How many women would be content with a shovel
and 4 square feet of gravel in a river bottom?
Me, for one!
My second visit to the Peace this season landed me in my comfort zone. No, I didn't bag any big treasures, but I was immersed in what I find truly astounding about this Florida river: discovering a complex variety of fossilized animal remains in a small shallow area of gravel.
The weather and scenery were delightful and since I didn't have a set game plan, I poked around a bit with my probe and finally settled on an area of shallow water and shallow gravel. From what I could tell by probing, I was working along an edge of limestone on the river bottom. The area was well dug but I quickly turned up some small shark teeth and meg fragments so I got to work.
I love the symmetry of fish mouth plates.
It's more common to find segments so a whole piece is a score.
But the segments are great, too.
Look at the detail of this!
No, not my chewed up cuticles; the fossil.
This would be half of the palate, the top segment in the photo above.
I was in ear bone heaven.
Bottom right are 2 perfect dolphin periodics. On the left is a decent ear bone from...a small whale? Some kind of cetacean, I am guessing. The top is an ear bone from a good size herbivore such as a horse. I realize my dearth of knowledge can be frustrating but I'd rather dig than research.
Simple pleasures!
I always refer to myself as the meg-less wonder
But not anymore!
They're not perfect but at times, I found one or two in every screen, as well as loads of fragments.
Teeny tiny meg
About 5/8".
Great color meg
It's worn and lacks serrations but I like the blue-gray blade and tan root.
The other sharks were represented
Little shark teeth are said to be a sign of a good area to dig and that seems to be the case but I've definitely found amazing fossils in places that didn't yield a single small shark tooth.
Just keep digging!
But don't dig too hard...
It wasn't a tragedy but still, it was my first noticeable shovel ding. It's still a great horse tooth but all I see is the ding.
Dang!
As we loaded up to leave
an experienced local fossiler pulled over to see what we'd found.
She said she'd been fossiling in the Peace for 40 years and at one time, had 120 complete mammoth teeth stacked up in her house. She told us about trying to boost herself into her canoe from an underwater log, only to discover the "log" was a 6' section of mammoth tusk that she had to beg her friends to help her take home; they wanted to leave it behind.
My consolation is that if I had been digging the river 20 or more years ago, I'd have better and bigger stuff, but I'd be 20 or more years older!
An interesting incident on the project side of things
When I pulled these 2 glyptodon scutes out of the river, they were pitch black. Since they had a lot of damage, I smoothed out the rough sides, prepped them to be made into pendants, and set them out in the sun to dry. And forgot about them. For a long time.
When I spotted them again, they were completely bleached out by the sun. Far from being disappointed, I'm intrigued by this unexpected look. These will be showing up on my table at the Fossil Fest in December.
Fossil on!
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