Bone Daddy Posted May 3, 2016 Share Posted May 3, 2016 I have heard a few different things about what these are. Can someone finally put this mystery to rest for me? I've found several of these and leave most of them in the river. This one is typical - cylinder with a bevel tip. Very dense and heavy. This one is broken and shows the lighter-colored interior, although some are stained darker than this example. Whale or dugong tooth? Or something completely different? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digit Posted May 3, 2016 Share Posted May 3, 2016 Nope. No signs of enamel to indicate dentition. The interior (lighter colored material) seems to suggest to me that it is not bone (even solid dugong bone) but possibly consolidated matrix material. I wonder if this might not be the cast of some sort of burrow? I can't say I come across a lot of these in my sifting screen but they likely would get categorized as "matrix chunk" by the pattern matching part of my brain as I sort through the gravel looking for interesting bits. Cheers. -Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herb Posted May 3, 2016 Share Posted May 3, 2016 look like burrows or just rock to me "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"_ Carl Sagen No trees were killed in this posting......however, many innocent electrons were diverted from where they originally intended to go. " I think, therefore I collect fossils." _ Me "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."__S. Holmes "can't we all just get along?" Jack Nicholson from Mars Attacks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeschWhat Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 It is also possible that this is a somewhat worn piece of coprolite. It is hard to tell from the photo, but the circled area looks like it could be an inclusions (vert or small bone?). The arrows point to areas that might have what I refer to as folds. These features are are commonly found in coprolites. 1 Lori www.areallycrappystory.com/fossils www.facebook.com/fossilpoo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bone Daddy Posted May 6, 2016 Author Share Posted May 6, 2016 Interesting. I had never considered coprolite. I will take a much closer look at these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TNCollector Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 It looks like a phosphatic concretion to me, but I am not familiar with that area. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeR Posted May 7, 2016 Share Posted May 7, 2016 Worn dugong rib. Very common in the Florida Miocene. 1 "A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington "I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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