My Recent Outings Across South and Central Texas. Lots of Rare Echinoids!

[Mikrogeophagus]

Between the long days of classwork, I've been making time to check out some new and old places in and around South Texas. No real homeruns this month necessarily, but each venture has been a success in one way or another. Along with my fossiling, I've picked up my aquarium hobby again which pairs pretty well. Here and there I've collected various souvenirs to decorate my tank with. Expect my aquatic garden to be the backdrop in a lot of fossil photos from now on.

 

A little over a month ago I decided to check out some river localities around Uvalde in hopes of discovering Eagle Ford. In all of my walking I came away with only a single tooth from what I am pretty sure is Kef. I don't think it is identifiable to a species sadly, but it was still cool to get something concrete out of the day. The geology in the area is super interesting as the land is speckled with the remains of ancient volcanoes. There is actually a huge quarry along the Frio River digging up basalt from one of said volcanoes. Despite the lack of fossils, I came home with a bag full of basalt rocks for the aquarium.

 

Kef shark tooth and basalt rocks

 

Several weeks back I explored some developments cutting through the Anacacho Limestone (Campanian). It took visiting a few duds before I finally found my first productive Anacacho honey hole where I was met with a handful of new echinoid species, mostly Mecaster texanus. I was pretty excited when I finally turned over the unusual, but locally common Petalobrissus cubensis. The prize find of the day, however, was a rare regular urchin named Lanieria uvaldana.

 

Petalobrissus cubensis and Lanieria uvaldana

 

The week after I took a lowkey trip to an old site a ways up north in the Ozan. Somehow it'd already been nearly a year since I had last hunted the spot, and with my maturation as a hunter I came in bearing a fresh perspective on things. I scored a neat pair of associated shark verts. Sadly there was no associated dentition with it. Things went really well in the invertebrate department. Usually, I refrain from extracting the ammonites there as they are completely shale and often impossible to extract in one piece. This time I got lucky in finding a robust one and got it mostly complete. I believe it is either Menabites danei or Submortoniceras sp. I would say the biggest prize came at the end with the best example of Gauthieria sp. I have found so far. These guys are extremely rare up in the NSR, but at my spot their fragments are uncommon. The real challenge is finding one complete.

 

Menabites danei?; Two views of Gauthieria sp. a rare Ozan echinoid.

 

While in the area, I collected some of the creek wildlife to fill out a jar of microfauna for my growing aquarium. I lucked out with some wild Ludwigia and Hornwort which I had no idea were native to Texas. The Ludwigia looksespecially stunning in the fish tank, growing most of its foliage emersed above a bed of Crystalwort.

 

Ludwigia from a creek in Central TX

 

The next trip was in the Canyon Lake area for some lower Glen Rose hunting, a new region for me. Even though I had some really promising locations lined up, it turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment. The fossils were a lot sparser than I assumed they'd be, but I did come away with some interesting things. I managed to snag a couple Hyposalenia phillipsae which are a first for me. I also picked up a small Coenholectypus, but I think it is too damaged to tell the species (planatus vs. ovatus). Besides these I gathered several unremarkable crustacean bits and a pycnodont tooth.

 

 

Hyposalenia phillipsae and Coenholectypus sp.

 

Fast forward to today and I made a brief foray into my Corsicana spot. I haven't found any new mosasaur material since my initial expedition, but I think that's to be expected given the rarity of such things. Regardless I made some cool finds including my best shark tooth yet for the place: a complete Cretalamna maroccana! Several smaller Serratolamna serrata teeth were found as well. I also happened upon a rarer echinoid known as Cardiaster leonensis. It's not cleaned up yet so I do not have it pictured at the moment.

 

Cretalamna maroccana

 

I've been in South TX for 2 months already and yet I've hardly made a dent in the list of fossil spots I want to explore. Keep an eye out for future reports!  

[grandpa]

Love the echies.  Makes my heart leap.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Nice report. 

Thanks for sharing. 

[historianmichael]

Congratulations! You have really been killing it on the Upper Cretaceous echinoids. I spent some time while I was living in Texas looking for those but I certainly didn’t have the same success you have had in only 2 months! 

  

[erose]

The Upper Cretaceous echinoids are nice. The Canyon Lake exposures are suffering from months (years!) of no rain.

[Mikrogeophagus]

9 minutes ago, erose said:

The Upper Cretaceous echinoids are nice. The Canyon Lake exposures are suffering from months (years!) of no rain.

That whole hunt my inner monologue was battling with itself. I couldn't figure out if I was just blind, the exposures are normally this sparse, or if I was just caught in another hunter(s) wake. The spots I hunted looked soooo good, but nothing over there is a secret by any means. I will gladly put the blame on no rain 

[erose]

3 minutes ago, EPIKLULSXDDDDD said:

That whole hunt my inner monologue was battling with itself. I couldn't figure out if I was just blind, the exposures are normally this sparse, or if I was just caught in another hunter(s) wake. The spots I hunted looked soooo good, but nothing over there is a secret by any means. I will gladly put the blame on no rain 

Yeah they have also been heavily hunted, you can blame me and a handful of others.  The. Hyposalenia phillipsae puts you in the microzone (bottom of Unit 2, Lower Member. JohnJ. and I found a tremendous variety of material there. Echinoids, starfish, crinoids, crustaceans, Shark and other fish, turtle and many molluscs. It is worth many visits.