September 28th – Central Texas creek

I have enjoyed the dry spell we’ve been having lately in Texas. It’s given me a chance to check out some new fossil sites while the water is low. I’ve been getting out hunting one day each week. But rain is coming to Texas. The forecast for the next three days calls for rain every day. I had two new creeks in opposite directions that I really wanted to check out while the water is low. What to do. I made the decision any retired person should make: I hunted each creek on consecutive days this week.

I drove to creek one Tuesday. It’s in central Texas. The outcrop is Wolfe City formation. As I hiked my way up to the main outcrop, I walked some great looking gravel bars, so I stopped and searched them on knee pads. The only thing I found were these three Hamulus worm tubes. Click the photos to be able to zoom in and get a closer look.

With not much luck on the gravel bars, I stopped at the best looking outcrop, and started searching it up and down. The fossils were there, but as so often happens, only in a very small layer of the matrix. It’s a great looking outcrop, with several flat steps, where the matrix gets harder. This bottom one was the only one that had fossils. At low water was the right time to hunt this creek. If the water level had been a couple of feet higher, I wouldn’t have been able to search the right layer. Here’s what that lower level looked like.

When I spotted this bone sticking out of the matrix, I wondered how big it was.

I very carefully excavated around it, and was disappointed when it turned out to only be a small bone.

There were teeth sticking out of the matrix as well.

And then there was this bone. It’s from the jaw of an Enchodus. Enchodus is an extinct fish that had two very large fangs. You can see the base of one of those fangs on this bone, but the tooth is broken off.