The nasal elements of a Triceratops horridus, also as displayed at the museum.


Here is the scapula of an Edmontosaurus annectens, as seen during recovery.


The same bone after prep work. Note the segment from the dorsal termination that was missing.


RS

Mississippian Limestone Lens, Fayetteville Shale, Stone County, AR, USA after partial acid etching.

Mississippian split chert/limestone with Brachiopod impression with Cephalopod, same formation as above.

Metasequoia cones from the Hell Creek formation, NW S. Dakota, Firesteel member.

RS

Fantastic.

What is a "Mississippian Limestone Lens"?

Saurornitholestes langstoni shed tooth, Hell Creek formation, Firesteel member, NW S. Dakota, USA.

Mississippian horsetail (Calamites) fossil, Fayetteville shale, Stone County Arkansas, USA.


Here is a juvenile Ankylosaur tooth, Hell Creek formation, Firesteel member, NW S. Dakota, USA.

RS

Onyx8 wrote:Fantastic.

What is a "Mississippian Limestone Lens"?

Good question.

The "Mississippian" refers to a segment/division of the Carboniferous epoch. The limestone lens refers to a section of limestone that formed within a much thicker deposit of shale. The lens portion is how these appear in-situ as if one were viewing a glass lens from the side. These particular lenses are randomly scattered within the shale and could be portions of reef that were broken off during violent storms, or by some other means. These lenses settled into the muddy sea floor that eventually formed shale, and in some cases acted as a sort of "seed" for more limestone to collect as the skeletal elements of various creatures drifted down. These are somewhat like a concretion in that they have a softer exterior and become progressively more hard as one penetrates toward the center. I'll see if I can't get a photo of one of these in-situ to help explain better than my weak description.

RS

Theropod, you should write a book on dinosaurs and fossils. You already have a number of your own photos.

Darkchilde,

I have often considered this, but there is a surplus of such publications now. I also doubt I could "compete" with the big boys, and girls, in the field as they have been made demigods by the media. Hell, Robert Baker even wrote a piece of fiction, "Raptor Red", that sold a buttload of copies. Those guys are the ones we always see in those Discovery channel documentaries. I would much rather spend a summer working in the field at least one last time. I LUST for such places as the Flaming Cliffs of the Gobi or the Valley of the Moon in Argentina. While I did/do have some wicked skillz in the prep lab my first love has always been grubbing around in the dirt. I suppose the joy of saving a specimen from the sure destruction of the elements is a part of that, but being able to pick out a tiny speck of fossil bone from amongst the surface debris really gets me off. I never really had any desire to publish one paper after another as it seems most paleontologist do. I'd much rather be the guy that goes out and recovers the fossils so that those seeking that professional recognition publication offers can do so. In my mind I feel that such hard field work the basis from which everything we read in those papers springs. Funny that us diggers rarely get the credit for these things when we read such papers, and you can bet the farm very few "big time" paleontologists spend much time with their ass in the air hammering away at the rocks. Sure, Jack Horner is a field demon, but he got his start as a lowly digger and much of his glory, and honorary PhD., has come about as a result of finding "egg mountain".

Besides, this forum is quite sufficient in providing a platform for me to expound on all things paleo.

I do, however, take your suggestion as very complimentary and I thank you.

RS

Ironclad wrote:Theropod, what are those Fayetteville Shale fossils?

Iornclad,

The crinoids, the larger tube shaped things, are related to urchins and there are extant species still around.

There are gastropods (snails), brachiopods (clamlike bivalves) and cephalopods (related to squid) in that one large block.

Here's a good LINK to investigate brachiopods.

Here's a good LINK to investigate crinoids.

The calamites, shown alone, have extant relatives also. Those are commonly called horsetail ferns, but they aren't ferns.

This LINK will tell us more about calamites.

Feel free to ask about a specific fossil from these images and I'll do my best to provide more info.

RA

Thanks Mr Pod!

No, Sperathrower, thanks you for the heads up!

RS

I've decided to take the step and write to the leading professor of palaeontology in Thailand, and head of the Department of Mineral Resources to ask if he can suggest any local associations I can join to get involved in a little fossil hunting myself. I believe it's illegal here to hunt fossils independently, so going straight to the top dog might help me get a toe in the door to do some hands-on work myself!

ST<

Sweet!

I must caution you that by following this path you very well may become hopelessly addicted. Naturally, being such an addict for so long now myself, I encourage this deviant behavior.

RS

It's already a passion, but at present it's a purely intellectual one, and I'd like to get a little more dirt on my hands.

As you may recall, I studied Anthropology at uni. I did so as I was interested in how we got to be here. As I progressed through my degree, I increasingly found the palaeo side to be more interesting than the social side. By the third year, I only had the mandatory core social anth course, and all the rest were either palaeo-, biological, or sociobiological, and I managed to squeeze in a few from the zoology department too, as I have always been interested in learning about animals - most of my first books as a youngster were those huge volumes with big glossy photos showing wildlife around the planet.

