North Sulphur Treasures

[believerjoe]

I know what a couple of these are, but have uncertainty. Chime in and lets solve these..... Please lol

The one I am curious about will be the one that looks like turtle, but due to shape and other characteristics, I was leaning towards mosasaur frontal! Could they be that small? Thanks

[JohnJ]

Cool finds, Joe. More views of each would help.

I would lean back toward turtle on the last one. What does the other side look like?

[believerjoe]

I was trying to be lazy! Will get more pics tomorrow. The other side is rough. It was just unique from the other turtle pieces I have found. These were gathered from two hunts where I wasn't busy with other things. Can't believe I am going to say this, but I am ready for some summer hunts with less water. Need more time hunting so I can find something big!

[Diceros]

I have guesses on two of them. The one in upper row center looks like a mosasaur jaw frag. with the top part of a fused tooth root (the crown has been shed). Mosasaurs have very peculiar tooth replacement: for most of their lives, the teeth are fused to the jaw, the old crown is shed, then the new crown comes up (or down, if it's an upper tooth) through the old root, and fuses onto the top of it.

The frag. in the second row left looks like a fragment of a fin of a large fish. Some of the fin rays appear to be segmented into lepidotrichia, so a relatively primitive fish with soft fins.

I wouldn't say any of these are "treasures" - maybe you meant it ironically (if so, good one!).

[Fossildude19]

... I wouldn't say any of these are "treasures" - maybe you meant it ironically (if so, good one!).

One man's treasure is another man's trash.

Regards,

[old bones]

I have guesses on two of them. The one in upper row center looks like a mosasaur jaw frag. with the top part of a fused tooth root (the crown has been shed). Mosasaurs have very peculiar tooth replacement: for most of their lives, the teeth are fused to the jaw, the old crown is shed, then the new crown comes up (or down, if it's an upper tooth) through the old root, and fuses onto the top of it.

The frag. in the second row left looks like a fragment of a fin of a large fish. Some of the fin rays appear to be segmented into lepidotrichia, so a relatively primitive fish with soft fins.

I wouldn't say any of these are "treasures" - maybe you meant it ironically (if so, good one!).

These would be 'treasures' to me! They are fossils. They are bits of mosasaur. Some of us would be very happy to be able to find even small specimens of these animals.

[believerjoe]

I tried taking better pics of the piece and nothing really is working. No real detail to speak of. I think I knew the other pieces, but just seeing if we could get a conversation going on them. The jaw fragment with the one tooth root and the tooth root in another pic are colored differently and I was not certain if they were mosasaur or not. I have had maybe 15 jaw fragments in my possession and these were a little different.

And as far as them being treasures, I guess that really is in the eye of the beholder. I have pieces that I value more and I would consider true treasures and while these are not as substantial, the effort to locate them was about the same. When we hunt, we have targeted items in mind. Since I hunt the sulphur a lot, mosasaur is at the top of my list. We will bypass almost anything that is not vertebrate material. So when I find mosasaur items, I am happy and the trip was successful. There are always better examples out there and those kick things up a notch, but we have already gone through the following phases:

Pick up anything we thought might be a fossil - including rocks.....

Learn a little more about what to look for and then hopefully stop picking up rocks...

Quit picking up those straight shelled ammonites and oyster shells - cause they are abundant here.......

Get better at identifying bone......

Find a tooth to a mosasaur and that is cool........

Focus on finding more of those teeth and anything associated with them.....

Find jaw pieces with hidden teeth......

Hope to find jaw with teeth still in tact......

Find a jaw piece with one tooth in tact......

Find mosasaur and 40% of the entire reptile......

Spoiled and don't care about anything other than larger finds.......

At the moment, I have no passion for anything but mosasaur, but don't mind a good find especially when so much time and effort has gone into the search. In a year and half, we have had the luck to find some unique things and even a fairly complete specimen that was donated. We do not collect as many things as we once did and I am sure there are people out there that would love to find some of those things and that is why we leave them there. We are now hoping to find better preserved pieces and not bring home everything, but we are not able to pass on mosasaur material that is identifiable. I have a 5 gallon bucket of bone chunks that are belonging to who knows what........

Not a big collector because our house was broken into once and everything I had collected to that point was gone in a blink.......

I think the interest in the fossils for me is the hunt and the excitement of actually finding something. I do not buy them because I think the beauty is in the find. So with all that being said, if there are folks on here that have a desire for some mosasaur material or anything fossil from our area, then shoot me a PM. More than welcome to share the stuff with interested folks.

And I do feel lucky to live in an area that is fossil bearing and with vertebrate material. I just wish I knew about it earlier!

[sharko69]

Amen.