The day started out iffy as to where we were going fossil hunting or not? There was about a 50% chance of rain in the forecast for the Birmingham area but a hours drive away it would be a different story. Fortunately the trip wasn't called, so I got my stuff ready and hit the road. I met my buddies and off we go. Several miles down the road we hit a rain shower and as we got on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa a heavy rain shower so hard you could barely see the road! As we got closer to our destination to make a pit stop it was a partly cloudy to sunny day and man was it hot and sticky! It remained that way for several hours up till we arrived at the creek site. After making the group picture and chatting with the owners of the land we head down to the creek!
Our gracious hosts and owners of the land hunting fossils too. We just love it when they can join us and participate in our hobby!
As I'm making my way toward the bank I hear a scream, one of our members slid down the embankment into the water! I tell ya, some of these places can be treacherous... thank goodness she wasn't hurt and laughed it off. I made my way down to the water, and as she was telling me what happened to her. We were already up to our calves in water... my foot slipped on the slimy rocks below and I fell backwards getting soaked from head to toe! Needless to say, the entire day wasn't pleasant feeling wet and sticky! We both found a huge gravel bar not far from where came in, so we set up shop and began to sift. The weather appeared to have turned out really nice at the time with one shower passing us over... the canopy of trees kept the rain at bay. I wasn't finding too many teeth and had gotten spoiled from previous trips to other sites where marine fossils filled your shovel with every scoop but here I was still finding fossils and pretty rocks. I didn't really move a lot and kept at it toward the end of the day.
The above picture contains a Cretalamna tooth, several Enchodus fish teeth, Squalicorax, Brachiopod Steinkern, and Scaphanorynchnus tooth, and Turtle shell.
2:00 pm rolls around, and I was getting miserable from being wet and just plain tired of sifting material, so I call it a day. My buddy and I made our way back to the staging area where most had gathered to chat and share their finds. We hear thundering in the background and the skies getting darker. Ann calls it and says we need to pack er' up before the storm in the distance overtakes us. We all get it all packed up and then the bottom falls out! I mean it does! Well, it was a rainy trip home but the trip was worth it! As I mentioned before, for myself it wasn't quite the haul but just love going to places like this with friends and enjoying what we love to do and that is fossil hunting.
Like I always do I bring back a bucket of micro material to look through. Here are a few of my favorite finds. In this picture tiny as they are, the Calcified Brachiopod Steinkerns are my favorite finds. Enchodus fish teeth, a piece of Enchodus jaw, an Urchin Spine, Fish Vertebrate, a Sawfish Rostroal tooth, a tiny Puesdocorax tooth, and two whatchamacallits?
This site had some interesting things to find normally not seen at other sites. It took awhile to get them identified and here the pictures.
In the first and second picture above, I affectionately call these micro Milk Duds and Popcorn. In Pic#1, Paleontologists call these Siderite Nodules, and PIc#2 are Caliche. As for the Pic#3, they appear to be Gastropods and a Hamulus worm burrow cast bottom. Pic#4 is called, Carinae (unpaired leading plates) from two Scalpelliform barnacles. Pic#5 are Fish Coprolites (poop)
Last but not least are the creek tumbled stones. While sifting, I came across so many of them that they were hard not to pass up! Some had vibrant colors, banding and shading and perfectly shaped as if a jeweler made them into Carbochons! I kept them and so did my hunting buddy Amy. She took them home and polished them. Used her creativity and made a bracelet that included a shark tooth from the creek... how cool is that!
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