#fossil creek

[latinamamii69]

mother nature 🍃 my favorite place to be ✨

[bignaz8]

Fossil Creek, Arizona

[samimarkart]

Mazonia Flora

screenprinted dye on linen, cotton batting, cotton thread and sourced handwoven wool on stretcher bars

my love letter to mazon creek fossils

[shadyufo]

There hasn't been enough rain around here to make the creek flood much lately so pickings have been kinda slim. But a few neat treasures have still been uncovered recently! Here's a little sample of them.

On this plate of extra crunchy snacks we have the tiniest little deer jawbones I've ever found, a dog or coyote tooth, a glass screw / support from an old neon sign (took me forever to figure out what the heck that thing was, haha!), a neat old decorative metal cap off something, some super colorful pieces of tumbled glass and pottery, hagstones, crinoids, brachiopods, horn coral and other fossils, and more!

The pretty old marble isn't a creek find—I found it washed up in my yard after one storm we did finally get recently—but I didn't want it to feel left out lol.

[roosaurusrin]

Triceratops frill fragment showing blood vessel grooves. I’ve posted a picture about the grooves in horns before, but this small fragment of Triceratops frill shows how well it can be expressed there too. The blood vessels that originally laid in those areas would have fed the overlying keratin covering.

[blueiskewl]

Triceratops Skull Triceratops horridus Late Cretaceous (approx. 66 million years ago). Hell Creek Formation, South Dakota.

90 inches (228 cm) long, 57 inches (145 cm) wide, supraorbital brow horns each measuring approx. 36½ inches (93 cm) in length, nasal horn measuring approx. 7¾ inches (20 cm) in length. Height of 92½ inches (235 cm) when mounted on custom stand. Estimated weight of 441 pounds (200 kg).

[hyombus]

Sitting with Takofuusen 3/20/23

[blorbologist]

*raises hand* i have no idea what Hell Creak is. tell me more

Hell Creek is a fossil-heavy rock formation located in Montana and North Dakota! It's one of the most complete fossil sites we have of the Mezosoic (along with other standouts like the Morrison and Kem-Kem). Hell Creek gets a few extra cool points for a handful of reasons:

It has a whole host of big name dinosaurs: T.rex, Triceratops, Ankylosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and even a large raptor that's a real-life Jurassic Park 'Raptors' (the book and film used oversized Deinonychus, but Dakotaraptor is actually of comparable size. Potentially. I love the species and what it'd mean for the ecosystem, but I don't trust DePalma as far as I can throw him. He accidentally included turtle remains in the holotype, which... come on, man). Another cool big name potentially associated with the formation, but not a dinosaur, is a large Mosasaur species (think a giant marine monitor lizard) that was recently found to exist off the coast, as well as the (potentially) largest creature to ever fly, Quetzalcoatlus (I have no way to describe this, search it up, it's terrifying and weird).

Actually? No. You deserve to see what a Quetz would look like.

(Photo and model credit @bluerhinostudio. Seriously, they're so lifelike.)

Hell Creek's fossils were deposited at the very tail end of the reign of dinosaurs, so you get a look at their last glory days + a good handful of million years prior. Actually, the boundary layer - the actual moment the apocalypse became real and quartz was shocked by the Chixclub impact - is present! There's another site that seems to contain the actual aftermath, with molten glass raining into the mud and debris of animals caught in tsunamis thrown together (though some elements of the site are debated, because DePalma is sketchy as hell and reported different findings to the media vs his publications).

(Credit conveniently included in the image, nice.)

We have SO much information about it! Remains of everything from megafauna and their interactions - herbivores that have healed bitemarks from T.rex, facial bitemarks between T.rexes - to the minute. Pollen and seeds from a host of plants; insects trapped in amber; tiny amphibians, and sharks. The list of species on the Wikipedia articles are absolutely insane - it's so complex and detailed.

There's also a video game in slow, slow development depicting this formation, Saurian - last I heard it's grinded to almost a standstill, and IIRC there is ~tea~ in the paleo community about it, but it was fun following the development for a few years. The concept art is also gorgeous, and you really get a feel for just how much material they have to work with to make this as accurate as possible!

