I drove down to the North Sulfur River Friday morning. It was my first trip to the new temporary fossil park. This part of the river was my favorite even before the new park. But it looked very different in 2020 than it does now. It’s a muddy mess right now. There were clean washed gravel bars everywhere in 2020, but now the gravel bars are all covered with dried mud and clay pieces. I wondered if the diggers and sifters had the better plan Friday, but I didn’t bring my sifter, so I made a long hike away from the bridge, and spent my time searching gravel bars. With so many clay pieces covering everything, it was harder to spot fossils, but I still had what I thought was a great day. I’m going back and bringing my girlfriend tomorrow morning, for her first fossil hunting trip ever. She has always been fascinated by the stuff I bring home, and will finally get the chance to try it out herself. We almost certainly won’t hike as far as I did Friday, and after a holiday weekend of fossil hunters picking over the gravel bars, it seems unlikely that we’ll find nearly as much as I did Friday, but we’ll see.

Some in situ photos from the day. Click on a photo to zoom in for a better look.

Here is what I brought home.

Because of the conditions, I spent more time than usual on elbows and kneepads, and got myself quite a collection of Hamulus worm tubes. I’m not sure anyone else bothers picking these up, but I’ve always thought they looked cool, and put them in the backpack when I find them.

This enchodus fang is the most complete one I’ve ever found.

Here are the other teeth from the day. I’d never found four teeth on the same day at NSR before, but like I mentioned, I did spend more time on kneepads than usual.

I couldn’t resist picking up this rock. It has two embedded bacculites that perfectly show the two types of bacculites most commonly found at NSR.

Here are the ammonite pieces from the day.

And I was thrilled to find this mosasaur vert.

But I stumbled across the find of the day just a few steps from that vert, this piece of mosasaur jaw. It’s partially embedded in rock, likely what kept it together in this large a piece. That last photo makes it look like there was a row of smaller teeth behind the big teeth. I haven’t seen this in any other mosasaur jaw photos.