Shark Tooth Hill (Ernst Quarry) Hunt on 2016-01-22

[Twinlukers]

Wow!!! What a great story and well documented. Can I ask if it was a paying site? And if so how much?

We are planning a trip this fall to visit family and we are planning on a day their or more.

Thanks again for sharing!! Nice just like hunting for gems...

Great job

[jpc]

It is about 80 bucks a day... and they have set dates. Look into the Buena Vista Museum's web site in Bakersfield.

[ynot]

The new price costs at the Ernst Quarries is 90$ a day for the premium sights.

Here are a couple of My finds...

[ynot]

Forgot to add these pictures.

Rob Ernst giving an orientation speech to the "newbees".

And Ken & Tammy digging in the slow curve...

[ynot]

And a couple of teeth in silt pieces..

(a work in progress...)

A lower cosmopolitus hastalis That is 2 1/8 inches slant length.

And one waiting for the dental pick..

Tony

[ynot]

Another piece waiting for some cleaning..

and 3 cetacean teeth that I found in the silt that I brought home..

Tony

[jcbshark]

Some great pieces you found as well Tony: )I really like that Mako with the bone on matrix

[old bones]

Wow, really nice finds from your trip, you all. It is really neat that you got to meet up and hunt together. How's your 'shark bite' Tony?! Did you find any bones?

[ynot]

Some great pieces you found as well Tony: )I really like that Mako with the bone on matrix

Thanks Jeff, that is the best piece I came up with this time.

Wow, really nice finds from your trip, you all. It is really neat that you got to meet up and hunt together. How's your 'shark bite' Tony?! Did you find any bones?

Thanks Julianna. It healed nicely. Tammy found a couple of nice vertebrae, but I only found fragments. (I still have 6 buckets of silt to wash and search, so there may be more treasures to find.)

Tony

[PaleoWilliam]

Nice finds!

[busyeagle]

Nicely done!

[jpc]

And a couple of teeth in silt pieces..

(a work in progress...)

A lower cosmopolitus hastalis That is 2 1/8 inches slant length.

DSCF4233.JPG DSCF4234.JPG

And one waiting for the dental pick..

DSCF4237.JPG

Tony

And it looks like a nice vertebra in there as well.

[digit]

Here's a continuation of the trip report--the day after the dig.

We unloaded our suitcase and three heavy 5-gallon buckets from the plane upon our return to San Carlos. Had a nice dinner with Tammy's sister's family and, surprisingly, after the kids were in bed we actually had just enough energy to watch a movie (Spy with Jude Law and Melissa McCarthy) before heading off to bed for a well-deserved rest. The following morning under a misty sky that frequently turned to bouts of light rain I gathered my buckets of matrix and some colorful plastic pails in the yard and started the initial processing of the Shark Tooth Hill (mini) matrix. I unwrapped the buckets from the construction grade black trash bags that we used to keep any of the matrix from spilling out in the plane. I soon realized that the pelletized state of the silty matrix would not allow me to reduce its volume by dry sifting. It would take to long to break the clumps up by hand and I didn't want to break any micros possibly hidden inside.

Water seemed the way to go so I topped off each bucket and let it soak for a bit. I realized that it would have been better to have started this soak the night before but dinner and the movie didn't leave me the time. Temps in the 50s and cold water from the hose made for a chilly way to start the morning (I've adapted to a semi-tropical environment since moving to South Florida two decades ago). After a bit of soaking, the outside of the clumps started to loosen up and dissolve into a slurry of silty mud. I had brought along a stainless steel strainer that I often use for cleaning micro-matrix and used that to good effect. One handful at a time I transferred the muddy matrix to a plastic pail with enough water in it to allow me to screen out the muddy dissolved portion of the matrix leaving smaller clumps and a lot of mud at the bottom of the pail. I transferred the slightly cleaner matrix to a fresh bucket and again soaked it with fresh water. This was repeated several times till I had removed a large amount of the silt and reduced the quantity of the matrix to less than half a 5-gallon bucket--1/6th of its original volume.

[digit]

Each washing was removing less and less of the silt and I had to decide if I wanted to keep washing the matrix or try to reduce its weight further by drying it out for the trip home. The following day I was scheduled to be up well before the crack of dawn spending the day down the coast photographing an Elephant Seal breeding colony. I knew I wouldn't be back till midday and that I'd have to pack up everything that night for an even earlier departure Monday morning to head back to Florida. Unless you choose an overnight red-eye flight, the only way not to arrive back in Florida too late to be picked up at the airport is to leave insanely early--so we ended up setting the alarm at 3am Monday morning and were away like thieves in the night. I decided that the volume was reduced as much as I'd be able to do before packing the matrix for the journey home and it seemed to make more sense to try to lighten the load by evaporating off a significant portion of the water that had soaked into the remaining matrix.

