More Bones And Bottles And ?

[Carolyn]

Not nearly as cool as everyone else found today..love those stars. Heading up river where we found the bison skulls.

This is just what came home with us today. The white round glass are old canning lids. The bottles always amaze me as to how they are in one piece after tumbling around with everything else. If anyone knows what is in the little rocks in the lower left..let me know..they look like grains of rice or seeds.

[worthy 55]

Looks like mostly cow/bison stuff and also like someone had a good trip. Nice finds!

[tracer]

hey, if you would, resave that picture about three times larger, with the widest dimension more like a thousand pixels, and upload it again...

[Auspex]

Ditto what Worthy said.

If anyone knows what is in the little rocks in the lower left..let me know..they look like grains of rice or seeds.

Gonna' need a close-up for this.

[Carolyn]

Sorry..will do thanks

[Auspex]

Yup, rice crispies (aka Fusulinids). Cool!

[tracer]

Yup, rice crispies (aka Fusulinids). Cool!

and there's other stuff in the matrix too, like a piece of a fenestrate bryozoan colony in the middle piece.

[Carolyn]

and there's other stuff in the matrix too, like a piece of a fenestrate bryozoan colony in the middle piece.

Thanks..just what I thought...sure...knew you 2 would know. right away. I wish you guys were here to tell me what I need to pick up.

[tracer]

Thanks..just what I thought...sure...knew you 2 would know. right away. I wish you guys were here to tell me what I need to pick up.

that would be fun, carolyn. but over time you will figure out a lot of it, especially if you study up as much as you can. as far as bison material goes, i have a good book on everything behind the skulls of bison and cows that describes the differences in the bones and shows drawings of them, and lists the "odds" of a characteristic being indicative of a cow bone versus a bison bone. the book is A Guide to the Postcranial Bones of Bos taurus and Bison bison and last i knew you could get it from the Canadian Museum of Nature.

it is very difficult to verbally describe how to tell when a bone is really a good one to pick up and take home. when i first started looking for fossils, i spent a large amount of effort collecting, taking home, and preserving "fossils" that i now believe were not old enough to be considered fossils under the current definition. i learned a lot from the experience, but in retrospect i really wish i'd had someone helping me speed up the learning curve.

sometimes the differences in bones between species are pretty subtle, but they're there. for instance, i'm not confident that the two bovid humeri in your picture are from bison. there are a number of characteristics that can be looked at when narrowing down whether they are or not. one example that's easiest to describe is that a majority of the time, you can stand a bison humerus up on its distal end (the right end of the bone in your picture). on a flat surface; many of them will stand. with cow humeri that will usually not work. but that characteristic is not universally true. but if you have a book that shows you say, six or so different characteristics to compare for a given bone, and all six seem to come out more bison than cow, you can pretty much go "yay!" and dance around like i do...

it's all learning, and it's all fun.

[MikeD]

Thanks..just what I thought...sure...knew you 2 would know. right away. I wish you guys were here to tell me what I need to pick up.

If you can figure out where those rocks came from, that would be a good place to look.

[Carolyn]

If you can figure out where those rocks came from, that would be a good place to look.

Good Idea.

We have been dealing with a lot of mud lately in our area..as the river levels go down should be able to find a lot more..I think we found an area that is an overlap of geological events. Shelves of limestone, a lot more granite and quartz and a lot more shells. Gets dark so early hard to see the bottom..at least no alligators or crocs.here..just the occasional cornstalk hiding in the mud imitating a rib bone.

[Carolyn]

that would be fun, carolyn. but over time you will figure out a lot of it, especially if you study up as much as you can. as far as bison material goes, i have a good book on everything behind the skulls of bison and cows that describes the differences in the bones and shows drawings of them, and lists the "odds" of a characteristic being indicative of a cow bone versus a bison bone. the book is A Guide to the Postcranial Bones of Bos taurus and Bison bison and last i knew you could get it from the Canadian Museum of Nature.

it is very difficult to verbally describe how to tell when a bone is really a good one to pick up and take home. when i first started looking for fossils, i spent a large amount of effort collecting, taking home, and preserving "fossils" that i now believe were not old enough to be considered fossils under the current definition. i learned a lot from the experience, but in retrospect i really wish i'd had someone helping me speed up the learning curve.

sometimes the differences in bones between species are pretty subtle, but they're there. for instance, i'm not confident that the two bovid humeri in your picture are from bison. there are a number of characteristics that can be looked at when narrowing down whether they are or not. one example that's easiest to describe is that a majority of the time, you can stand a bison humerus up on its distal end (the right end of the bone in your picture). on a flat surface; many of them will stand. with cow humeri that will usually not work. but that characteristic is not universally true. but if you have a book that shows you say, six or so different characteristics to compare for a given bone, and all six seem to come out more bison than cow, you can pretty much go "yay!" and dance around like i do...

it's all learning, and it's all fun.

Hmmmmm dancing around like you do..is that as a jester? or just any old time?

just kidding..you have been very helpful. just need to get some research materials..we knew the last finds were lots of parts..the one largest bone..is very heavy....finding more shells, limestone and quartz where we are looking right now...kind of an overlap of geology? Thanks again for your help.

Making rice krispie treats tonight you guys made me crave them.

[tracer]

yeah, saying that your finds are a mixup of stuff from different times is an understatement. your rice krispies went extinct like a quarter of a billion years ago, and some of the bones are no more than around 500 years old at the oldest. but it's all fun to find and study. sometimes the "mix" can be due in large part to a fluke in geology where two strata from way different times are close to each other without all the other "normal" stuff in the middle. but with rivers, a more common situation is to have stuff just all wash down together from the various strata in the cutbanks all along the way and wash downstream together. and then you can end up with permian or earlier marine fossils from a sea combined with pleistocene or holocene mammal fossils from the land.

regarding your comment that a bone was very heavy. that can be a good sign. when they're heavy and dark brown to black and shiny and really clinky like rock when you tap them, that's the ones i really like. don't find a huge number with all those characteristics but i love them when i do.

[Carolyn]

yeah, saying that your finds are a mixup of stuff from different times is an understatement. your rice krispies went extinct like a quarter of a billion years ago, and some of the bones are no more than around 500 years old at the oldest. but it's all fun to find and study. sometimes the "mix" can be due in large part to a fluke in geology where two strata from way different times are close to each other without all the other "normal" stuff in the middle. but with rivers, a more common situation is to have stuff just all wash down together from the various strata in the cutbanks all along the way and wash downstream together. and then you can end up with permian or earlier marine fossils from a sea combined with pleistocene or holocene mammal fossils from the land.

regarding your comment that a bone was very heavy. that can be a good sign. when they're heavy and dark brown to black and shiny and really clinky like rock when you tap them, that's the ones i really like. don't find a huge number with all those characteristics but i love them when i do.

Some of the larger bones are that way..almost like very heavy stone pottery. I think it comes down to not just looking but really seeing things that just don't quite blend in with everything else. Thanks for your input.