A Favorite Mammal Fossil --- Broken

[Shellseeker]

I was out both Friday and Today --- every other day is as much as I can take in this cooler weather. Friday was a bear of a day with 15mph winds from the NW. Prospecting and looking for new locations on Friday netted very little, but today was different. I stumbled upon a promising site..

I was avidly pursuing some nice tigers, larger Hemis and even a few small Megs and just after thinking that with so many marine fossils, it was odd that I had not seen any mammal material. Just then I noted a small fossil fragment that was unfamiliar..

Even though there was a pretty nice 2 inch Meg in the sieve, This one caught my attention because:

1) I did not know what fossil it came from,

2) It was clearly a fresh break and I was disappointed that I had indeed broken it..and

3) in the water this fragment had an orange band over a black band -- quite distinctive...

Fortunately, The rest of this fossil was in the next sieve, so I did not have that long to wonder "what is it?"

Take a moment to ID this small fragment... and I will use another post to show what was in the 2nd sieve..... SS

[Ramo]

I'll guess part of a tooth... some kind of elephant tooth part.

(15 mph winds? Right now it's blowing 40-50 and gusts over 60mph We call 15 mph winds calm here!)

[Shellseeker]

So here is the 2nd post -- This tooth is actually from my very favorite mammal ----

I was amazed at the color and banding of the internal tooth... banding almost like a mastodon or like a tusk, even though we all know that the teeth of this mammal have no enamel..

The fragment is a perfect fit back into the tooth -- I will have to consider whether to repair or leave the 2 sections apart. SS

[RichW9090]

Nice.

[uncoat]

Sweet find! I wont spoil it for folks but i have even seen a few come out of rivers here in Oregon.