Over the years after graduating, I became increasingly interested in what happened before we came on the scene. I can recall just a few years back, after I'd moved here to Thailand, sitting down with a big bit of paper and trying to chart out what had happened on Earth. I started with modern times and went backwards. I soon found that I was seriously lacking knowledge of vast tracts of time, and decided that I needed to fill it in.

In many ways, that was part of the original reason I ended up at RDF - not specifically because I thought the forum was focused on that kind of information, but because certain google inquiries had brought up threads on RDF that discussed particular finds.

Over those last few years, I have filled in, to my satisfaction, a nice grand sweep of what occurred, to the degree i am now comfortable in writing down at least the titles for all those areas that were previously blank with a fair number of representative species. I have consequently started to find areas that are of particular interest to me; unsurprisingly, I am again drawn to the very earliest times - it seems that I am drawn to go back, back, back and to always know what came before. However, that's only with relation to life, as I am still more fascinated by that expression of our universe than the chemistry and physics which underlie it. I've ended up spending the last year and a half reading about the 'precambrian' period, and this fits quite well with living in Thailand as there are a wealth of locations here that are relatively unresearched compared to the far more publicised Mesozoic finds in the North East.

I only just found out recently that there's a palaeontological museum just a short walk away from my apartment where I've lived for 8 years. I tried to visit last week but it's undergoing renovation - typical bloody luck!

Great stuff guys!
Glad you remembered these Theropod.

Areka, what are the last pic, and the 3rd to last one?
Could you list what they all are, and their age period?

After looking through my old photo files I came across a few that some of you may find interesting, so I'm posting a few more.

All of these images are fossil recovered as part of the efforts of the museum and were found in the uppermost Hell Creek formation, Firesteel member, in NW S. Dakota, USA.



This is the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis in relatively good state of preservation and after some prep work. The back of the skull is on the left and the oval opening on the right is the optical fenestra. I surely wish I had a better picture as it was displayed at the museum. I found this skull while exploring new territory during the '96 field season. The skull was found in what I feel was an old river channel that also had deposited hundreds of sandstone boulders of just about the same size, color and shape as the skull. My search party fellows didn't believe me when I yelled at them that I had found this skull, but they soon came around when I pointed out the knobs on the distal edges. The skull is missing the nasal forward of the optical fenestra.



This is part of the right foot of a Struthiomimus sedens that I found quite by accident. Our entire field crew was setting out to search a new area, and following a cow path around a hillside. I was the last in line and over 20 people had walked right past this FULLY EXPOSED set of bones without giving them a second thought. Collection entailed picking up the bones and putting them in a padded zip-lock plastic baggie. No other elements were found or recovered.



The above is the middle metatarsal from an adult Tyrannosaurus rex foot. This single skeletal element was found during close examination of a micro site where we had already found a complete turtle skull and several dis-articulated vertebrate remains of unknown source. We also found, at that site, a great many freshwater gastropods and bivalves along with a horde of freshwater ray teeth.

Enjoy.

RS

theropod wrote:

pachy2.jpg

This is the skull of a Pachycephalosaurus wyomingensis in relatively good state of preservation and after some prep work. The back of the skull is on the left and the oval opening on the right is the optical fenestra. I surely wish I had a better picture as it was displayed at the museum. I found this skull while exploring new territory during the '96 field season. The skull was found in what I feel was an old river channel that also had deposited hundreds of sandstone boulders of just about the same size, color and shape as the skull. My search party fellows didn't believe me when I yelled at them that I had found this skull, but they soon came around when I pointed out the knobs on the distal edges. The skull is missing the nasal forward of the optical fenestra.

Awesome!

Just a couple more, for today, also from the uppermost Hell Creek formation, Firesteel member, NW S. Dakota, USA.



This tiny little theropod phlange of unknown identity (possibly Dromeosaur), along with a million other vertebrate fossils, litter the ground at a mass mortality site which the Standing Rock Sioux nation own and refuse to allow any work to be done. If one looks carefully off to the right edge of the picture one can see a hadrosaur tooth. This site contains the remains of nearly every type of dinosaur extant at the time, and in my opinion is one of the most important sites in all of the US. Hadrosaur teeth are so numerous at this site that one cannot step anywhere without treading on them. Whole jaws and other elements are everywhere. Most unusual for the Hell Creek is the fact that the fossil are exceptionally well preserved. A couple T, rex teeth I observed were still WHITE! Most absorb minerals and become very dark.



Here is a very large and nearly complete skull of a Triceratops horridus we found and recovered. In this photo the nasal section is on the upper right with the frill on the lower left. The encasing jacket, when completed, was well over 1,000 pounds. We spent months working on cleaning and repairing this skull after opening the jacket, and it was to be the centerpiece of the museum. Sadly I was forced to resign before this work was completed. I have seen somewhat recent images of the skull and after I left the prep work must have involved hacking away the portion of the skull still deeply encased in the matrix. I know that side, the left side, existed as I became very familiar with this specimen.

RS

Does this count?