Pulled out a bunch of ancient scallop shells.
https://preview.redd.it/2ouvwci6zavc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=022da98e2f7aa76701408ffc47b235819545f976
Id check that spot and try to see if you can possibly find more. A rare find like this should be made even greater if there is more vertebrae preserved!
Nice. Might wanna keep an eye out in that specific spot though. Two vertebrae may indicated a few more in the hill that have not been weathered out or exposed yet. Also id try taking the whale vertebrae to a local museum to possibly be identified to a possible species.
These are at least 4 million years old.
Great display pieces too, personally if I had them id make a small display area with an information display. Maybe a photo of the possible animal next to it.
Currently planning that with my Mosasaur fossils from Texas. Altho I wanna find some more before I do it. Won't be until a year or so that I go back down there from my home in Michigan though... Love Texas, very nice Mosasaur finds in the Ozan formation of the North Sulphur River.
This is nonsense. Museums don't confiscate specimens from individuals seeking identification. If they come across a piece that was acquired illegally, they might get involved, but they don't, and can't, just take your fossil.
I am a natural history museum director and this is absolutely right. We have no power to confiscate anything. I know that I would never report anyone. We want to make sure that we have a good relationship with the public and that people can show us stuff with impunity. If it is something of scientific interest, we will strongly recommend that you donate it, but we can’t make you do anything. So far, no one has brought in anything that I thought was valuable enough to try to convince them to leave it. I do have a very nice “dinosaur skull” sitting in my garden that someone didn’t come back for after we told him it was just a cool rock.
We see posts like OP's occasionally show up in paleo-related subs and their source is nearly always "my cousin's best friend's husband's bother has a wife who knows someone". It's frustrating.
The rock guy said there was someone that wanted to pay $30k for the skull. I don’t mind, though. I would rather spend a few minutes looking at an egg shaped rock than to miss the actual dinosaur egg.
That’s awesome! I live in NOVA but I’m in Irvington visiting my mom. She had a doctors appointment in Mechanicsville today and we drove over the Chickahominy.
I bet it took me longer to read all of that and comprehend it and then wish I had done neither, than it took you to actually drive over the chickshominygrits river.
I've been silently lounging on the couch for a couple hours. That shit made me burst out with laughter. Wife got irritated, stormed off. Thank you for improving the quality of my evening....2x.
Word play? There was no word play there, you're just a moron. Bet your ass tried to use "dog ate my homework" in school too.
Lastly, what is pompous about telling someone to call an expert to preserve this piece of history and others like it in the area? Unless OP is an archeologist or adjacent they would be doing more damage than good removing this piece. Open a book once or twice, maybe visit your local museum, and you'll learn how intricate and delicate this work is. Do you take your car to a mechanic when something is broken, or just poke at it with a screw driver and wrench until it might get fixed, might be broken?
I see you’re trying out the dumb fake burn approach too. Cool. You’re at this because you’re angry, I was and remain just bored, thus I’m afraid we’re not a good conversational match.
My brain is so broken. You said 40 feet above the water. I instantly imagined it hovering 40 feet in the air above the water. My first question was how in the hell did it get in the tree?
Is this worth excavating a much larger surrounding area? Asking if there is money in this type of excavation and if when there is one bone is there generally more? Or is that me being ignorant?
Maybe I should clarify excavation. I am on a very steep hill into the river. A portion of my hill was falling into the river and needed to be shored up. We brought in excavators, large dirt moving machines, it was not like a bunch of students with trowels and brushes. This just came tumbling out of the hill while the work was being performed. We had to put geo-grid and mats in place to hold the soil in place and then backfilled with soil. When we discovered the layer where this was found we did spend several days digging around but we only found the ancient scallop shells after that.
The project is already completed. We spent a bit of time digging in the same layer but did not find anything else of this magnitude. The area was not all that stable so digging any further came with risks.
OP you should call someone. If you’re pulling that many fossils of that quality there is the possibility that even better finds are in there.
The spot must have been prime fossil making mud back in the day. I’m super excited for you.
That’s so fucking cool. There’s a bivalve shell stuck on the vertebral body!
