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).

Hamulus worm tubes, on the other hand, were plentiful, and I picked up quite a few of them. Here is what I brought home.

This tooth from the first in situ photo is my favorite from the day. Scapanorhynchus texanus?

Some other individual photos of the teeth. Several of the smaller ones were the most intact.

I took off this morning and made a drive to central Texas to explore a new creek. This part of the creek is Wolfe City formation. I had hunted another Wolfe City spot not too many miles from this one, but wasn’t sure what to expect. I had found mostly teeth at the other spot, so after making a pretty long hike to get to the best looking outcrop in this creek, I searched the outcrop itself, without finding anything other than shell fragments. So I put on my knee pads, and started searching the gravel bar (more of a mud bar, really; this creek is pretty muddy) nearby. The only things I spotted on the gravel bar were a couple of exogyra ponderosa oysters. I didn’t pick them up. They are heavy to carry, plus I already have a good collection of nice ones from my early NSR trips. I was pretty disappointed, since this was the best looking outcrop in the creek. But I’ve learned that where there are exogyra ponderosa oysters, there are usually other fossils nearby. So, I started my trek back up the creek with the intention of checking the gravel bars closely.

Sure enough, on the very next gravel bar, I spotted this.

I was pretty surprised, since I had mainly just found teeth at my only other Wolfe City spot in this part of the state. I was on knee pads when I spotted that vert, but hadn’t found any small fossils at all, so I stood up and spent the rest of my time on my feet, looking for bigger stuff. Sure enough, less than five minutes later on the same gravel bar, I spotted this.

And that was it. The rest of the hike back, I found nothing but more exogyra ponderosa oysters. So I didn’t bring much home, but any time I find mosasaur verts, I’m going to consider that a good trip. Here is a better look at that first smaller one.

And here are four views of that second vert. I think it’s a beauty.

I usually take Bobbi fishing on Labor Day, but the fishing has been tough lately on my home lake. I thought maybe I could find a better fossil bite. But my usual spots are too high water and/or too muddy, especially with Bobbi coming along. So I decided to make a drive to west Texas. We stopped and had a nice breakfast on the way, then drove on to a site that is Finis Shale. We hunted it long enough to gather up quite a bit. Here is the first snail I spotted, an ammonite piece, and Bobbi on the hillside above the outcrop.

Here is what I gathered from the site.

We made a lunch stop after we left the site, then drove to the Mineral Wells Fossil Park. It was after 1:00 when we got there, and getting pretty hot, so we just spent an hour and a half or so hunting the park, then fled the heat and headed home. There were only a couple of other vehicles in the parking lot when we arrived, but another half dozen or so pulled in while we were there. I was surprised at how many people brought small children to the park on such a hot afternoon. Here is what I gathered there.

These three trilobite pieces were the highlight of my day. None are complete, none are in great shape, but they are the first trilobites I’ve ever had my hands on, so I was excited to find them.

The North Sulfur River finally got some rain last week, and I headed out there yesterday morning to see what I could find. I was hoping there had been enough sun that it wasn’t still a muddy mess, but that wasn’t the case. It was a tough slog, hiking through all that mud. It made fossils tough to spot too, and I didn’t find a lot. But I still enjoyed my day in the river. This photo shows what much of the riverbed looked like. Are those footprints from a large bird or small dinosaur?

Some in situ photos from the day. That last fossil wasn’t too tough to spot.

This mosasaur vert was the find of the day. It’s smaller, and not in as good of shape as the big one I found earlier this year, but I still thought it was a beauty. Here are four views of it.

This second mosasaur vert has had material split off of it, on both sides. It makes you wonder just how many mosasaur verts disintegrate to the point of being unrecognizable as they tumble on these gravel bars.

At the very far end of where I hike in this part of the river is a spot on a gravel bar with some better washed tiny gravel. I always do some kneepad hunting in this spot. It’s been a good spot to find teeth. But the slow slog through yesterday’s mud made me arrive at this spot so late, it was really past time to turn around and head back. So I only hunted on kneepads for a short time. But I still found two teeth. Even when I spend a lot of time on kneepads in the NSR, I still never seem to find more than two teeth the same day. So I’m calling yesterday’s short kneepad hunt a success.

I found two teeth, four hamulus worm tubes, and I’m not sure what that other piece is. It looks like it may be two tiny fish verts stuck together.

Here is the shark tooth. I haven’t tried to ID it yet. It is certainly in better shape than most of the shark teeth I find at NSR. Both cusplets are intact.

Here is the enchodus fang. It’s small, but more complete than most of the enchodus teeth I find.

I made a trip to a creek in Dallas County yesterday morning. This is an Eagle Ford outcrop. I had visited this creek once before in 2020. I only found a couple of things, but one was an ammonite I was really impressed with. I had found it in the edge of the water, and wondered if this might be a better site to hunt under low water conditions. With the drought we’re having right now, those low water conditions are here, so it seemed like a good time to revisit the spot. It’s not a large outcrop, so I didn’t worry about getting there too early. I just hunted a couple of hours, then headed home before the worst heat of the day.

The fossils aren’t hard to spot in today’s in situ photos.

Here is what I brought home, minus one small ammonite that was soaking to aid in matrix removal.

This largest ammonite is in pretty rough shape.

This ammonite with the smooth outside looks a lot like the big ammonite I found here on my first visit. I was guessing that one to be a placenticeras cumminsi.

Most of this one is there.

These two pieces almost look like they could have come from the same ammonite. Both would have been pretty large if complete.

This one looked pretty good on this side. On the other side, not so much.

These two had very different ridges than the others. I haven’t had time to try and identify them yet.

