CreekCrawler Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 I made a trip to the North Sulphur River with Barefootgirl yesterday.Our original plan was to attack some gravel with our sifters.Sitting in a chair sifting gravel is a nice easy way to collect and have some fun.Barefoot was running a little late,but when she arrived she suggested that we travel up this creek that has produced lots of fish material in the past.I'll call this creek "Fish Vert Creek" as Barefoot found three nice verts. My first find up this creek was a very nice Plesiosaur vert in excellent shape.My second find almost stopped my heart.I looked down and immediately said to myself that has to be a Mastodon tooth.I reached down and barely touched this tooth and a large portion of the root area exploded.I stopped right there and went to retrieve some tin foil from my backpack. I then picked up the main portion of my find and called Barefoot over.Needless to say she cussed me up and down that creek the rest of the day Thanks for the company Tera. I had a great time..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted December 13, 2009 Author Share Posted December 13, 2009 Some more pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 hey, hopefully you haven't let that thing dry out. do as you wish, but if it were mine, it would be soaking for at least a day is a mixture of maybe half elmers and half water, and then as it began drying, i'd wipe off the surface, and i'd start pumping full-strength elmers into every visible crack and wiping it off the surface and letting it wick in and keep doing that until it wouldn't take any more. but that's just me, and your mileage may vary. i always decide whether to deal with things that way versus drying them completely and using vinac in acetone based on how much structural integrity the thing seems to have and whether it's soaking wet to start with. hey, but cool find, and much less commonly found than mammoth in texas, so go you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roz Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 Excellent, Barry! Just have never seen one with those small areas on it that look like smaller teeth... Welcome to the forum! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted December 13, 2009 Author Share Posted December 13, 2009 (edited) hey, hopefully you haven't let that thing dry out. do as you wish, but if it were mine, it would be soaking for at least a day is a mixture of maybe half elmers and half water, and then as it began drying, i'd wipe off the surface, and i'd start pumping full-strength elmers into every visible crack and wiping it off the surface and letting it wick in and keep doing that until it wouldn't take any more. I am letting it dry out at the moment. I was thinking about using the Butvar dissolved in Acetone.I kept all the disintegrated pieces,so I could try and reassemble them at a later time.Do you think I should use the Elmers approach,or the Butvar???The crown portion of the tooth is pretty stable at the moment. thanks Edited December 13, 2009 by CreekCrawler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seldom Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 Nice tooth Barry and cool vert. Don't know about the Elmers never been lucky enough to have that problem. Galveston Island 32 miles long 2 miles wide 134 bars 23 liquor stores any questions? Evolution is Chimp Change. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain! "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." Ernest Hemingway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tracer Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 hey, hopefully you haven't let that thing dry out. do as you wish, but if it were mine, it would be soaking for at least a day is a mixture of maybe half elmers and half water, and then as it began drying, i'd wipe off the surface, and i'd start pumping full-strength elmers into every visible crack and wiping it off the surface and letting it wick in and keep doing that until it wouldn't take any more. I am letting it dry out at the moment. I was thinking about using the Butvar dissolved in Acetone.I kept all the disintegrated pieces,so I could try and reassemble them at a later time.Do you think I should use the Elmers approach,or the Butvar???The crown portion of the tooth is pretty stable at the moment. thanks well, it depends. you're the one with it close and can examine it with magnification. you could reassemble it regardless, because you can use thick butvar as a glue, if you've butvar'd the fossil, or elmers, if you elmers'd it. my thought process on this stuff is, if it's really fragile when i find it, when it's wet, then i sort of figure that the drying process won't be pretty due to dimensional changes that will occur as it dries, and i therefore like to have polymer already in all the available places, from the concept that it will retard the drying, stick stuff together, and discourage dimensional changes that would lead to greater cracking and disintegration. the issue with drying a fossil to the point where you can do the acetone/polymer bit is that it needs to be really dry before you consolidate it. the stuff i'm most comfortable doing that with is the stuff that's got a lot of mineral replacement already - that's more like a "rock" to start with. it doesn't tend to crack and crumble a bunch as it dries. at a minimum i like that material to be non-crumbly to start with. then there's the economic/practical issue sometimes. if i have a bunch of faunal bone, or a giant piece of something, then there are times when i don't opt for using several cans of acetone and a bunch of polymer beads to make a big bath of that stuff. it's really volatile, seems pretty toxic, and what do i do with it afterward? i don't like just brushing acetone/polymer on stuff, because then i'm just really creating a "crust" of consolidated area with no real protection of the center of the fossil. ok, ok, this is starting to