I borrowed a plastic tarp and spread it out on the floor of the playroom. It was so moist outside from recent rains that I knew the matrix stood little chance of drying outdoors. My plan worked well--when I checked the state of the matrix after returning from the Elephant Seals I found it mostly dry. After a little reshuffling of the matrix to expose new damp areas and a couple more hours of drying I was able to gather the matrix in the center of the tarp and transfer it to three zip-top plastic bags for the trip home. As I didn't want to risk picking matrix out of my clothes in the event of the bag splitting or opening, I wrapped the bags in the black garbage bags to contain any possible containment leak. I laugh thinking about the puzzled look that must have been on the face of the TSA employee that left the inspection slip in my bags.

The bags arrived home without incident. We used a carry-on bag for the larger teeth (secured in small plastic boxes) and some of the larger chunks of matrix with embedded teeth (padded and encased in zip-top bags). As soon as I got home I emptied the three bags of matrix into a 5-gallon bucket and added water to soak overnight. Two more rounds of soaking and sieving reduced the volume of the matrix even more and started to reveal some of the larger (less than 1/2") shark teeth and lots of bone fragments. I decided that additional soaking and sieving might break some of the more fragile fossils that were now appearing so I stopped the washing and spread out the remaining matrix on a tarp on my driveway to dry out. Luckily, I got that done before the heavy rains moved in--which dropped an unseasonable 4" of precipitation in my area.

My plan is to sort through the matrix in its current state and pick out any fossils I can see now. I'll then soak the sorted-through matrix again to try to dissolve more of the clumps which I'll remove with another washing. I'll dry and sort through the matrix again hoping to find any new fossils that have emerged from the recently dissolved clumps. I'll continue this sorting and soaking process till it looks like most of the clumps are gone and no longer hiding micro-fossils. I tested out a small cup of this semi-cleaned matrix and was amazed at just how many tiny Rhynchobatis (and other genera) ray teeth and dermal denticles I was able to find. Several nice Angel Shark teeth emerged as well as did some small conical teleost fish teeth. The micro-matrix from Shark Tooth Hill has some pretty interesting stuff.

Cheers.

-Ken

[Auspex]

Just out of curiosity, I wonder whether a Hydrogen Peroxide soak would break-up the silt?

[ynot]

Just out of curiosity, I wonder whether a Hydrogen Peroxide soak would break-up the silt?

No it does not help at all. Marco sr. uses hot tap water and says it does the best for breaking up the solidified matrix. The mineral that bonds the silt is selenite which is not easy to dissolve without hurting the teeth.

Tony

Edited January 28, 2016 by ynot

[digit]

Here is a peek at some of the mako teeth I brought home to prep. The first one was on a small piece of the matrix. It was covering the root which is the most fragile part so we learned not to try to clean these in the field but to let them dry out (which tends to strengthen the root) and prep them back at home. I'm choosing to keep some of the teeth on a small block of matrix for display but this chunk was too small for that and also the display (lingual) side of the tooth was the part facing the matrix. The tooth didn't take too long to remove from the matrix with a dental pick, X-Acto knife, and tooth brush. The display side of this tooth ended up having a seam along the middle of the blade that is filled with a black mineral. Whatever this mineral is, it seems to form clumps commonly in the matrix. I'm guessing this might some form of pyrite (possibly arsenopyrite) but I'm not particularly knowledgeable on minerals--Tony will likely know.

This next beautifully curved tooth came out of the matrix almost cleanly (and with a solid intact root) and required only the briefest amount of cleaning.

[digit]

Here is a nice lower mako on a small chunk of matrix which I decided to clean off. I found the blade of a small red tooth hiding in the matrix as I prepped the larger tooth. The tooth cleaned up well and looks good as new.

[digit]

Here's a prep job that took a bit longer and was quite fun to complete. I can remember when I was a wee tot with an early interest in paleontology purchasing a "fossil preparation kit" from the Field Museum gift shop in Chicago. It was a small plastic tray with some plastic "fossils" embedded in a grayish brown soft waxy substrate. Included in the kit were a couple of kid-safe pointy tools (also plastic) that were used to excavate the hidden treasures. Surprisingly, I was not turned off the concept of fossil hunting by this cheesy substitute and a mere four+ decades later I am finally able to uncover a bonafide fossil from its 15 million year old wrapping. The matrix from the Slow Curve Premium area is a relatively soft silty/sandy blend and quite easy to remove and shape. Compared to the expert preparations I've witnessed on this forum, this is just child's play--but then I have a history of that.

