Day 1 Friday Day 2 Saturday Day 3 Sunday
A weekend trip to the Cretaceous chalk gullies of Dallas County Alabama and a creek in Perry county turned up numerous fossils. Ancient creatures, including shark, turtle, mosasaur, ptychodus, fish, clam, and ammonite were found during the three day weekend trip.
DAY 3 - SUNDAY
After a good night's sleep, we headed off to a set of larger gullies early Sunday morning. A lot of fish bones, shark vertebra, shark teeth, enchodus jaw/tooth, nice piece of turtle shell, and even crocodile bones were found. As usual, we stayed in the gullies until darkness made it impossible to collect any more.
(photos courtesy Claire Smith and Vicki Lais)
Overview of one of the gullies surveyed on Sunday.
Scapanorhynchus shark tooth and shark vertebra.
Part of ammonite replaced by iron pyrite.
Fish vertebra.
Fragments of fish bone.
Unidentified item
Enchodus tooth still connected to bony part of jaw.
Cretoxyrhina mantelli shark tooth (ginsu - ecologically similar to the great white shark).
Fish bone in lower left, broken shark vertebra in upper right.
Small bone in area filled with bone and shell fragments.
Mosasaur rib bone fragments found by Don.
Protestega (turtle) bone
James examines mosasaur rib bone fragments found by Don.
Distinctive burrow internal molds, probably made by ghost shrimp, were common in the gully.
Mosasaur vertebra.
Bob is assisting James with wrapping of specimens so they will make it back to the museum safely.
As the sun gets low in the sky, we're still going around to the marked items, surface collecting or excavating as needed, trying to finish before dark.
Sunset in the gully.