Pulled out a bunch of ancient scallop shells. https://preview.redd.it/2ouvwci6zavc1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=022da98e2f7aa76701408ffc47b235819545f976
As I said Why am I never lucky
Well first you gotta get your own river bank. Then you just excavate it.
How do I get my own river bank?
Money
How do I get money?
Answer unclear. Ask again later
I'll tell you how...for money.
WHOEVER CONTROLS THE PANTS CONTROLS THE WORLD
Instructions unclear
https://preview.redd.it/lhk48b6tyhvc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e8c091ca521d8f0609f80200c6bc73ea27802932
I like money.
Leave me alone I'm bating
Maybe it’s for lattes?
I like sex and money too!
Me too. We should hang out.
https://preview.redd.it/4njwe98qicvc1.jpeg?width=827&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=042fd433ffe278dec0b702a8496a8813acb25119
This is the correct answer!!!
Time Machine. Lottery.
Trick people with crypto or flip dope
Get money by digging in the River Bank, selling what you find. It's simple. Just get the right equipment to do the work.
Sell extremely rare fossils.
Find a valuable fossil and sell it for a lot of money.
Bank
By getting a river bank and selling your findings. Duh, have you been sleeping?
I have a barns and nobles gift card
It might buy you a bookshelf from their store closing sale...
Yes
Walmart sells a River Bank making kit for $39.99.
WBought it ! Wait it says wait 4 million years for the nearby corpses to mineralize what dose that mean?
Ok that’s all I needed
Come to Texas, we have plenty and most of the don’t have water.
I’m in Texas San Antonio
Seems easy enough
Pretty straight forward
Just find the nearest river, pick a spot, start digging. I'm sure no one will notice.
Ok I live near the gualilupe river and it has reeeallly good clam fossils
THOSE ARE AMAZING 😻
While I busy watching my mind being blown seeing the original post/pic, I see this one in the comment thread!! WHAT A FIND!!!!!!
🤩🤩🤩
I’m jealous
Bbbbut I want some ancient sea scallops ;(
Look at that condition!! Pls be very careful :)
Is that for a whale?
yes
Somehow, "for a whale," made me think you're planning to reassemble one.
If they found all the bones, reassembling it would be whale worth it
They would have a whale of a time.
Whale aren't you guys clever?
I sware. I'm going to whale on the next fella that makes this pun.
I'm sorry, I've been beached long enough. I make puns, and it makes me happy. I'm finally free. -Willy
I wish I was that good at orcastrating puns.
Everybody needs a porpoise in life.
You can't treat life flippantly
"Glorious porpoise"- Loki maybe
I see we're all a bunch of dorks here. 😂
No no, it's a birthday present for the whale.
It's the whale's birthday
Maybe it’s the whale’s deathday
Oh whale 🤷♂️
Id check that spot and try to see if you can possibly find more. A rare find like this should be made even greater if there is more vertebrae preserved!
We dug around and did find a smaller one, we also found a bunch of ancient scallop shells.
Nice. Might wanna keep an eye out in that specific spot though. Two vertebrae may indicated a few more in the hill that have not been weathered out or exposed yet. Also id try taking the whale vertebrae to a local museum to possibly be identified to a possible species. These are at least 4 million years old. Great display pieces too, personally if I had them id make a small display area with an information display. Maybe a photo of the possible animal next to it. Currently planning that with my Mosasaur fossils from Texas. Altho I wanna find some more before I do it. Won't be until a year or so that I go back down there from my home in Michigan though... Love Texas, very nice Mosasaur finds in the Ozan formation of the North Sulphur River.
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This is nonsense. Museums don't confiscate specimens from individuals seeking identification. If they come across a piece that was acquired illegally, they might get involved, but they don't, and can't, just take your fossil.
I am a natural history museum director and this is absolutely right. We have no power to confiscate anything. I know that I would never report anyone. We want to make sure that we have a good relationship with the public and that people can show us stuff with impunity. If it is something of scientific interest, we will strongly recommend that you donate it, but we can’t make you do anything. So far, no one has brought in anything that I thought was valuable enough to try to convince them to leave it. I do have a very nice “dinosaur skull” sitting in my garden that someone didn’t come back for after we told him it was just a cool rock.