Here is the sequence of photos I took during the unveiling of this tooth. A few ray dental plates turned up embedded in the matrix as I worked.

[digit]

Tammy found a few nice bones in the section she was digging. Many of them were so brittle that they broke apart into dusty fragments. A couple of the larger ones came out in only a few pieces but were so beat-up and visually not as interesting so we left them at the quarry. She pulled out a rather squat cylindrical vertebra that was large enough that it must be whale (picture soon). This smaller vertebra looked interesting when it came out as it appeared to have some of the projecting processes still attached. This was an interesting bone to prep but it was so fragile that the many small cracks in the bone caused it to spontaneously disassemble at the lightest touch. Some heavy amounts of CA glue were required to hold it together into a single piece. In addition to the two side processes, one side (assuming top) seemed to have had a pair of projections at one time. The vertebra is about 2" long and around 3" across the "wings". I don't know if it is characteristic enough to be able to assign a probable ID but it was fun seeing what was inside.

[digit]

While prepping the vertebra above, I removed and dissolved the surrounding matrix which I screened to find several interesting micro fossils. Some of the micros were readily apparent when removing chunks of the matrix. There were at least three examples of teeth that I believe may be from a Dogfish Shark (possibly Squalus occidentalis). There were also several teleost fish teeth and quite a few Rhyncobatis ray teeth.

I've also spotted some shark teeth that are rounded and hooked which I'm hoping may be Whale Shark teeth. I remember reading about fossil teeth from this species on the forum and as soon as I can get some good macro photos I'll post for comment.

Cheers.

-Ken

[ynot]

that is filled with a black mineral. Whatever this mineral is, it seems to form clumps commonly in the matrix. I'm guessing this might some form of pyrite (possibly arsenopyrite) but I'm not particularly knowledgeable on minerals--Tony will likely know.

I was told that the black mineral is manganese.

Love the "prep" that You have shown!

The little round teeth are Basking shark (Cetorhinus huddlestoni)

- the ones with a cusp are rare in the matrix.

- they do have a variety of shape/size.

Tony

[megaholic]

Wow Ken!

Private jet to a world class fossil dig! Where are you going to go next? Great report. Too exciting for me to read all at once. I had to read it in small parts at a time so I did not get dizzy with "fossil fever". Also being a retired pilot, I hope you took off those muddy clothes before you got back in the jet! I had to clean up those kinds of messes too... Never had any buckets of fossils on board, but I did carry a bucket of lead one day, and a race car engine.

Thanks for the ride...

Cheers, indeed!

[digit]

I was told that the black mineral is manganese.

Love the "prep" that You have shown!

The little round teeth are Basking shark (Cetorhinus huddlestoni)

micro merit island-0040.jpg- the ones with a cusp are rare in the matrix.

micro sth aaaa-0019.jpg- they do have a variety of shape/size.

Tony

Manganese, got it. Lots of little crumbly little popcorn shape chunks of this stuff emerged from the matrix on the final washings. Couldn't see what was making the black lines on the teeth we were finding till I got home and could put on my glasses (need to remember to bring them to my next dig).

Basking Shark teeth would be way cool--not something we find in the Peace River. The Dogfish Shark and Angel Shark teeth are a welcome addition to my fossil shark taxa as well.

More prep images coming soon.

Wow Ken!

Private jet to a world class fossil dig! Where are you going to go next? Great report. Too exciting for me to read all at once. I had to read it in small parts at a time so I did not get dizzy with "fossil fever". Also being a retired pilot, I hope you took off those muddy clothes before you got back in the jet! I had to clean up those kinds of messes too... Never had any buckets of fossils on board, but I did carry a bucket of lead one day, and a race car engine.

Thanks for the ride...

Cheers, indeed!

We were living the life of a rock star--for a few hours anyway. As this was an unusual way to arrive at a fossil hunt I thought I'd have to lead off the trip report with such a novel intro. We brought "plane clothes" to change into and wrapped the buckets in thick black garbage bags and strapped them to the floor to make sure we didn't make a mess. Don't want to mess up my brother-in-law's plane or he might not be so generous with the offer next time.

Now I have to take a break from playing with my STH fossils and go climb up in my attic to see if I can locate the source of the wet spot that has appeared on the ceiling of my kitchen--this after two days of rain storms that dumped over 5" of rain and spawned several tornadoes in my area (dry season--what dry season?)

Cheers.

-Ken

[Plantguy]

Neat trip and nice report Ken--congrats to you and Tammy. Yep we've had some unusually ugly wet twisting weather of late and even some minor frozen stuff in the morning up this away. No snow and lets keep it that way.

Sorry to hear about the house woes...hang in there! Have fun with prepping.

Regards, Chris