Whale rib ? And blue coral

[jamesp]

This is what i like about coral hunting. The areas of the river that have long settled like the center and the bends are covered in old black muck.
It turns coral black to blue. I guess the muck is real old. I found whale or mastodon rib with this coral. I am happy to find this blue material.
it has eluded me for a long time. Some of the pieces that went in the boat weigh over 40 pounds. The piece in the ground with the spectacles sitting
on them was not budging. And breaking it w/a sledge is too dangerous due to shrapnel.
Any ideas on what kind of bone this is ? I found 6 pieces of large bone.

[Deleted]

Throw a heavy rug or the floor mat in your pickup over it before you hit it. Cool find.
Jim

[bhiatt]

hey pretty cool find whatever that rib bone is. That blue in the coral is real nice looking. Field pics are hard to beat.

[quartz]

Quite a find, bones and blue too.

[snowmom]

are mastodon remains found in the area where you got these? I'm guessing the presence in a river bed means critters died and were washed downstream in a jumble... do you think the bones all belonged to the same animal?
If you know the era most of the fossils come from, that might give a clue. first impression would be a mammal bone of some sort. It looks as though it was supposed to bear weight, hard to see in the picture, does it taper real hard from the top down? would love to see more pictures of those bones taken at all sorts of angles. What an adventure to find them! (ever so jealous)

[Fossilman]

James,there were all kinds of dino's living in Florida..So a person can't just say what they think it is...Might have to take it in for a true answer,to a University ......

Here is some information on Florida creatures from long ago...(Nice finds buddy)

www.fossil-treasures-of-florida.com/

[Pat]

Your blues are something to write home about. Don't know about your bone... but I'd hang on to it anyway. Hope it is a dino bone; they are beautiful.

[jakesrocks]

Judging from the shape, I'm guessing the bone was a leg bone from some sort of critter. The end appears to be the well worn knee joint. As Mike said, a trip to a local university might be in order for a positive ID.

[rockpickerforever]

Love the blue coral, James! Or would you call it grey?

Not sure what the bone belonged to. Is it fossilized hard (like rock), or just mineralized from the black muck? Although found in a river channel, keep in mind that the coral formed in a shallow sea. It was covered over time with sediment (either gradually, or by some catastrophic event), fossilized, the ground uplifted, and the rivers cut down through the overlayment of sediment to expose it once again. So the river actually has nothing to do with it, except to unearth it once again, and give you good access (float your boat, if you will!) to it. Trudging through that area on foot, fighting off poisonous venomous (oops, I know better than that!) snakes, blood sucking bugs, alligators and Jethros, and then hauling your take back out would definitely be a chore! Thank God for rivers (and watertight boats, lol).

So the bone could be from either a sea animal, like a whale, or maybe a dugong, that swam above the growing coral a long time ago. Or it could have belonged to heavy bodied land animal, that went into the drink before the coral was entombed. Or even after. Agree with Don, looks like the end of a leg bone.

[jamesp]

I will post more angles and pieces. It is ice age mammal as it is typical of the rhino sloth deer horse cat giraffe etc in that it is soft but mineralized black as it does here.
No silicification. The mineral apatite typically replaces and it is a bit soft. It tings like mineral. they were in a 4 foot circle, about 6 pieces. They are not of this age, too big.
I will post them on the Florida Fossil forum. those guys will know. It is rare to find bone in north Florida, as the acid is higher in the soil. 100 miles south in the Santa fe are
many. The Florida guys know which forearm bone is from the 4 varieties of deer that roamed there then. And they have to report their finds. They are very educated.
they are scary smart about the ice age mammals. They will flip that I found bone that far north. But they are not going to want to mire in the black muck either.
It is probably dugong as Jean mentioned, mastodon or whale, but I am not sure whale or dugongs could come up the river as the ice age left those rivers as mere trickle
so the theory says. I am not a bone hunter, but it is very popular. the law monitors that type of collecting heavily. Florida is buying up all the river frontage and dominating
recreational activity. I have 2 boat ramps in Georgia and go into Florida by boat in the river on occasion, but try to stay away.
The coral formed well before the last ice age. It is silicified. We rarely find dinosaurs, almost never any silicified anything but coral. Unlike out west, lucky you guys.

[rockpickerforever]

Jul 3, 2014 12:57:10 GMT -5 jamesp said:

It is probably dugong as Jean mentioned, mastodon or whale, but I am not sure whale or dugongs could come up the river as the ice age left those rivers as mere trickle so the theory says.

James, they wouldn't be coming up the river, the river didn't exist when the coral was growing. At least for the whale theory, they would have been swimming over the top of the growing coral when in the ocean. Unless, you're saying that the bone is much younger than the coral? In that case, it could have fallen in on top of the coral, long after it had been buried, then uncovered by the river. Could even have come downstream from higher elevation.

But since there were several pieces, chances are, they didn't come from somewhere else, or at least not far.

