I decided to take a break in picking through the matrix from my last trip and actually get out and hunt this morning. I drove over to Hill County, and tried out a new creek. I really didn’t find anything worth mentioning there, left and stopped on the way home at the creek where I’d found so much mud three weeks ago. It was much drier this time, and I had a lot easier time navigating it. But I still didn’t find many fossils. Just like last time though, it produced one that made the trip really worthwhile. This is a fish tail, possibly a Xiphactinus. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

Here’s the other side. It’s a very different fossil than anything else I’ve found. I am really taken with this one.

I made a quick trip yesterday back to the Ellis County creek where I found so many teeth. With all the work being done to deer stands and feeders near it last time I was there, I knew my days of being able to hunt it this year were numbered, and sure enough, I have been officially banned by the landowner whose pasture I must cross to get to the creek, until at least next February.

I knew my two best micro-spots in the creek were pretty much played out until we get floods and erosion, but I figured I might spend some time searching the gravel bars in the creek, and walk a little further down the creek than I had before. I made the walk further down the creek first, and never got around to searching the gravel bars very much. Here’s what I spotted just past where I’d been before. How many teeth can you see in that matrix? Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

Besides that one, I brought home some other great looking pieces of matrix. Here are just a few of them.

Obviously, I have a lot of matrix work waiting for me, and I’ll post photos showing what comes out of the matrix later, but I wanted to post photos of a couple of other pieces now. Here is the find of the day, a pliosaur tooth. It’s crumbling too badly for me to remove it from that matrix, but I still thought it was a great find.

And this vert. Even with a piece broken off, it’s still the prettiest vert I’ve ever found. From everything I’ve looked at, it seems to most favor a Coniasaurus vert.

Update: October 3rd. I have stabilized the pliosaur tooth, and think it’s going to hold together.

Update: October 9th. I have finally finished going through the matrix from this trip. Here are the Ptychodus teeth, all 97 of them.

And the other teeth. There were 93 of them. Since I forgot to include the scale in the photo of all of them, the photo below shows the four largest with the scale.

And finally, the Pliosaur tooth is delicate enough that I decided it needed a protective display. Here is what I came up with.