A walk in the Austin Chalk

[Uncle Siphuncle]

2 minutes ago, LSCHNELLE said:

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  I remember seeing a recent fossil report of yours on a trip to New Mexico (or West Texas?) with your wife in lieu of the CoVID19-cancelled planned Caribbean vacation. It seems that you hit the Turonian formations and made some nice ammonite finds.  Is that similar fossil hunting to the Boquillas Formation?

Lee, the NM exposures we visited produced ammonites within and eroded out of concretions.  These were generally preppable with an ME-9100 scribe as the matrix was willing to separate at the fossil interface.  Boquillas Flags were more of a "what you see is what you get" proposition.  I found it best to cut the flags into tiles back home with a diamond saw as the matrix was very hard, with desert weathered calcitic ammonite steinkerns embedded within.  To put a scribe to these ammos would have been immediately and irreversibly deleterious and unsightly.  Experience has taught me to recognize when nature is the best prepper.

[sixgill pete]

Fantastic Jared. Love the cidarid!

[Jared C]

On 4/5/2022 at 9:41 AM, Uncle Siphuncle said:

I believe that the complete Ptychodus skeleton that was excavated, sold to Tom Lindgren, shipped north, stolen and recovered months later was originally discovered out between Uvalde and Del Rio in the interval you mentioned

Is that the skeleton that's now at the Texas through time museum?

[LSCHNELLE]

24 minutes ago, Jared C said:

Is that the skeleton that's now at the Texas through time museum?

Yes.  I have seen it in person.  Shawn Hamm looked at it last June. He says it looks like Ptychodus anonymous. 

[Uncle Siphuncle]

4 hours ago, LSCHNELLE said:

Yes.  I have seen it in person.  Shawn Hamm looked at it last June. He says it looks like Ptychodus anonymous. 

I still need to make it to the museum.  But anytime I'm collecting the North Country, in consideration of the cost of gas, daylight, and toe tapping wife waiting for me back home, I prioritize collecting and blow past museums.  Plus by day's end my appearance and smell would probably relegate me to outdoor exhibits only, ha!

[BudB]

Wow, very nice!

[Jared C]

Update: The cidarids have been prepped!

@Ptychodus04 performed some wizardry on these. I was floored by the photos he sent me, and I took a few closer photos just with my phone this evening (or technically morning... my night owl habit is getting so bad that I'm starting to become a (morning owl?)). They turned out leagues better than I had expected, considering their original apparent condition.

 

First - the worse condition cidarid. It makes up for the state it's in with the present (partial) aristotle's lantern. I've tried to capture most of the angles below:

 

 

 

 

Next up- the better condition cidarid. This is the one that was exposed at the surface in the insitu (hence the wear on one side) in the original post. It is a sight to behold, in my humble opinion.

 

@JohnJ @DPS Ammonite @erose

[Mikrogeophagus]

That aristotle's lantern is pretty cool! 

[historianmichael]

Great finds and prep! The partial Aristotle’s lantern is awesome!

[caterpillar]

Very nice echinoids. Congrats

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

Those echinoids cleaned up spectacularly! Indeed, hardly recognizable! Stunning specimens. Congratulations!

[Ptychodus04]

Those were fun to prep! The Aristotle’s lantern parts made the one worth the time to prep for sure. Great finds.

[LSCHNELLE]

Really nice details came out during prep in both echinoids!  I think that the Aristotle's Lantern is even rarer than a North American citarid to find intact.  You've got great eyes and amazing luck! 

[Ptychodus04]

52 minutes ago, LSCHNELLE said:

Really nice details came out during prep in both echinoids!  I think that the Aristotle's Lantern is even rarer than a North American citarid to find intact.  You've got great eyes and amazing luck! 

To your point on rarity, I have found 1 cidarid in 41 years of collecting fossils.

[JohnJ]

Great prep, Kris!

 

Congratulations, Jared!  These are both incredibly rare specimens coming from the Austin Chalk.  I've only found plates and spines pursuing them in the Chalk.

 

[DPS Ammonite]

Now, you need to get an ID and enter them into the Fossil of the Month contest. Which one to choose: the mouth parts makes it difficult.

