sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I was recently introduced to a new exposure of the Eocene Castle Hayne Formation here in eastern North Carolina. The exposure is in a river bed close to my house. I believe it to be pat of the Comfort Member. The matrix has to be dug out of the layer and then processed for searching. I have searched about 3/4 gallon of processed matrix so far, waiting for the river to go back down to be able to get any more. Bryzoans, starfish ossicles and crab claws are the more common finds. I have also found a couple of crinoid caps, and a few Echinocyamus parvus echinoids. It is full of the small crab claws, I have probably found 100 plus in the matrix I have searched so far. The crab claws range in size from about 2 or 3 mm to about 5/8 inch, most of them on the smaller end of the size range. Here is a sample of the Crab Claws ...... Fish Teeth .... some type of Trichiuridae I believe .... There are quite a few of really nice small (less than 2mm) fish verts here are a couple of them ..... Ray teeth, Myliobatis sp. I believe here ..... not sure on this one ..... another ray tooth, not sure of this ID, have not seen one like this from the Castle Hayne ..... Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcbshark Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Great finds and pics Don! I would have loved to been around to catch and eat all those crabs!!!!! Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 this tooth is unlike any I have found in the Castle Hayne, it resembles a Cretaceous saw fish oral tooth. This as all of the others did, came directly out of the exposure. Now some shark teeth Abdounia recticona .... Paragaleus sp.? ...... Galeorhinus ypresiensis ? ...... Rhizoprionodon sp. ? ..... Scyliorhinus sp. ...... Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old bones Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Nice finds, Don. This looks like a very interesting matrix. I especially like the presumed Trichiuridae and the verts are in great shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 another Scyliorhinus sp ....... Abdounia enniskilleni ...... This tooth is larger than the rest about 5/8 inch ... possibly Isurus praecursor ( Macrorhizodu americana) .... this broken one also .... Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 and finally one last tooth. I believe it to be Heterodontus elongatus .... the pics are not the greatest, had problems trying to photograph it. The tooth is worn and slightly damaged ..... Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Very cool 'new digs'; great preservation, and a mystery or two! "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Jeff, for sure all of those crabs would have been great eating. Julianna, so far I am having lots of fun with this matrix. I cannot wait to see what it coughs up next. Auspex, the preservation is remarkable but it is coming right out of the limestone. The river is acidic and it softens it enough to dig it out. The mystery's may end up being the very best part. Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Don, I used to hear about teeth being found in the Rose Hill Quarry and a friend once sent me a sample from there. Like at least one other site, you could find Late Cretaceous (Peedee Fm.) fossils and Castle Hayne material at the same site. Any chance that tooth was reworked? It does look like a worn Ptychotrygon tooth. All the other stuff you show is Eocene, though, so it is a mystery. It's also possible it is a ray tooth of a group that does not have much of a fossil history and which also bore teeth that resemble those of Ptychotrygon. More digging will reveal more evidence. Jess this tooth is unlike any I have found in the Castle Hayne, it resembles a Cretaceous saw fish oral tooth. This as all of the others did, came directly out of the exposure. Image239.jpg Image236.jpg Image235.jpg Image252.jpg Image251.jpg Image250.jpg Image249.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I think that's a worn Nebrius tooth. and finally one last tooth. I believe it to be Heterodontus elongatus .... the pics are not the greatest, had problems trying to photograph it. The tooth is worn and slightly damaged ..... Image271.jpg Image270.jpg Image269.jpg Image268.jpg Image267.jpg Image266.jpg Image241.jpg Image240.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
siteseer Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 (edited) That first one looks like a worn lateral tooth of a myliobatid and the other one looks like a less-worn one. I was recently introduced to a new exposure of the Eocene Castle Hayne Formation here in eastern North Carolina. The exposure is in a river bed close to my house. I believe it to be pat of the Comfort Member. The matrix has to be dug out of the layer and then processed for searching. I have searched about 3/4 gallon of processed matrix so far, waiting for the river to go back down to be able to get any more. Bryzoans, starfish ossicles and crab claws are the more common finds. I have also found a couple of crinoid caps, and a few Echinocyamus parvus echinoids. It is full of the small crab claws, I have probably found 100 plus in the matrix I have searched so far. The crab claws range in size from about 