I’m still working on removing the matrix from this small one. One of the things I really like about the ammonites from this site is that they all seem to have lots of shell left. So many ammonites I find elsewhere are just rock, with no shell left at all. And to think there are this many ammonites to be found at a small site in the middle of DFW, within the Dallas city limits. You just never know until you look.

This piece has lots of shell too. An oyster, I’m thinking, but I’m not sure which one.

And then there’s this. It looks like it was just a round hollow tube shaped thin shell before the matrix distorted it. I posted in The Fossil Forum to get an ID. It’s a sciponoceras gracile, a kind of chamber-less baculite.

I’ve been itching to get out hunting, but it’s been over 100 degrees every day, and everything is really dried out. I noticed though that, unlike my part of Texas, Grayson County actually got some rain the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t sure if it was enough to expose much new stuff, but I decided to take a day and go look in one of my favorite spots there. I got up very early yesterday and was in the creek by 7:30 am. I started hiking out of the creek before 11:30. It was getting pretty hot by then, plus I’d had my quota of crawling on my knees for the day. I got the impression that the rain didn’t get over the gravel bars enough to expose much new stuff, but I still managed to find some good teeth. You don’t find big teeth when the gravel bars are this picked over, but if you’re looking close enough to see them, there are still some beautiful smaller teeth to be found, and so it was on this day.

Some in situ photos. The tooth in that last photo is half under a rock, but if you look closely, it’s there. Click the photos to zoom in for a closer look.

Here is what I brought home. Sure enough, only one large tooth, but some very nice smaller ones. There was only one very small Ptychodus tooth today.

Here is that big tooth, my favorite find of the day. It’s the tooth in that first in situ photo. It was so weathered I almost didn’t spot it, and even after washing, was still pretty faded. A soak in some paraloid solution has brought back quite a bit of the color though. I’m thinking I’m going to put this one in one of my coin display holders.

This looks like a small mosasaur tooth.

Here are individual photos of some of the other teeth from the trip.

And, as so often happens on these Grayson County trips, I found a piece I can’t identify. Here are photos of both sides of it, plus a side view of it in my hand. The Fossil Forum experts think it’s a small piece of a fish fin or tail.

I made a trip to my favorite spot on a Grayson County creek yesterday. We haven’t had any rain lately, so I know the creek is pretty picked over right now, but this part of the creek is tough enough to get to that I thought it might not have had too many people hunting it. I was wrong. There were freshly dug holes everywhere; this is the most picked over I’ve ever seen it. I don’t need to go back until we get a good rain.

But as always, I did find some good stuff. You tend to not find bigger teeth when things are so picked over, and sure enough, I didn’t, but some of the ones I did find were really nice teeth. Here are some in situ photos of the teeth I found. Click each image to be able to zoom in for a closer look.

Here is what I brought home.

My favorite tooth of the day. Not really big, but a beauty.

Here are the two nice Ptychodus teeth I found.

Individual photos of other teeth I found.

I made a trip back to the North Sulfur River yesterday. I had found that giant mosasaur vert as I was leaving last week, and it had gotten hot enough that I didn’t take time to search the area around it well, so I couldn’t resist doing that yesterday. I ended up disappointed in not finding much else in the area near where I’d found that vert, and all the footprints everywhere were a reminder that the river has been pretty picked over since the last rain, even in this remote area where I was. I need to wait for a good rain before making another trip here.

But I did find a few things. This mosasaur vert was probably the best find of the day. It’s actually one of the larger mosasaur verts I’ve found, but seems tiny compared to that giant one I found last week. Here are three views of it, top, side, and bottom. Click the individual photos to zoom in for a larger view.

I was not able to identify any of these next bones. I’ve posted in The Fossil Forum to see if anyone else can identify them. These type bones from NSR are usually Ozan formation, and are either fish or mosasaur. Here are three views of bone #1.

And three views of bone #2. It is so big and thick, it makes me think of mosasaur jaw, but there are no teeth in it.

Three views of bone #3. It’s so thin, I wondered if it’s from a mosasaur paddle or fish fin.

And finally, I found this piece of an ammonite. I would love to see the entire ammonite. It’s larger than most you find at NSR.

I made a trip to a different spot on the North Sulfur River yesterday morning. I had been to this spot one time last year, but an unforecast rain shower showed up and turned the river into such a muddy mess that I turned around and left without finding anything. With a 100 degree high forecast for today, I didn’t figure rain would be a problem.

I found some of the usual things you expect to find at NSR, Hamulus worm tubes, a gastropod, a perfectly preserved complete bivalve, some interesting bones, and lots of bacculites. The only bacculite I brought home was the one in this photo, with the great suture lines.

I thought these two bones were especially interesting. They look like mosasaur bones to me, but I can’t tell from what part of the mosasaur. Here are views of both sides of each of them.

But yesterday was the day for verts. And each time I found one, it was bigger than the last. First, I found this little shark vert. It’s in pretty rough shape, but still put a smile on my face when I spotted it.

Then I found this mosasaur vert.

Then I spotted this fish vert. This is the largest fish vert I’ve found.

But if I thought that was going to be the biggest vert of the day, I was seriously mistaken. As I was on my way to leave the river, I spotted this. It’s a mosasaur vert. A really big mosasaur vert. How gigantic did that mosasaur have to be? I’m aware that mosasaurs grew to some pretty huge sizes, but I had no idea there were any this big that had roamed north Texas. Here are several views. It’s over 10 cm in diameter (that’s 4 inches in Texan measurement), and even taller than that. This view of it in my hand seems to do the best job of showing just how big it is.


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