Is It Springtime Yet?

It was another cold morning of fossiling in NJ. The forecast called for a high of 41 deg F, but as I pulled into the parking lot at Ramanessin it was 7:00AM and my car thermometer was reading 16 deg. I added my final couple of layers, put on my chest waders and headed down to the stream. Thankfully there was no snow to contend with as the weather has been in the 40's and 50's regularly in the past 2 weeks. Excited to get back to the spot where I’ve been scoring the mosasaur teeth, I walked quickly down to my point of entry and began screening. Today didn’t yield anything that would end up in the American Museum of Natural History, but I was able to maintain a steady pick of decent material. Being as cold as it was, I had to work slowly, being careful to keep dry, otherwise the day could have ended very quickly. I put 18 inch high oak handles on my screen which allows me to clean the gravel without my hands coming close to the water (It’s easy on the back also!). The only time my gloves came off was to pick through each screen full of material. It works very well. - Anyway the more interesting items found were an Enchodus jaw piece and a small reptilian tooth (Cretaceous Crocodile?) both of which are beat up and far from complete, but they’re not things one finds on every trip. Also found were the typical crow shark and goblin shark teeth, with one really nice anterior goblin tooth being the tooth of the day. I wrapped things up just before noon as the sun was bright and the temp was at 42 - I think I need to adjust my winter hours of operation.