TLDR, Hell Creek is fascinating - though there are plenty of other cool formations worth poking at, too! The Kem Kem Group, Dinosaur Park, Candeleros, Morrison, Jiufotang and Nemegt Formations are all favorites <3

[timmurleyart]

65 million years ago.🦖☄️🌋

[edgescience]

There are many mysterious things that lurk within the fossil records. Even amongst the dinosaurs there are mysteries. One of these many mysteries is the strange lack of horn headed duck billed dinosaurs in the hell creek, the famous rock layer from which we get our trexes, triceratops, and ankylosauruses. Where were they? Were they even present? Was Edmontosaurus really the only lizard horse in this place and time?

[palaeonecromancy]

Happy Fossil Friday and Lunar New Year!

Who: Dracorex hogwartsia

name meaning: "Dragon king" "Hogwarts"

pronunciation: Drake-oh-rex Hog-warts-ee-ah

What: A pachycephalosaurid

When: Late Cretaceous

Where: South Dakota's Hell Creek Formation

Fun fact!: There is some debate over the placement of Dracorex, whether it represents its own species or if it is merely one of the ontogenetic (growth) stages of Pachycephalosaurus proper. If the later is true, it gives implications of how the dome in pachycephalosaurs is related to age and perhaps mating, only developing for sparring purposes among mating individuals. Research into microfractures and pathological resorption of bone in the domes has already corroborated.

Here is a link to a paper talking about such pathologies if anyone is interested in learning more!

Why are they cool?: Without the wicked name, Dracorex is holds an interesting place in dinosaur debate circles. There are quite a few species, including the very controversial Nanotyrannus that have been argued as seperate species vs. ontogenetic stages. These kinds of discoveries keep things interesting and offer some pretty interesting insights into how these creatures grew and lived.

Image Credits: (Left: Dragon-like Dinosaur Named 'Dracorex Hogwartsia' (roaring.earth) Right: Masato Hattori)

[thatshowthingstarted]

“Maximus”  A T.Rex skull

Hell Creek Formation, Maastrichtian, Late Cretaceous (approx. 67 million years ago) Harding County, South Dakota, USA.

Articulated skull length 53.5 inches, weighing approximately 160.25 lbs. 30 bones (of an approximate total of 39), with additional cast elements, as well as 29 teeth represented in various states of completeness. Judging from the overall size and degree of the bone development, it can be determined that the skull belonged to a large, adult individual.

Professionally prepared, and accurately articulated anatomically, the skull elements are mounted on a custom armature and stand with jaws opened, rising to 79.75 inches in height on stand (weight with stand 609 lbs.) *

Courtesy: Sotheby’s

[clothless-sock]

The og blorbo <3

(Image credit Sean Mcmahon)

Tully monsters, scientific name Tullimonstrum gregarium, were soft-bodied invertebrate marine animals that lived in what is now Illinois during the Pennsylvanian period, 300 million years ago. They were first found preserved within ironstone concretions in the mazon creek fossil bed in southern Illinois, but have since been found in select other areas within the state. Because it has never been found outside of Illinois, it is the state fossil! Because of their soft bodied nature Tully monster fossils are rare, but at least 2,000 have been found to date. I included a picture of one below! (Image credit Paul Mayer/the field museum of Chicago)

[samimarkart]

Fern Concretion

Hand dyed cotton fabrics, cotton batting and thread, 17x19in, 2024

Experimenting with dye based printing and painting. drawn from a mazon creek specimen in chicago’s field museum collection, i hand painted with thickened dye on a loosely tie dyed fabric, then quilted it to emphasize the shapes! I have been immersing myself in the fossils from the mazon creek area and finding them to be great inspiration for pieces!

this piece is available for $80 as a wall hanging, please message me if interested!

[shadyufo]

Time for a new plate of creek treasures!

We've had a few little rains here recently, not enough to really make the creek flood much but still just enough to uncover a few new finds. Here we have a cow toe bone, a deer vertebrae, toy wheel, two-tone golf ball, a sweet little partial porcelain plate from an old doll's dish set (all that's left is the stem but it had a little flower painted in the middle—so cute!), hag stones, colorful bits of tumbled vintage glass, neck off an old soda bottle, some really nice chunky crinoids and other cool fossils, and...

...a couple pieces of uranium glass! Always love finding those! I think that is the first nugget of bonfire uranium glass I've found.