The First Post on the New Black River Fossils Site

Hi Everybody! I've been talking about the new site for almost 2 years, and its finally finished. This is the first post I've tried to make so forgive me if something seems amiss. But enough of the boring Web Site banter, its time to talk about the fossils.

This trip was from about a month ago. My kids and I got the low down on some new fossil hunting turf and this is the third time we hit it. There was some rain on Monday or Tuesday and we hit it on Saturday. As you can imagine, the hills fields were already picked clean by more diligent fossil hunters, but we the weekend fossil hunters still managed to find some excellent hunting material. We ended up walking around a huge completed pond that had been missed by the weeks earlier hunters.

The fossils were sparse around the pond, and the kids gave up hunting and started playing stick ball with rocks. That was bound to end badly so I put an end to it quickly. They then switched to breaking the sticks against trees. It was a compromise and I let it slide while I continued to scan the garbage layer that litters this whole area. Its a formation we see from time to time that has very large, coarse chalky rocks mixed with the smooth pebbles we look for. The large teeth are often chewed up beyond recognition, but the smaller teeth sometimes survive in excellent condition. The formation directly overlies the Chandler Bridge, so there's alwasy the chance of finding something good there.

Around the far side of the pond I found some excellent area that was loaded with teeth (for the location, anyway). I started picking them up a few at a time and the kids came running as I picked up a really nice smaller angustidens.

It was more of the same as we moved from location to location around the area and finally darkness ended our hunt. I was surprised the total number of teeth I found in an area that we thought was generally devoid of anything good. It just goes to show that it always pays to look.