with some fish verts and a snout from a baby Mosasaur. So the day after the accident I decided to take my mind off the ordeal by hitting the creek during lunch and feeling blessed I was alive and able to walk so just as im heading out of the creek after finding some teeth I stumbled upon fish scales sticking out of the gravel and picked up this Pycnodont and is a pretty good specimen. So It is a very sentimental piece giving what I was going through when I found it.

Ive been hunting the Sulfur River for 10 years and here is a small handful of the Sulfur River finds of mine including the partial Toxochelid I found sticking out of the shale and the 35 pieces of shell and a couple pieces of bone I recovered.

I've been looking for an ID for this big boy. So far I've found this site (http://www.ammonoid.com/Prionocyclus.htm) but I'm not sure what I'm looking for to differentiate between them. Could anybody more knowledgeable help me out?