Jaw Bone With Tooth Found In Highland Ca

[cjojola]

My neighbor found this on a walk in the foothills of Highland CA. He asked me to help him identify it. I went to my Inland Empire Prospectors and Miners meeting and they said to post it here for an answer. We usually find sea shells when we dig for Gold so fossils are new to me. My neighbor and I will be going to the site next week to find more fossils. Thank you for your assistance. Chuck

[garyc]

I am far from certain, but it has a tapir or peccary look to me.

Edited May 22, 2013 by garyc

[cjojola]

Thanks for the input. Can you tell by the color of the molar how old it could be or is the color an indication of the minerals present in the site?

[MikeDOTB]

Colors are from minerals in the soil that transfer into the fossil during the fossil action process. It's a neat piece and I like how the roots of the teeth show. As far as animal I do not know. It's mammal, all I can tell you. If you find more associated fossils when you go back let me know!

[MikeDOTB]

Well I mean, let us know. As in post them ha ha.

[araucaria1959]

Do you know about the stratigraphic age of the specimen, or do you have a geologic map (maybe available in the internet via google search) so that you can find out about the age of the area where it was found?

And is the scale in pic 2 and 3 inch? If so, it would be pretty large for a peccary.

It reminds me very much of a lower jaw fragment from Hyracodon (uppermost eocene until lower miocene) like the fragment I have from the lower oligocene White River Formation (Lusk, Wyoming) (attached pics) (scale = match = 45 mm long)

araucaria1959

Edited May 22, 2013 by araucaria1959

[cjojola]

The scale is in inches. The following mammals flourished 65 million to 3 million years ago in Southern California: horses,

camels, rhinoceros, giant bear-dogs, primitive elephants, early saber-toothed cats, and giraffe-like chalicotheres. When we go to the site next week, I will gather more info about the location. What he tells me is: He was returning after reaching the summit of the trail and he saw a pile of rocks. He thought he might find an interesting rock or something and this is what he found. I will note if the rocks came from that location or were they deposited there from above. Chuck

Edited May 23, 2013 by cjojola

[masonboro37]

That is a splendid find for your friend!

[cjojola]

I checked the Geologic map of the San Bernardino Quadrangle and the area west of Plunge Creek is sheared and deformed metamorphic gneiss rock. Age uncertain. There are other types of material further West and South. I am not certain how far he walked from Plunge Creek. We are East of the San Andreas Fault Line.

Edited May 23, 2013 by cjojola

[araucaria1959]

Hyracodon is a member of Rhinocerotoidea (but outside the crown group Rhinocerotidae).

I hope you are successful to gather more information about the locality and its age. Possibly other fossils may help to identify its stratigraphic age.

araucaria1959

[RichW9090]

This received from Eric Scott, Curator of Vertebrate paleontology at the San Bernardino County Museum:

A quick check of the San Bernardino sheet (Morton and Miller, 2003) shows that there is an outcrop of an unnamed “Miocene conglomerate, sandstone, and arkose unit (Tsg)” which is “found strung out between the Mill Creek and Wilson Creek Faults from the vicinity of Plunge Creek northwestward to about Devil Canyon”. Not sure if that’s the unit producing this fossil, but it is Miocene and the fossil does have an older appearance …

Rich

[cjojola]

Excited to read this info. After we visit the site next week will try to arrange a site visit with Eric if needed. Is the fossil a left lower jaw bone and is the molar appearance common for this location? Chuck

Edited May 24, 2013 by cjojola

[siteseer]

Rich,

Yeah, it doesn't look like a lower premolar of one of the familiar Pleistocene-Holocene ungulates. I was thinking it could be something as old as Oligocene but there isn't much of that anywhere in California. There is Miocene if you know where to look. It doesn't look like a Miocene horse (teeth of which started to look like modern horse by the Middle Miocene), tapir, oreodont, nor peccary so I would look at some of the extinct groups like palaeomerycids (deer-like but not related to deer) although it seems too big for that particular family. A premolar an inch wide indicates a rather large animal like a camel or a rhino - both groups that were more diverse during the Miocene.

