Central Texas creek – October 12th

I took off yesterday morning an drove to a central Texas creek to fossil hunt. This is not the same spot I visited last week; it’s a creek I hunted in September of last year. It is also Wolfe City formation. I’d hunted a gravel bar briefly in that last trip, but had found all the teeth I brought home in outcrops on creek walls afterward. Considering how many teeth I found in those outcrops, I planned on hunting the gravel bars below them better this time.

I first made the hike to the outcrops. I had found all the teeth on my previous trip in a narrow part of the outcrop just above the water level, and had noted to myself that lower water levels would be a better time to hunt this area. I thought that yesterday would provide those conditions, but it didn’t. Not only was the water level not lower, but the bank just below the part of the outcrop I needed to hunt was very muddy, making it tough to maintain footing while hunting. In addition to that, weeds and brush up against the outcrops had gotten so thick that I wasn’t able to hunt a couple of the previously productive spots at all.

But I did find some teeth in the outcrops. Here are some in situ photos.

This creek has had a lot of cattle traffic in the past year. There wasn’t much doubt of this once I left the outcrops and walked down to the gravel bars below them. The wetter gravel bars had been trampled to the point that there was no longer any visible gravel, just mud. And even the drier gravel bars were trampled, and had weeds growing everywhere. Here is the one where I finally managed to find a few teeth.

Teeth were very tough to spot on this gravel bar under these conditions, but I did manage to find a few. Both of these teeth are hard to see, even in the photos, especially the very small tooth in the first photo (hint: it’s perched nicely on top of the rocks, just left of the glove thumb).