Recent Forays in New Jersey (Upper Cretyaceous and Paleocene)

[Jeffrey P]

A couple trips I recently took to New Jersey: The first was two weeks ago- to Ramanessin Brook near Holmdel. Ramanessin exposes the Upper Cretaceous marine Wenonah Formation. I met up with Tony, (NJfossilhunter), who helped introduce me to fossil hunting here back in 2014. .We headed down to a section of the brook that has been productive in the past. Fortunately, a very deep pool that was there on two previous trips is no longer so deep making access a whole lot easier. Here's a photo of the finds I kept. Most of the broken or worn shark teeth I ended up tossing. I did keep a couple of broken goblins as give aways. I work with children. The large goblin Scapanorhynchus texanus was found at the very end of the day in different location downstream. What was notable was the abundance of Squalicorax, crow shark teeth. I think, because of their rounded shape, they tend to be more intact than the other shark teeth. Even some of those I ended up tossing. My best finds of the day were a piece of Enchodus (fish) jaw with an intact tooth and a juvenile mosasaur tooth, 3/8ths of an inch long. I have a mosasaur tooth I found a few years ago that's relatively the same size. Both are my smallest mosasaur teeth.

[Jeffrey P]

Last week I met up with long time fossil hunting companion, frankh8147. If you haven't checked out his fossil hunting video, by all means.  Frank has recently been collecting extensively from the Paleocene Vincentown Formation, finding a lot of echinoids, bryozoans, and corals, etc. Echinoids tend to be fairly rare in New Jersey and I only have three examples of complete ones in my collection. Frank invited me to join him on one of his excursions and last week I took him up on his invitation.  I've been to this site twice before, including last summer with Historian Michael, but this time it was just Frank and me alone. Getting to this site was a bit more challenging than the Cretaceous streams, including crossing a very deep stream. I had to hold my pack up over my head. Later, while wading along the edge of the stream, I fell in and lost my lucky shovel which I found at Big Brook nine years ago. Frank made out quite quite well with small regular echinoids- Selenia tumidula. However, I did find a number of Trochocyanthus (Scleractina or stony coral). I had only found one poorly preserved example on a previous trip, so I was more than glad to find a number of good examples.

Edited July 9 by Jeffrey P

[Jeffrey P]

I also made it well with worms. Here are circular worm tubes of Rotalaria rotula which are fairly prevalent and much rarer straight burrows of serpulid worms. 

[Jeffrey P]

Small bivalves were common, but most were internal molds. A few had original shell preserved. 

[Jeffrey P]

Frank did gift me a few partial echinoids:

[Jeffrey P]

Although. nothing I found (except the Enchodus jaw piece) ended up in my big display case, I was able to add good specimens to my New Jersey Cretaceous and Paleocene collections. For me the best part was getting outdoors and seeing and collecting with old friends. Thanks for reading. Have a good one. 

[old bones]

Great trip report! I especially enjoyed the Enchodus and mosasaur finds!

[Fossildude19]

Congratulations on your successful trips Jeff.

Glad you did well. 

[Newbie_1971]

Great to hear you had a good time, and collected some cool stuff! Congrats man!

[frankh8147]

Nice stuff Jeff and I'm glad you had fun!

 

One thing of note - I'm pretty sure the specimen on the far left in the worm section is actually the majority of what appears to be a very uncommon bivalve. Here is my example for comparison.

[minnbuckeye]

With such nice finds, why are you venturing WEST, young man?

[historianmichael]

1 hour ago, frankh8147 said:

Nice stuff Jeff and I'm glad you had fun!

 

One thing of note - I'm pretty sure the specimen on the far left in the worm section is actually the majority of what appears to be a very uncommon bivalve. Here is my example for comparison.

The bivalve is Gryphostrea vomer. 

[frankh8147]

Just now, historianmichael said:

The bivalve is Gryphostrea vomer. 

Thank you sir! 

[Jeffrey P]

Thanks Frank and Michael for spotting that misidentified bivalve- now a new species for my collection and another reason to go back and find a more complete example.