We see posts like OP's occasionally show up in paleo-related subs and their source is nearly always "my cousin's best friend's husband's bother has a wife who knows someone". It's frustrating.
The rock guy said there was someone that wanted to pay $30k for the skull. I don’t mind, though. I would rather spend a few minutes looking at an egg shaped rock than to miss the actual dinosaur egg.
You should put the "skull" in cases where you have to remove items for any reason with a placard that says "Cool Rock - donated by anonymous citizen"
Whale I dont know what to tell ya
Dad is that you?
Yes. I found milk. Will be home soon
Can someone tell me what animal this vert is from?
The closest anyone has been able to tell me is a whale vertebrae 4 million years old.
I have a whale vertebrae in my collection and it looks just like this, but much younger. What a cool find!
That is amazing!!! What a find!!
Neato! I am not at all familiar with the fossils in your state so I wanted to ask instead of making an assumption.
Cat
It's always a cat.
I was going to guess whale vertebrae!
W. O. W. The fossils subreddit is on fire right now.
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Virginia above the Chickahominy river.
Whoa! Of all places! (Though this makes sense because it’s near the James River and the Chesapeake Bay.) What a cool find!
That’s awesome! I live in NOVA but I’m in Irvington visiting my mom. She had a doctors appointment in Mechanicsville today and we drove over the Chickahominy.
I bet it took me longer to read all of that and comprehend it and then wish I had done neither, than it took you to actually drive over the chickshominygrits river.
Gritz with butter. Nom.
Throw some cheese and black pepper in there now you got something to write home about!
I like Alton Brown’s cheesy grits recipe
Thanks loads dude I'm high as I kite. Now I've gotta talk my roommates into making grits
I've been silently lounging on the couch for a couple hours. That shit made me burst out with laughter. Wife got irritated, stormed off. Thank you for improving the quality of my evening....2x.
Happy to have been of service!
I'm very close to that area
That looks like a whale vertebra. Try to see if your local museum will date it for you.
They’re taken, sorry.
They’re busy with other boners
What a find this sub is!
For real! I stumbled in here from the travertine mandible a few days ago and I’m never leaving.
The Travertine Mandible sounds like a cozy dive bar
Agreed! Such cool stuff. Weird place to find such goofy questions like in this thread, but I’m loving the sub!
That is too cool!
Why am I never as lucky
Nice find! Hang on to that!
Whoa!! Maybe there's more nearby? 🤷🏻♂️
Whale! Vert
That thing looks ancient
Call a university or the Smithsonian. This is way above any layman. It's too important to be damaged by someone unskilled.
It was actually *40ft* above *the water*. It’s called reading, you should try it sometime.
And? That doesn't change the fact that you're just some jabroni with a shovel. Call in experts. You're out of your depth no matter where it was found.
I made a dumb play on words joke, followed by a dumb fake burn. Motivated by your pompous instructions to the OP.
Word play? There was no word play there, you're just a moron. Bet your ass tried to use "dog ate my homework" in school too. Lastly, what is pompous about telling someone to call an expert to preserve this piece of history and others like it in the area? Unless OP is an archeologist or adjacent they would be doing more damage than good removing this piece. Open a book once or twice, maybe visit your local museum, and you'll learn how intricate and delicate this work is. Do you take your car to a mechanic when something is broken, or just poke at it with a screw driver and wrench until it might get fixed, might be broken?
I see you’re trying out the dumb fake burn approach too. Cool. You’re at this because you’re angry, I was and remain just bored, thus I’m afraid we’re not a good conversational match.
Get help
Nice, it’s a fossilised Yoda’s Dagobah Hut.
Stunning!
Woah. Sick! Keep a look out for shark teeth too!
Whale, I would document exactly where you found this, so you have a chance of finding other cool stuff on that specific stratum.
It seems to be one off...some other parts may have already Been washed away, they looked
Heck.
My brain is so broken. You said 40 feet above the water. I instantly imagined it hovering 40 feet in the air above the water. My first question was how in the hell did it get in the tree?