 

Take a good stratigrapher and paleontologist to the fossil site to confirm that it is from Dessau Formation. Stratigraphy is important for such a rare or new find. It also might help determine species.

Edited May 7, 2022 by DPS Ammonite

[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice job! 

Good work, those are beautiful. 

[FossilDAWG]

If those finds don't bring you over to the dark (invertebrate) side, nothing will.

 

Don

[Tidgy's Dad]

12 minutes ago, FossilDAWG said:

If those finds don't bring you over to the dark (invertebrate) side, nothing will.

 

Don

Brachiopods will win out in the end. 

[erose]

Pretty freaking cool! Like John all I ever found was spines and a few(very few) plates.  The Dessau in Austin can be identified by a few marker beds. The Exogyra tigrina bed and the Pycnodonte lumachelle, but I don’t have the specifics handy. Again, these are important specimens. 
 

We are in dire need of a serious paleontologist to work on our Cretaceous echinoids. Yours are among what is growing to be more than a handful of un-studied un-identified new fossils worthy of proper description. Keep those little beauties safe!

[LSCHNELLE]

9 hours ago, erose said:

Pretty freaking cool! Like John all I ever found was spines and a few(very few) plates.  The Dessau in Austin can be identified by a few marker beds. The Exogyra tigrina bed and the Pycnodonte lumachelle, but I don’t have the specifics handy. Again, these are important specimens. 
 

We are in dire need of a serious paleontologist to work on our Cretaceous echinoids. Yours are among what is growing to be more than a handful of un-studied un-identified new fossils worthy of proper description. Keep those little beauties safe!

As an amateur paleontologist, the closest similar find I am aware of is the early Campanian Prionocidaris anacochoensis sp. nov. that Bill Thompson has a picture of in his Monograph.  It was found in the Anacocho Limestone. Jared C's finds are likely Late Santonian from the storm bed at the base of the Dessau Member of the Austin Chalk. But, I agree that the latter statement needs verification. 

Edited May 8, 2022 by LSCHNELLE
Correction

[JohnJ]

Too many errors in that Monograph with genera and stratigraphy leave it on the sidelines for other researchers, thus far.

[LSCHNELLE]

So, are your saying that the citarid recorded for the Anacocho has no scientific or paleontological value because it has not been properly vetted.  I would concur that any person (or scientist) can propose a new species, but if it is not accepted then there is no new species.  I had a much longer response drafted that mentioned that possibility, but I lost the draft and decide to drop the lengthy discussion.  I personally find value in the similar citarid posted in Bill's monograph - even if improperly named and vetted.  He is an amateur.  He wrote the book to help amateurs. I can also tell you that the Pedinopsis pondi that I found was IN NO WAY derived from the Austin Chalk of Bear Creek or Onion Creek as previously reported by the USGS geologist in the 19th century.  Mine was from the Basal Buda Limestone. Does that mean the geologist was wrong about strata?  Not necessarily.  Does that mean it couldn't be found in other older strata?  Absolutely not.  Science should be maleable and ready for changing viewpoints.  Otherwise, it can become useless. 

[JohnJ]

2 hours ago, LSCHNELLE said:

So, are your saying that the citarid recorded for the Anacocho has no scientific or paleontological value because it has not been properly vetted. 

I'm saying that any newly described echinoid species should have the geology vetted and the genera accurately diagnosed before erecting something new. I don't know if that applies to the Anacocho specimen, or not.  

 

2 hours ago, LSCHNELLE said:

Science should be maleable and ready for changing viewpoints.  Otherwise, it can become useless. 

Stratigraphic and geographic range expansions of known species are discovered all the time.  I have no issue with that.  

[Ptychodus04]

6 hours ago, JohnJ said:

Stratigraphic and geographic range expansions of known species are discovered all the time.  I have no issue with that.  

This is 100% true. Several specimens that I’ve found over the years (all housed in the Perot Museum collections) have extended the known geological range of the respective  genus/species/ family. One extended the known range of a particular family of sea turtles buy something like 50 million years! 
 

Our knowledge continues to grow as long as responsible parties are out looking for fossils.

 

The cidarid I found was from the Duck Creek Formation. Useless for this conversation but interesting since I’ve never really looked into the ID for it and can’t find one from the Duck Creek now that this thread has me interested.