Jess.

This received from Eric Scott, Curator of Vertebrate paleontology at the San Bernardino County Museum:

A quick check of the San Bernardino sheet (Morton and Miller, 2003) shows that there is an outcrop of an unnamed “Miocene conglomerate, sandstone, and arkose unit (Tsg)” which is “found strung out between the Mill Creek and Wilson Creek Faults from the vicinity of Plunge Creek northwestward to about Devil Canyon”. Not sure if that’s the unit producing this fossil, but it is Miocene and the fossil does have an older appearance …

Rich

Edited May 24, 2013 by siteseer

[RichW9090]

I'm pretty sure it is a perrisodactyl, siteseer. The hyradodonts don't survive past the late Middle Oligocene, so it isn't one of them. Lots of rhinos survive until the very end of the Miocene, and there are at least three genera with species small enough - Diceratherium, Menoceras, Peraceras. This is an unworn tooth; with wear it would look much more rhino-like. So that's my guess right now. I've sent the picture off to the best rhino expert I know - Earl Manning. Let's see what he thinks.

[Harry Pristis]

It certainly looks like a small rhino. It doesn't appear to be Hyracodon or Menoceras because each of these has a prominent labial cingulum on its premolars. You can see it in these images, I think.

Later, much larger rhinos like Aphelops and Teleoceras do not have this cingulum on their teeth.

Edited May 24, 2013 by Harry Pristis

[RichW9090]

Harry, I think that Chuck's tooth does have a labial cingulum. You can see the beginning of it (a continuation of the cingulum on the anterior end of the tooth) and on the anterior half of the labial side. The posterior half of the tooth is missing the enamel on the labial surface.

I've marked the path of the cigulum on this copy:

Edited May 26, 2013 by RichW9090

[cjojola]

1. 
2. I have added these angle pics to show the labial cingulum. I hope this will resolve the matter.

3. Chuck

Edited May 26, 2013 by cjojola

[Harry Pristis]

Yes, I can see the cingulum in these pix. It does resemble an early Miocene rhino . . . like Diceratherium (or Menoceras). I hope you can find some more of this material to confirm the identification.

[cjojola]

I hope so too. We will find out Thursday. My neighbor will be free to return to the site then. My other neighbor will be going too. He has experience looking for fossils. We plan on taking a survey of the area and locating any fossils present. After that we will begin extraction of the fossils. I will take pictures of the site and any new fossils we find.

I had a dentist look at the tooth and he thinks the Rino was about 2 years old.

I was reading how the "Menoceras roamed across a tropical, savanna-like grassland and plains environment that covered much of North America (Prothero, 2005). Because of the massive accumulations of fossil bones of this animal, particularly at Agate Springs Nebraska, Menoceras may have lived in large herds. However, other sites i.e. Martin-Anthony site Martin County, Florida, and Cady Mountains Horse Quarry, San Bernardino County, California." I am putting my money that it is a Menoceras.
Chuck

Edited May 29, 2013 by cjojola

[Rick_Jo]

Nice find

[cjojola]

We returned to the site and did some hunting. No success. We dug a few holes around the site and found nothing. I am thinking that a bird or something had brought the jaw bone to this area or it is buried deeper than six inches.

The first picture is showing the location of the fossil found. It is around 10 feet from the trail.

The second picture is the view looking South.

The third is the view looking North.

The GPS coordinates are: North 34 degrees 07.460' and West 117 degrees 08.708'.

Good Hunting to All and Thanks for Your Help in identifying this fossil.

Chuck

Edited May 30, 2013 by cjojola

[Auspex]

Search up-slope, from the point of find; it is pretty rare for a fossil to have weathered-out below where it wound up.

[cjojola]

That sounds like a plan. The 10 feet of up slope leads to the trail and then it drops off on the other side of the trail. My neighbor was talking about taking a shovel back to the site. We can go back and do some more digging. Thanks for the tip.

Chuck