Fossiling in a Winter Wonderland: The Thaw

Well, after years of ogling all of the awesome fossils posted on ditchweezeil’s site, and living vicariously through his hunts while sitting at a work cubicle doing the 9 to 5 grind, I’m finally making a post for a trip. It’s not for one to a spot for my favorite stuff - Miocene Marine Mammals, but it is for the shark tooth site closest to my home (100 miles one way) and from the area where I found my some of my first shark’s teeth over 14 years ago. After seeing some of Xiphodan’s recent posts I had to get together with this fellow BRFC member and do some hunting. After trading some emails the date was set and we were to meet at his house just off the NJTP. After nearly having a delay due to a lead foot (the unfortunate person in front of me got pinched by the man) I was at Xiphodan’s place and we took off to the site. There was still plenty of snow on the ground but with some wisely chosen layers of clothes it was a great day to be out in the field hunting. Rob from the NYTS joined us and we were on our way to the spot. Xiphodan’s was gracious enough to share his locality with us and we branched out respecting each other’s immediate area. Xiphodan and I each found what we thought was some kind of ray scute but we later found out it was probably just a batoid (ray) vert sliced/broken right in half. I did find some nice teeth, but a lot were dinged and not in the best of shape. This was due to my digging in the reworked areas of the stream and not getting teeth from the pure formations lying below. My favorite finds from this site are the crow shark teeth and today I was lucky enough to find some nice ones. Thanks Xiphodan’s for the fosspitality!!!! Note - My luck for the day ended on the fossil trip. Those damn'Pats ruined my evening with a thrashing of the Eagles in the Superbowl.