Jasper Fossil Wood Field Trip Report       Denton Creek Canoe Trip Wrap-up

Shark Tooth Field Workshop Wrap-up     Oliver Creek Field Trip Wrap-up   

Ash Grove Trip                                   Chemical Lime Plant Trip

Jasper, Texas March 19, 2010 (The full article below was originally published in the July, 2008 edition of The Fossil Record.)

On Saturday March 19, 2010 the DPS went to Jasper to search for petrified wood in the Oligocene (~24 Mya) Catahoula Formation. The Catahoula Formation outcrops in Jasper consist of fluvial sands with scattered remains of petrified logs from an ancient river channel log jam. This ancient, 24 million year old Oligocene log jam was our destination for the March DPS field trip. It was touch and-go weather for the field trip, the weather report for Jasper called for a 30% chance of rain and thunderstorms for the morning with an 80% chance of the same in the afternoon. 

We met at Stump�s Restaurant at 7 am there was a good turnout of people willing to test probabilities [for rain.] The sky was clear except for a few cumulus clouds scattered among the blue sky.

We proceeded into the creek after Ron Ducote, the local guide for this site. There is so much fossil wood there you have to upgrade or decide which Oligocene pieces to bring back and which ones to leave behind. Not too much palm was found. Everyone was out of the creek at about 1 pm and as we started to drive out rain sprinkled our windshields. I could not ask for better timing. Lucky circumstance unfolded for us during this field trip, as fortune smiled upon us that morning. Being five hours away from Dallas paid off this time.

Denton Creek Canoe Trip - Wrap-up By Roger Farish (The full article below was originally published in the July, 2008 edition of The Fossil Record.)

RAINS - all spring long, regular warnings of 'severe tornadic activity, quarter size hail, 3" rains.' No one believed me when I told them that there was just barely enough water in our creek to float a boat properly. Told'em we'd be doing a lot of dragging, but the consensus was to GO FOR IT. So, we did - and it wasn't that bad.

The Kirpachs found a wonderful slab of borings along with multiple echinoids on it along with a pynchnodont jawbone with 11 teeth but managed to loose 3 of them. Wes found 1 goniophorus in awesome condition as well as a perfect holaster and smaller macraster. Kerry found three gorgeous ammonites, but they haven't been cleaned up yet. David Hill kept find Macrasters - mint condition! But its David's kids, Brady and Wyatt who helped David make it down the river. Linda found the only shark tooth-in matrix as well as her share of Holasters and Macrasters. The back group had a DPS watermelon for lunch. I know that a number of Carinata clams found good homes as well as most of the other marine fauna of the Goodland to Kiamichi Formations.

Shark Tooth Field Workshop Wrap-up by Roger Farish (The full article below was originally published in the July, 2009 edition of The Fossil Record.)

Since so many people know about the richness of shark tooth collecting in Grayson County, I just knew that screening a gravel bar in a creek would have to produce more teeth than the picked over surface. Well, it was pretty much so, but no extra special finds were made although plenty of teeth were given new homes.

Everyone knew it was going to be hot, but Ed and Cathy Swiatovy did some prescouting for us and found a good gravel bar that was in the shade in the morning.  Almost all of the large species of these Cretaceous, Coniacian Age sharks were found: Cretodus crassidens, Cretolamna appendiculata, Scapanorhynchus raphiodon, Squalicorax falcatus, S. laevis (formerly granti), Cretoxyrhina mantelli, Ptychodus whipplei, P.atcoensis, P. mammalaris and P. latissimus.

Oliver Creek Field Trip � Wrap-up

By Roger Farish (The full article below was originally published in the September 2007 edition of The Fossil Record.)

The fossil gods smiled and we indeed had a wet one. After one rain mid-morning, a real gully buster drove the diehards off in mid-afternoon.

We had more folks than we�ve ever had on this trip. Several people had called earlier about canceling the trip because of rain and I simply replied, "PRAY FOR RAIN". We got to the area around 9 a.m. and flowed down to the creek to begin our individual quests.

Several groups of first-timers found the most Epiaster whitei since they were shown how to mine the soft shale seams. Several folks found some of the less-common Heteraster adkinsi irregulars, and the elusive Salenia mexicana didn�t appear to be so rare after everyone got calibrated as to what to look for. Brian Bowles discovered the world�s only Pigglydont, awaiting description. The only �first� was a chunk of matrix containing two Phymosoma.

The real quest, though, was for the large Oxytropidoceras sp. ammonites. EVERYONE found some of these. The largest, most complete, with about a foot and a half of living chamber, was found by Wes and Kerry Kirpach.

By the way, Linda�s Phymosoma were pretty banged up, BUT they were Phymosoma.

Ash Grove Trip
On September 17, 2005, the Society was granted access to the Ash Grove Cement Quarry in Midlothian, Texas. Checkout these pictures.

		Fifty people met on this Saturday in mid-September to enjoy the mid-August temperatures in the mid-90's. On Friday, it was more seasonable in the mid 80's. Obviously, weather won't will not detour true fossil collectors.
What a monstrous shark vertebra!

Mark's day was made when he found this echinoid.

A couple of ptycodus latimissu.

A large shark tooth. (Identification requested.)



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Chemical Lime Plant Trip

Group photo.

Texas Size ammonite.
Very fine Oxytropidoceras.