2 or 3 mm to about 5/8 inch, most of them on the smaller end of the size range. not sure on this one ..... Image287.jpg Image288.jpg another ray tooth, not sure of this ID, have not seen one like this from the Castle Hayne ..... Image275.jpg Image274.jpg Image272.jpg Edited January 8, 2015 by siteseer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Dente Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I think your first Isurus tooth is actually Anomotodon. I have 3 from this site. There are tons of bony fish pieces to be found there. I'm pretty sure the one tooth is Ptychotrygon, I find reworked small Cretaceous teeth everywhere in the Castle Hayne Formation. At one time I was convinced this site was Spring Garden Member because of all the quartz sand you can see in the outcrop but several people including Buck Ward have set me straight, it is the Comfort Member of the Castle Hayne. I have talked with Richard C about this site and he tells me there used to be a marl pit fairly close by that produced nice teeth like these, probably the same layer. The pit is long gone. Too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plax Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Have always been curious about the abundance of crab claws. Have also seen this abundance in the Comfort Member near Goldsboro. Perhaps MB could enlighten us? That is quite a collection of vertebrate material from such a small sample! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Jess, thanks for your thoughts on these teeth and after looking some more at the mystery tooth (Heterodontus?) I think you may be correct in it being a worn Nebrius tooth. Really surprised I did not see that before. Eric, If I am thinking about the same marl pit, it is still there but off limits. It is fenced in and severely overgrown. I have actually wondered if the layer went through the old landfill close by and if maybe there could be some surface finds there now after weathering all of these years. I did consider Anomotodon for that tooth, not real sure why I dismissed it, but you are probably correct. Plax, as we have said before, I am as intrigued about the abundance of these claws as you. It would be nice if someone could shed some light on this. You know I love this pint sized vert material. I found about 30 or so of the fish verts. Also some drum fish type teeth and a couple of barracuda teeth. Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auspex Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Have always been curious about the abundance of crab claws. Have also seen this abundance in the Comfort Member near Goldsboro.... Perhaps it is a depositional sorting bias? The crab claw pieces look to have suffered greater transport wear, and I wonder whether they (being lighter detritus) might have 'washed-in', while the denser teeth and such didn't travel as far? "There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about." - Ashleigh Ellwood Brilliant “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.” - Thomas Henry Huxley >Paleontology is an evolving science. >May your wonders never cease! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fossilized6s Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Nice finds and pics Don. Im pleasantly surprised at how much vert material you have found. ~Charlie~ "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why.....i dream of things that never were, and ask why not?" ~RFK ->Get your Mosasaur print ->How to spot a fake Trilobite ->How to identify a CONCRETION from a DINOSAUR EGG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plax Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Perhaps it is a depositional sorting bias? The crab claw pieces look to have suffered greater transport wear, and I wonder whether they (being lighter detritus) might have 'washed-in', while the denser teeth and such didn't travel as far? Sorting of some sort makes the most sense I agree. Would say that the crab claws are distributed evenly in this thin layer. Perhaps the claws are relatively abundant because the aragonitic shells have all been dissolved away making them more apparent? It's an odd abundance that I haven't seen outside the Castle Hayne Fm. 3/4 of a gallon of sediment produced all those claws. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixgill pete Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Sorting of some sort makes the most sense I agree. Would say that the crab claws are distributed evenly in this thin layer. Perhaps the claws are relatively abundant because the aragonitic shells have all been dissolved away making them more apparent? It's an odd abundance that I haven't seen outside the Castle Hayne Fm. 3/4 of a gallon of sediment produced all those claws. What is pictured is roughly half of the claws that I found in that batch of prepped sediment. Don, got your e-mail. I am going to send one to Jerry also. Bulldozers and dirt Bulldozers and dirt behind the trailer, my desert Them red clay piles are heaven on earth I get my rocks off, bulldozers and dirt Patterson Hood; Drive-By Truckers May 2016 May 2012 Aug 2013, May 2016, Apr 2020 Oct 2022 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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