Ninjafossils
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- Dec 18, 2012
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Last week, my father and I went to the famed Peace River in Florida to hunt for Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene fossils. While I could have posted this in the "fossil" category, I feel it matched "Today's Finds" due to it being a trip report. Besides, it gives people who don't normally head over to the geological forums section some exposure to fossils. This was our second ever trip. After we basically were skunked the first trip, we decided to not mess around this time. We put in some extensive research and thanks to a tip from Gatorboy, we knew to go to a branch of the peace known as "Joshua Creek". We get to the Peace and make the trek 100 yards upstream to a sandy stretch of beach. We get started and find a couple teeth including a large lower mako and mammal fossils. After some limited success, we make the decision to head back to the car and go to the next site at Joshua Creek. We find a bridge and try out the river soil, but alas, no luck. Ready to give up, we meet this man with his two children who are also out fossiling. He tells us that they often head further down creek to hunt places that have been hit less hard and ask if we want to follow them there. We hesitantly agree. We drive about two minutes to a small parking lot, then walk down some train tracks in a scene resembling Stand By Me. After 15 minutes of possible train collisions and a trek through thick brush, we arrive at a creek only a couple feet deep. We get right to it and immediately strike luck with a couple larger gator teeth. I had the urge to try snorkeling for bigger stuff, while my father was on puny teeth screen duty. As the heavy current dragged me down stream into fallen logs and possibly the jaws of a waiting, hungry alligator, I recovered many larger pieces of bone and turtle carapaces, even managing to find a plate from an extinct relative of the armadillo known as Holmesina. I only took one larger fragment of dugong rib because the stuff was as common as pocket lint and about as valuable as it too. Time ticked on and our "guide" left us, wishing us good luck. It was getting late and staying at our apartment in eastern Florida, it would be a 2+ hour drive. So we made the long walk out of the woods, past the tracks, and back to the car. We made out with a pretty decent haul, though my dreams of a proboscidean or Meg tooth still elude me. We had fun on what could possibly be my last father-son fossil trip before I go to college. My father and I have been going on trips like these since I was five and I can't believe the extent he has gone to fulfill this hobby of ours. Enough with the sappy part, onto the fossils!
Various Shark teeth. There are a couple of nice ones in there, including makos, hemipristis, bulls, and duskys.
Some turtle/tortoise bits, mostly carapace and shells. The bone is a humerus from a turtle or tortoise.
Mystery #1 It is a rib fragment of some animal, likely land. I'm thinking gator?
Shell casts, including snails and possibly oysters
Ray stuff, mostly pieces of their teeth plates.
These are pieces of their tail spine/barb.
This is a ray scute.
Here is a mammal vertebrae. It's either dolphin, porpoise, whale, dugong, or manatee.
Here are probably my two favorite finds, both from the giant armadillo relative Holmesina. They are a claw core and a piece from its armor.
Mystery #2 I'm pretty confident that this is a vertebrae. It has the cylindrical shape and I think I even see where the spinal cord would have been. I feel the hole where obviously bone is missing may be the remnants of a socket joint, meaning reptile. My guess is again Alligator.
Mystery #3 Your guess is as good as mine...
Nice Alligator teeth, even one from a big guy.
Guess what these three fossils belong to. I'll give you a hint, they are all teeth and come from mammals.
Crinoids, also colloquially known as "Indian Beads". I knew what Crinoids were, but I thought people meant that these were actually USED by native Americans. Darn. Does anyone know if these are in formation or are reworked from Paleozoic rocks?
Fish teeth including a barracuda/gar, pufferfish mouth plate, and yet an unidentified fossil.
A block of petrified wood and a bit of coral.
And finally Mystery #4 I originally thought this was a fish vertebrae, but upon closer examination, I have concluded otherwise. The processes are different and much more delicate and there is a ball and socket joint, indicating reptile or amphibian. It can't be snake, so lizard? Frog?
Various Shark teeth. There are a couple of nice ones in there, including makos, hemipristis, bulls, and duskys.
Some turtle/tortoise bits, mostly carapace and shells. The bone is a humerus from a turtle or tortoise.
Mystery #1 It is a rib fragment of some animal, likely land. I'm thinking gator?
Shell casts, including snails and possibly oysters
Ray stuff, mostly pieces of their teeth plates.
These are pieces of their tail spine/barb.
This is a ray scute.
Here is a mammal vertebrae. It's either dolphin, porpoise, whale, dugong, or manatee.
Here are probably my two favorite finds, both from the giant armadillo relative Holmesina. They are a claw core and a piece from its armor.
Mystery #2 I'm pretty confident that this is a vertebrae. It has the cylindrical shape and I think I even see where the spinal cord would have been. I feel the hole where obviously bone is missing may be the remnants of a socket joint, meaning reptile. My guess is again Alligator.
Mystery #3 Your guess is as good as mine...
Nice Alligator teeth, even one from a big guy.
Guess what these three fossils belong to. I'll give you a hint, they are all teeth and come from mammals.
Crinoids, also colloquially known as "Indian Beads". I knew what Crinoids were, but I thought people meant that these were actually USED by native Americans. Darn. Does anyone know if these are in formation or are reworked from Paleozoic rocks?
Fish teeth including a barracuda/gar, pufferfish mouth plate, and yet an unidentified fossil.
A block of petrified wood and a bit of coral.
And finally Mystery #4 I originally thought this was a fish vertebrae, but upon closer examination, I have concluded otherwise. The processes are different and much more delicate and there is a ball and socket joint, indicating reptile or amphibian. It can't be snake, so lizard? Frog?
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