From www.talquintradingco.com/storefront/category/fossils/58/0/title-az/1/index.html

"This is a complete fossilized humerus from the extinct American Mastodon (Mammut americanum). This piece was found in a North Florida river in the 1980's."

 

Mastodon, tapir, bear, bison, and even ground sloths were inhabitants of northern Florida back when.  Will wait (patiently!) for more pics, maybe get a better idea.

Here's a nice chunk of agatized coral from the Withlacoochee River on eBay right now, two days left!  link

[jamesp]

Jul 3, 2014 9:54:27 GMT -5 jakesrocks said:

Judging from the shape, I'm guessing the bone was a leg bone from some sort of critter. The end appears to be the well worn knee joint. As Mike said, a trip to a local university might be in order for a positive ID.

Don, the cross section is almost triangular looking. It puzzles me.

[jamesp]

Jul 2, 2014 23:42:53 GMT -5 @wampidy said:

Throw a heavy rug or the floor mat in your pickup over it before you hit it. Cool find.
Jim

Jim, I forgot my carpet. I use press felt too. It is light and real strong. but I am not hitting that thing unprotected.
if it had a point sticking out i would have hid behind the rock and popped it; I had my leather glove. But it was oval.

[jamesp]

Jul 3, 2014 13:38:04 GMT -5 rockpickerforever said:

Jul 3, 2014 12:57:10 GMT -5 jamesp said:

It is probably dugong as Jean mentioned, mastodon or whale, but I am not sure whale or dugongs could come up the river as the ice age left those rivers as mere trickle so the theory says.

James, they wouldn't be coming up the river, the river didn't exist when the coral was growing. At least for the whale theory, they would have been swimming over the top of the growing coral when in the ocean. Unless, you're saying that the bone is much younger than the coral? In that case, it could have fallen in on top of the coral, long after it had been buried, then uncovered by the river. Could even have come downstream from higher elevation.

But since there were several pieces, chances are, they didn't come from somewhere else, or at least not far.

From www.talquintradingco.com/storefront/category/fossils/58/0/title-az/1/index.html

"This is a complete fossilized humerus from the extinct American Mastodon (Mammut americanum). This piece was found in a North Florida river in the 1980's."

 

Mastodon, tapir, bear, bison, and even ground sloths were inhabitants of northern Florida back when.  Will wait (patiently!) for more pics, maybe get a better idea.

Here's a nice chunk of agatized coral from the Withlacoochee River on eBay right now, two days left!  link

yes Jean. You are right. The ice age was much newer than the coral age. The ice age is really pretty modern according to what is believed in those parts.
That dude has a big bone. He must be straining to carry it. Florida was apparently like the African plains with all kinds of weird mammals. The list is crazy.
The Withlacoochee and the Suwannee are known for their water sources during the ice age. Many camps are on the bottom of those rivers as the water was drawn
up into the polar caps. and native man camped along them when it was a mere creek. and sites are found way out in the ocean.

[rockpickerforever]

Thanks for straightening me out, James.

[Peruano]

Lots of long bones have triangular shapes; those ridges represent fortifications (points of strength) where major muscles attach and hence where force is focused. It looks mammalian to me, bit thats a wild guess. Tom

[jamesp]

Jul 3, 2014 17:28:10 GMT -5 rockpickerforever said:

Thanks for straightening me out, James.

Must be the acid bogs that preserved the mammals of the ice age. It is a peculiar time.
I believe some tar pits in California did the same type of preservation.
The time of the mastodon is the ice age I believe.
They have been found in other locations. It is all about preservation.
They have been found w/flint tools. Putting them at the time of man on numerous findings.
The paleo spear point form is a style that is common to these mastodon findings.
They are fairly common in the Suwannee River. But rare in general, since there must have been a low population of humans at that time.
Just saying that the density of such old tools is high in the Suwannee.

[1dave]

A quick guess on the bone - the first pic looks like it fit to another bone like in the forearm - Is the word "ulna" correct?

[jamesp]

Here is a couple of other views. The bone is broken open exposing the marrow clearly in the first photo.

The about 30 degree angle still makes me think rib. Project the right side that is broken off ??


This is another piece. Round and almost 4 inches in diameter. Marrow obvious.


Here is a whale rib with finer marrow cells like the ones I found. Mammoth typically have larger marrow cells.
Whale and dugong bones have small cells and are very heavy believed to be for avoiding floatation.
The angle is very close. Mineralized whale bone puzzles me in the location found for ice age time though.


Here is a large dugong rib cross section at 2.5 inches across. much smaller than above bone.
These are common. Small celled, very dense.

side view same


Notice how porous land mammal bone is. Typical of land mammals for weight reduction.
This poor mastodon got stuck with a spearhead.

[quartz]

Interesting little unit of instruction, always good to learn something every day. Thanks. There's a guy here who has the ability to get onto publicly owned areas that are closed to the public {nice oxymoron}, finds some good fossil things and puts on a little show now and then. Fun to go to, but we like yours better.
Larry