Latest Lower Carboniferous/ Mississippian shark finds

[Archie]

Thanks Tony!  

 

Heres a few more smaller ones...

 

Ctenopetalus serratus.

Lateral tooth in labial view, 9.5mm

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ctenopetalus serratus.

Lateral tooth in lingual view, 9mm.

 

 

 

 

[Archie]

Ctenoptychius sp.

Anterior tooth in lingual view, 9mmx8mm.

 

Helodus didymus.

12mmx4mm

 

[Xiphactinus]

love these teeth!

[FranzBernhard]

Very nice specimens and good photography!

 

I am just curious, how to you find them? Smashing rocks in a quarry or at a construction site, inspecting wheatered rocks in a plown field or in a streambed, or a totally different technique?

 

Thanks!
Franz Bernhard

[JimB88]

Wow! Those are some amazing teeth!

[Archie]

Thanks guys!  

 

Franz, there are a few methods I use to find these depending on the type of site I'm hunting, which are all either long abandoned and overgrown quarries or coastal sites. In the quarries I scour over any loose material in the scree slopes of spoil heaps or beneath old working faces, although this tends to turn up mostly partial teeth, and I also split any well bedded blocks I can get my hands on. This gives a better chance of finding a complete tooth all though unfortunately some teeth do break as you split them out, when this happens I keep both halves of the split to stick back together and reverse prep the tooth. The coastal sites I collect are not natural exposures but rather sea walls constructed of large limestone blocks from nearby quarries protecting reclaimed land, so there is a huge amount of material to scour the surfaces of. This is the best way to find a complete tooth but extracting them from large blocks can be hard work. There are a number of sites where this and other fossiliferous limestones are exposed on the foreshore near me and I have seen the odd tooth exposed but I like to leave these for others to see, while its not actually illegal to hammer bedrock in Scotland at non protected sites, Scotland's Fossil Code discourages hammering in-situ material to protect it for future study.

 

Regards,

Sam

[Max-fossils]

Very cool finds!!! Don't see fossils like these often. 

 

[FranzBernhard]

Archie,

thank you very much for your explanation!

Still one question: How long does it take to find one teeth? How many do you find within a given time?

Thanks!
Franz Bernhard

[Archie]

Your most welcome Franz

It really varies a lot, they are pretty rare throughout the formation but certain beds and areas have greater or lesser concentrations of teeth and different species. Usually I'll have to put a few hours in to find any in good shape, although obviously you can get lucky and find three great teeth in five minutes or unlucky and find none for a couple of trips! Smaller teeth are far more common than larger ones too. 

 

[jpc]

These are really cool teeth.  Thanks for showing them off.  

[FossilDAWG]

We usually don't get to see very many Paleozoic teeth, and these ones are spectacular!

Don

[ynot]

Again, that is a nice collection!

Please keep showing what You have and future finds too.

[FranzBernhard]

Thank you, Archie!

Ok, these are rarieties and every one is a little gem! You have to be realy dedicated to find so many of them. Congratulations!

Thanks again!
Franz Bernhard

[Archie]

On 12/12/2017 at 9:15 PM, jpc said:

These are really cool teeth.  Thanks for showing them off.  

Thank you  

 

On 13/12/2017 at 4:54 AM, ynot said:

Again, that is a nice collection!

Please keep showing what You have and future finds too.

Thanks Tony! 

Got a couple more to prep then its time for some serious hunting again!

On 13/12/2017 at 5:50 AM, FranzBernhard said:

Thank you, Archie!

Ok, these are rarieties and every one is a little gem! You have to be realy dedicated to find so many of them. Congratulations!

Thanks again!
Franz Bernhard

Thanks Franz! 

I certainly treasure every one I find haha!

Best of luck in your future hunts

Sam

[Archie]

On 12/12/2017 at 9:25 PM, FossilDAWG said:

We usually don't get to see very many Paleozoic teeth, and these ones are spectacular!

Don

Thanks Don!  

[Tidgy's Dad]

What a beautiful collection of treasures. 

Thank you so much for posting and I hope to see more, soon. 

[Archie]

Thank you  

[thair]

I really like seeing your variety of teeth you find. thanks for posting 

[Archie]

Thanks thair

 

 

I had a trip out to probably the best lower Carboniferous marine site in Scotland today, a quarry called Trearne in Northern Ayrshire. The diversity and preservation of invertebrates is amazing here with jellyfish and complete trilobites having been found, and there's quite a variety of teeth too!  I got lucky and split a large muddy block to reveal two teeth early on in the day, a Petalodus and a crusher of some sort like Psephodus. Both need a lot of work but I'll get pics of them and some of the inverts tomorrow.

[ynot]

@Fossildude19, Are "golden drool buckets" still being awarded for outstanding pieces/collections?

I think this thread shows a worthy contender.

[Fossildude19]

7 minutes ago, ynot said:

@Fossildude19, Are "golden drool buckets" still being awarded for outstanding pieces/collections?

I think this thread shows a worthy contender.

 

Yes, they are still awarded. 
It is awarded by discretion of the Admin/mod staff. 

 

[ynot]

18 minutes ago, Fossildude19 said:

 

Yes, they are still awarded. 
It is awarded by discretion of the Admin/mod staff. 

 

Just wondered since I have not seen one awarded for some time.

[Archie]

22 hours ago, ynot said:

@Fossildude19, Are "golden drool buckets" still being awarded for outstanding pieces/collections?

I think this thread shows a worthy contender.

Thanks for your kind compliment Tony  

 

Here's my finds from yesterday, I didn't take home too many invertebrates as the block with the teeth was pretty chunky so I had to go easy on them! The Ureocrinus calyx at the bottom right is 10mm for scale.

[Archie]

The Petalodus is in a bad way at the moment, but its all there so all I need to do is stick the part and counterpart back together and prep it from one side (the lingual side on this one). Its going to be 12mm or so.

[Archie]

The crusher (probably Psephodus but I'm hoping Deltoptychius!) split out equally badly with the tooth upside down and the edges of the rest sticking to the counterpart, but again after close inspection its definitely all there so yet again I just need to stick the two together again and prep it out from above, its also pretty big with 26mm showing so far  Its a shame these didn't pop out nicely, but at least no bits got lost and prepping them will be really fun!