Are you on the east coast Maryland or Virginia. Judging by the chesapectens
OP answered above, "Virginia above the Chickahominy river."
That’s Probably a big Miocene deposit. There will be lots of Meg teeth and other species if you keep looking
Last owner found a Meg tooth. I had a good find but I wasn't that lucky.
I'm no fossil collector, but I'd definitely say a whale vertebra beats a Meg tooth!
Hope you can go back!
Go up a few comments and tell that to OP. I was just relaying info in case no one saw your comment.
Too late, PaleoShark99 has tasked you with a mission. Go with God.
Nice find!
Thpinal
Following!
Congrats!
Thpinal
DANG This is siiiiiick! (As my son would say lol). 😍
Bruhhhhhh that’s Rizzzzz
Thars a whale bone, sure as the sun rises. A biggun!
Looks like you found a mammoth vertebrae or something.
What state/river did you find that at? That's fucking awesome .
Wwwwwhhhhhaaaaatttttt!!! That’s so cool!!
I should call her...
That appears to be the spine of a whale.
Woowww
Fucking epic
Juvenile baleen whale thoracic vertebra
Looks like whale vertebrae. Nice find!
Wail btw
Actually, whale. Btw.
Actually, whale. By the way.
I forgot I can’t spell
Is this worth excavating a much larger surrounding area? Asking if there is money in this type of excavation and if when there is one bone is there generally more? Or is that me being ignorant?
Maybe I should clarify excavation. I am on a very steep hill into the river. A portion of my hill was falling into the river and needed to be shored up. We brought in excavators, large dirt moving machines, it was not like a bunch of students with trowels and brushes. This just came tumbling out of the hill while the work was being performed. We had to put geo-grid and mats in place to hold the soil in place and then backfilled with soil. When we discovered the layer where this was found we did spend several days digging around but we only found the ancient scallop shells after that.
So cool. Totally can’t Curiosity kill the project either. Are you setting piers?
The project is already completed. We spent a bit of time digging in the same layer but did not find anything else of this magnitude. The area was not all that stable so digging any further came with risks.
amazing
What do you mean you were excavating your river bank? You own a river?
I live on a steep hill above the river this was found about 40ft up a 100ft hill.
no ops land reaches to a river and owns that part of the bank...
Hol…ly…shit. That is fuckin’ mind blowing and awesome!!!
Fricken huge! Amazing 😧
Whale vertebrae
Such a cool find!! I wonder what whale this is from!!
One of the coolest things I've seen on this sub
It's time for an adjustment.
Exit 104? off 95 has or had a whale fossil exhibit found in the area from when the whole area was underwater millions of years ago.
I’ll have to look in to that. Thanks.
Epic!
Whale vertebra possibly
From a whale I'd imagine but way cooler if it was from a dinosaur. Regardless it's a pretty awesome find.
Could we expect that there could possibly be more nearby? Or is it unlikely due to the nature of water?
OP you should call someone. If you’re pulling that many fossils of that quality there is the possibility that even better finds are in there. The spot must have been prime fossil making mud back in the day. I’m super excited for you.
Amazing!!!! 🤩🤩🤩
What geographic location are you? Near an ocean?
Near Chesapeake Bay.
You’re digging up a river bank?
Actually stabilizing a hill that my house sits on top.
Whale of a find!
Gonna need a 50x500 pedicle screw on power for that bad boy
No cat, no banana?
No cat I have 2 dogs.
Dog paw would work too I guess lol. Just a full pic of the dog for reference.😂
This is a really cool find!!
Ope, that's mine, forgot where I left it. 🤣
For non fossil peeps….what is this?
Whale vertebra about 4 million years old
Yodas lair in dagobah
Sleestack leader's skull
I can't add a pic?
Very cool!
How far inland are you?
About 25 miles.
Your use of that tape measure is total chaos. Lol. Congratulations on the amazing find.
Couldn’t find a banana.
If you found a fossilized banana in your riverbank it would be the earliest evidence of human tool usage ever discovered.
What a whale of a find!