Amazing fossil variety from the Edisto River

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  • #24309
    Lee Cone
    Participant

    We have had very high water in the Edisto River since last fall (resulting from the strong La Nina). The river has been above flood stage numerous times during the past 9 months.  This has made diving the river very difficult.  It finally has dropped to a level that allows exploration at a few sites. Jayson and Amy Kowinsky are going to be in the area and I wanted a test run to see if the current was safe enough.  Turns out that the river has now gone back up again and the Cooper River will have to be our dive target on Monday (stay tuned for more posts ).  But today, barely dive-able, we tested the Edisto.  We were able to find some gravel beds and were rewarded by a true diversity of fossil specimens that really spoke volumes about how much of the river bottom had been reworked since we last visited this site.  Mammal finds included Pleistocene horse (Equus sp.), several fragments of mastodon teeth, large whale periotic process, whale bulla, 2 porpoise bulla, nice whale rib section, the obligatory Dugong rib, and other bones.  Edisto petrified wood (unidentified) was found.  Several months ago I gave several pieces of petrified wood to UFL Paleontology for identification, but have not heard back as to the species or type of wood.  Seven different species of shark were found, including: Sand Tiger (C. taurus), Snaggletooth (Hemipristis sera), Broad Tooth Mako (I. hastalis), Shortfin Mako (I. oxyrinchus), Great White (C. carcharias), Meg (C. megalodon), Angi (C. anguistidens).  It was a beautiful day to dive the black water river, bright South Carolina sun, hot air temperatures, and no alligators to be seen!

    Pictures will follow this post, but I am having difficulty loading to the site.

    [edit: Eleanor has uploaded the pictures for me]

     

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    #24338
    Eleanor Gardner
    Moderator

    Hi, @lcone – Are you still having trouble uploading images into your forum post?  If so, let me know and hopefully we can figure out a way to attach the images.  If your connection is too slow, it might be timing out.  Perhaps you could send the images to me through Dropbox or something?  And then I could upload the pics on your behalf.

    #24346
    Eleanor Gardner
    Moderator

    @lcone – Lisa forwarded the email that you sent her with pictures attached. (Note – I’m still working at UF/FLMNH until August 9!)  It seems the reason your pictures weren’t loading before was because they were .TIF files.  I changed them to .JPG files and they uploaded fine.  Just FYI for next time 🙂

    #24347
    Eleanor Gardner
    Moderator

    @jayson-kowinsky – I see that Lee referenced your name in his post.  Do you have pictures to share from this adventure too??  We’d love to see!

    #24401
    Jayson Kowinsky
    Participant

    @lcone, @egardner – Hello,  Sorry for the late reply… I just got back!  Here are some of the pictures of the fossil dive!

    I also have a video of the trip, it’s on my page:

    http://www.fossilguy.com/trips/blackwater-dive-2017/index.htm

    You should check out the end, with Lee vs the Alligator!  I wish I would have filmed his facial expression!

    Thanks Lee for this trip!

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    #24406
    Jayson Kowinsky
    Participant

    @lcone, @egardner – Here are a few more pictures…  We also visited the Mace Brown museum.  Bobby and Sarah recently finished prepping the “Cone Whale” and put it on display. It’s the most complete baleen whale ever collected from the PCS Mine in Aurora, NC.  Also, it was collected by Lee Cone!!!

    And finally, this is completely unrelated to anything… but I found a cool little coffee house by the Mace Brown museum, called “Tricera.”  It has a Triceratops fossil on display and tons of little triceratops dinos to play with!

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    #24425
    Julie Niederkorn
    Participant

    Thanks for the pictures and video.  I found myself panicking just watching the video, I don’t think I will be doing any blackwater diving anytime soon!  Yikes!

    #24917
    Eleanor Gardner
    Moderator

    Wow, @jayson-kowinsky, those are some awesome pictures!  And your video – whoa!  I agree with @julie-niederkorn… no blackwater diving for me, thanks!  Where are you headed for your next adventure?

    #26227
    Jayson Kowinsky
    Participant

    The “next adventure” wasn’t fossil related 🙁 …  I went to the South Pacific Humback Whale calving grounds in Vava’u for a few weeks (just returned a few days ago).

    Although they are not prehistoric, being with “living” cetaceans in the wild is pretty cool. You can easily imagine what the Miocene and Pliocene seas must have looks like with the vast cetacean diversity back then.  Here’s a couple pics for the fun of it.

    I’ll be heading to an East Coast Dinosaur site in a month. That will be the next fossil hunting trip, If I find anything, I’ll post some fossils.

     

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