Durant Oyster Bed

[Clayton Jones]

I just got home from a fossil hunting trip to a site a few miles northwest of Durant, Oklahoma. Some friends own a small plot of land with a very shallow pond on it that just happens to be a good exposure of the underlying Caddo formation limestone and clay found all over the area. The limestone surface has been broken up a bit by natural erosion as well as by the initial excavation of the pond and construction of the dam, which is evident through a few scrape marks left by an excavator bucket.



The site predominantly yields smallish (~2" in length) oyster fossils of varying quality but, there is also an occasional secondary species of small bivalve (Neithea?) and even less commonly, echinoids and turritella(?) casts, of which I only found a fragmented turritella cast today. Some of the oyster shells also have small holes through them, these might be due to worms, maybe?



This is is the first fossil hunting trip that I've been on in quite a while and it's the first that I've documented for my Museum of the Cosmos project. I'll be 3D scanning the better fossils and hash plates I found today and uploading them to the Museum of the Cosmos Sketchfab account soon, along with a video on the YouTube channel and write up of the hunt on the main museum website.

For now, I'm combing through literature to figure out exactly what species of Oysters these are (Gryphea, texigryphea...?), as well as the other bivalve (Neithea?).

[DPS Ammonite]

Texigryphea; Gryphea are now found only outside of Texas. Note the round clionid sponge borings.

 

Probably Neithea if the edge is scalloped in about 5 sections and not rounded.

[Clayton Jones]

@DPS Ammonite you're saying that these oysters are of the genus texigryphea? You said that gryphea are now found inly outside of Texas and this site is not in Texas.

 

I wasn't expecting the holes to be from a sponge, that's very interesting.

[DPS Ammonite]

Sorry, I’ll clarify. Gryphea are now restricted to areas outside of Texas and North America. I believe that Gryphea occur in Europe. Texigryphea occur in several US states.

[Tidgy's Dad]

It is a common error, but I think the correct spellings should be Gryphaea and Texigryphaea.

[Clayton Jones]

There is definitely some similarity between the Caddo formation and a few various other formations further south and west, what with them all being members of the Washita group. Given the limited literature available for this particular area and formation, papers over these other members of the Washita group are definitely handy.

@DPS Ammonite Thank you for the clarification, that makes more sense now.

@Tidgy's Dad Thank you for the correction, you are correct. Scientific names can be a bit tricky to get right sometimes.