Trinity River finds stinky river cool fossils.

[Amber]

Found all these at Christmas out at my parents place. Grew up searching the sand banks and found these goodies on our last visit.Not too sure what all of them are.

[Amber]

More pics. This is the one that has me stumped.

[Amber]

   Attached files 

[cgode]

Wayyy out of my realm of experience.......that second pic sure looks like a vertebral body from something though! Neat stuff.

[rokhedred]

Looks like a piece of coral (the white item) in the top pic. And some petrified wood. And that black loop does look like a vertebral piece! Neat finds.

[Hoss]

Roger or Jesse will be along here soon enough and fill us all in on the info. Thse are some great finds Amber.    

[Amber]

Thanks guys. Love collecting this stuff. I swear I'm going too have a permanent hunch from always looking at my feet. The white piece does appear too be coral of some kind which is awesome because where I found it is so far inland. The black "bark" looking piece I would love too be able too identify the wood type.The black vertebrae could possibly be deer I'm thinking. Now the orange-ish piece has me stumped beyond belief. It has cell structure and almost looks like an armor of sorts.(turtle maybe? or a plated fish?) Sad thing is I have about 15 lbs of unsorted petrified wood from that trip which I will probably just polish and use in my silver smithing. Every time I wash my clothes if I don't shake my pockets out when they are drying the dryer starts clunking and making all kinds of racket I'm worse than the kids.

[painshill]

Hi Amber
That’s a nice assortment, but identification is a little limited by the heavy erosion on most of the pieces. And the trouble with river fossils is you’re never quite sure what formation they have washed out of. Nevertheless……..
012: Chunks of broken limb (?) bones. ID is difficult I would guess they are reptilian.
013/026/027: I’m not completely convinced that’s petrified wood. Maybe. Looks like it might be crocodile or alligator skull bone to me. The general pattern is quite distinctive for the upper skull area. Here’s a piece (crocodile) from my collection. The curved area (top right in the first pic) is the orbital socket where the eye sits.

External view

Internal view
014: Tabulate coral.
015: Definitely a vertebral bone. I hate identifying these. Don’t believe it’s reptilian. I would guess it’s from a young white-tailed deer, but it’s missing many of the helpful identification features.
018 (the one that has you stumped) looks to be a partial scute (the bony plates that sit on top of the skin) from an alligator. I believe I can see a hump-like projection running roughly E-W in your picture, although it’s difficult to tell from above. Alligator scutes have this central ridge or hump, but crocodile scutes do not.
Turtle carapace can have a similar pattern, but I don’t think that’s what you have there.

Alligator scute (ridge running approx E-W)
019/020 -and- 023: More bone. Again, looks to be reptilian and 019/020 might be from the skull/jaw area. Crocodile, alligator or large turtle maybe?
031: Nope, don’t know what that is. Needs to be rotated in the hand to get more idea of the morphology. It’s calcited, so likely to be marine… coral? … shell?
So, you’re silversmithing? Me too. Care to put some examples up… maybe in the “Off The Wall” section? I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours! :whistle:
Keep fillin’ them pockets.
Painshill

[Amber]

That is some great info there. It never even crossed my mind alligator or crocodile but looking at your piece and at the others I have it's a huge possibility goodness knows there are plenty of them down there.I'll put some of my stuff up just started learning too silversmith and loving it although my finger tips beg too differ I hate gloves.

[Bone2stone]

Roger beat me to it....again.....
He's on the money... again.....
The vertabral/neck looks to be either deer or even camel. Conjunction bone to skull.
Most of the boney material appears to be croc or turtle.
It looks like you are picking material from, three distinct wash outs.
One pleistocene and two cretaceous.
The comment about the wash and dry....Now that's funny right there, I don't care who you are.
I think there are a lot of us who have been there and done that.
It does have a distinctive clunklity clunk....bangidy bang.....chinkity chink.
Holey crap on a cracker! I forgot about that piece!
I left a beauty of an Arkansas (a 10) arrowhead in one of my pockets.
It turned into a piece of just so so quick!
We live and learn but why is it one of the best ones that we miss in our pockets when we get home.
The Trinity has been good to me in the past and may it be even better for you in the future.
Watch for the areas where these specimens are washing out you could find something extraordinary.
Should you find something that is just too big to collect get Baylor of SMU involved.
Keep up the hunt and at least look up and around sometimes,
you never know just what is just above you.     B)  :dry:  :woohoo:
Bone2stone

[rokhedred]

I am so glad you are here.  :woohoo: I knew you would have answers.
About this silver smithing...I've been wanting to learn...you guys show your stuff. I want to see it too.
Amber, I'm glad you got to find out what that real stumper was!!!

[Amber]

Silver smithing is amazing work. I have a short attention span and it never gets dull and moves quickly so it's great for those of us that like working with our hands and are artistic minded. I want too learn wax casting so I can make my own finding and impressions of the mesquite around here.

[Makoken]

I agree with the others turlte, gator and or croc scutes, the black one looks like an atlas vert. Great stuff, I've heard the Trinity if full of pleistocene material.