sound silly. most of our fossils aren't museum pieces. but i want them to last as well as possible for tj to enjoy however long he wishes to enjoy them. i've posted the "nautarch" link several times - all i'll say regarding drying out stuff and then butvaring it is that i'd try to retard the drying process with a drying box, and/or partial ethanol soak, etc. to try to avoid the fast-shrink cracks. but enjoy those fossils! the plesiosaur vert is way cool too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barefootgirl Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 Your one lucky b######!! I still think I should of hit you over the head with my shovel for finding my tooth but Ill let this one slide:D. I know where to find more and it's only 20 min from my house NeeeNer NeeeNer:P. For real though Barry was just so excited and of course who wouldn't be after finding that. It was a cold but awesome day of hunting and I feel privileged to have just been there when it was found. In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge, it marks the first step in progress toward victory. Alfred North Whithead 'Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia!' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted December 13, 2009 Author Share Posted December 13, 2009 I made a call to Dave Daniel and asked what he thought about stabilizing this tooth.He reccommended 1" of Elmers glue mixed in a gallon milk jug with warm water. I have the tooth soaking in this mixture right now.He said I should let it dry out and repeat the process a few times. Thanks for the advice Tracer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLM63 Posted December 13, 2009 Share Posted December 13, 2009 Very nice finds,Barry. Great photos ,too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oh-Man Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 I made a call to Dave Daniel and asked what he thought about stabilizing this tooth.He reccommended 1" of Elmers glue mixed in a gallon milk jug with warm water. I have the tooth soaking in this mixture right now.He said I should let it dry out and repeat the process a few times. Thanks for the advice Tracer... Cool stuff Barry! Save What is geology? "Rocks for Jocks!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oh-Man Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 I made a call to Dave Daniel and asked what he thought about stabilizing this tooth.He reccommended 1" of Elmers glue mixed in a gallon milk jug with warm water. I have the tooth soaking in this mixture right now.He said I should let it dry out and repeat the process a few times. Thanks for the advice Tracer... Cool stuff Barry! Save the r What is geology? "Rocks for Jocks!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oh-Man Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Great stuff Barry!!!! Save the rest for me! What is geology? "Rocks for Jocks!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seldom Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Great stuff Barry!!!! Save the rest for me! :lolu: :lolu: I had no ideal where you were headed Galveston Island 32 miles long 2 miles wide 134 bars 23 liquor stores any questions? Evolution is Chimp Change. Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain! "I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." Ernest Hemingway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
worthy 55 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Great finds. It's my bone!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texaswoodie Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Downright awesome Barry! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jax Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Very cool !! Barry called me not long after he had found it, and I could hear Tera in the background..... Tera, it happened to me in that same creek. We were walking up the creek, I looked left, and just then Barry picks up the biggest fish vert I had ever seen!! He is one luck guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racevw112 Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Cool find!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LanceH Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Great find! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 That's a jewel-like piece of tooth, but to me your find of the day is the plesiosaur vertebra. Great finds. The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terry Dactyll Posted December 14, 2009 Share Posted December 14, 2009 Very nice finds! ....well done.... the plesi vert is beautiful.... Cheers Steve... And Welcome if your a New Member... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreekCrawler Posted December 14, 2009 Author Share Posted December 14, 2009 That's a jewel-like piece of tooth, but to me your find of the day is the plesiosaur vertebra. Great finds. The enamel on the tooth actually looks wet when dry.It has an incredible shine to it.It reminds me of one of those fancy ice sculptures that has started to melt. I'm going back to the area where these two finds were made to see if I can find remnants of either of these beasts, as it appears that they didn't travel very far from where they weathered out. Thanks for the compliments everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 ... reminder to self, remove tracking device from JohnJ's car and switch it to Barry's .... Oh! Hey, great finds! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnJ Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 MikeD - if it's the one with your name and address on it, then look under your left rear bumper.... The human mind has the ability to believe anything is true. - JJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeD Posted December 16, 2009 Share Posted December 16, 2009 I was wondering why you were following me around!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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