July 11, 2009 - Cretaceous Fossils, Greene Co, AL

BPS members and guests headed down to Greene county, Alabama for our July trip.  This site is a creek covered with pea gravel - making screening for shark teeth and other fossils quite difficult.  However, most found it fairly easy to spot the fossils lying on top of the gravel.  Numerous shark teeth were found, a couple of mosasaur teeth, several ptychodus teeth, a gar vertebra and tooth, crocodilian bone, clams, oysters, and bryozoan.  Vicki found a tooth so tiny (about 1/8 inch), that when she put it on her finger to get a closeup, it rolled off.  The next 45 minutes was spent digging through the gravel in an ever widening circle, trying to find the tiny tooth again.  As we finally gave up, she rolled the gravel around again, and there it was!  It went in a medicine bottle for safekeeping, until a photo could be taken in a "safe" location!  It has been identified as a gar tooth, which is more rare than mosasaur teeth in this area.

--Photos courtesy Vicki Lais