Fossil Hunt - Photos

Great find! I use to go fossil collecting with my Grandfather when I was a kid. It saddens me that I cannot remember the names of them or the rock they are embedded in. I think it might be oil shale, but I just don't remember. Some day, I would like to go hunting again.
 
Plenty of brachiopods, crinoids, and corals in the rocks around here. A friend of mine has also collected thousands of bones, everything from bats and shrews to some short-faced bear from the cave out in Cash Valley. The most significant find was a platelet of tracks that predated anything previously found, pushing back the known time for animals walking on land by thousands of years. That is now at the Smithsonian.
 
Wow, T ' B, that's awesome.

My fossil, whatever it is, was found in a creek bed not more than a few blocks from me. When we saw it sticking out of the mud after a rainstorm, it looked like some kiind of big claw, but when we pulled it out and cleaned it off I joked that it looked like a petrified bird beak of some kind. What's cool is that the inside of it is fossilized as well.

It seems that those ridges are growth rings. I may send it to you, Bio, so you can take it to your geology professor for identification.
 
Very nice, Anna. Make Cavey take back what he said. Fossil hunters are incredibly cool. Pfttttth Cavey!
 
mel_20_20 said:
I have a fossil I hope you can help identifiy. At first I thought it was a snail, but I don't know, I've had second thoughts about it. Tell me what you think this is. You and Jinks may know what this is.

It's definitely some kind of mollusk, but I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's some kind of bivalve. It's fossilized, whatever it is.
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It looks like some type of brachiopod to me.
 
mel_20_20 said:
Wow, T ' B, that's awesome.

My fossil, whatever it is, was found in a creek bed not more than a few blocks from me. When we saw it sticking out of the mud after a rainstorm, it looked like some kiind of big claw, but when we pulled it out and cleaned it off I joked that it looked like a petrified bird beak of some kind. What's cool is that the inside of it is fossilized as well.

It seems that those ridges are growth rings. I may send it to you, Bio, so you can take it to your geology professor for identification.
Click to expand...

Did a little flipping through one of my textbooks, and I am pretty certain your fossil is one of 2 genera.
It is either a Gryphaea species, or a Exogyra species.
 
I googled both of the species you mentioned. My fossil looks EXACTLY like the Gryphaea. Also known as Devil's Toenail, lol, according to the info I found. Is it unusual to find this in Texas? Everything I found on it mentions locations in Great Britain.
 
mel_20_20 said:
I googled both of the species you mentioned. My fossil looks EXACTLY like the Gryphaea. Also known as Devil's Toenail, lol, according to the info I found. Is it unusual to find this in Texas? Everything I found on it mentions locations in Great Britain.
Click to expand...

Did a little looking, and it sounds like the reason you are getting a lot of European info is because some large scale studies were done there. There are Gryphaea found in TX, and here is a little info. If you could point me out on a map whereabout you found it, it might help. Then I can check out the geology of the area.

Here is the website, and an excerpt.

http://northtexasfossils.com/denton.htm

"The top of the Denton is a persistent mass of shell marl and shelly limestone, becoming almost entirely shell marl in south-central Texas. It contains innumerable Gryphaea wa****aensis (all growth stages)..."
 
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