Frost on the Pond Scum

Back on the 18^th I found myself with an opportunity to get out for a morning of fossiling. I headed to ol’reliable GMR where I hoped to continue my trend of finding decent great white teeth. The temperature was 34 deg F as I pulled out of my driveway but the thought of not having hummingbird sized horseflys taking chunks out of my skin more than compensated for the cold conditions. Upon arrival I made my way up the path and stopped at a favorite scanning area. I typically don’t find much here, but the spot did produce one of my best GMR great whites. With the lack of strong sunlight and the presence of numerous autumn leaves, scanning the shallow water was a little frustrating. But, just as I was about to start making my way back upstream, I spied an interesting black object in the sand. When I first picked it up I thought for sure it was a concretion but the indent on the bottom and fairly well defined cutting edge screamed mosasaur. Although the tooth was really stream worn, it was complete - certainly a good way to start the morning. After packing it away I made my way to the spot that I had been working for the past few trips and it was immediately evident that I hadn’t been the only collector in town - there were spoil piles everywhere. The ongoing Lee Creek season I assume is the reason for such an influx of collecting activity and I could only hope there were still some veins of untouched streambed. I poked around for about two and a half hours picking up a couple of reptilian scutes and the normal potpourri of busted shark teeth. A tiny, mostly complete GW was the best shark tooth of the day. Then there was the mystery find. In one of the screens there was an object that at first glance appeared to be a large mammal tooth. Upon closer inspection I was sure that it was nothing more than a funny shaped rock/concretion - but, there were these funny striations all around the bottom. I kept the item figuring it might be something and as it turned out it was. I emailed pictures to friends and it was recognized as a single crown off of a mastodon tooth! Far from a complete tooth but I was pretty psyched.