Finding Dinosaur Bones – How to find them and Caution when sharing them! Â Note that the pics above are of the original fossils as I found them. Â I have removed much of the red sandstone that covered them and right now there is a good possibility that this is a new species.
To all you wanta-be or amateur dinosaur hunters – here is some good news! I was in NE Texas scrub lands and dropped down to a riverbed where after 40 minutes of casual walking in my “Sunday shoes and clothes” saw an odd looking red rock! About 15% of the rocks were red (sandstone full of ferrous oxide) and rest white or browns! I had prayed that God would give me just a small fossil so to make this “Black Friday” trip to nowhere worthwhile! So he wrapped the perfect bone in red for me: a dinosaur Jaw Bone! Nearby I also found a perfectly round rock with concretions and a Pac Man like bite mark with homogeneous bumps on the inside (like a pomegranate or guava). I believe that it is fossilized fruit or seed pod! Note that I am a dentist- so the Jaw bone was perfect- it has a submandibular depression, a mandibular notch-for the nerve, a tooth socket, condyle and condylar eminence, and it is very heavy and strong- for it is full of iron ions/ferrous oxide. So just because a rock is red do not think that it is just sandstone! The picture above shows the jaw bone after being soaked in warm soapy water for over 2 days – so much of the red is gone!
What I want to emphasize to kids and anyone who wants to seek out fossils- DO NOT TAKE THEM TO A “ROCK STOREâ€Â FOR IDENTIFICATION!!!  I took both fossils to 2 Rock shops in Dallas and both tried to tell me that the samples were just rocks (either due to lack of knowledge or due to a desire to obtain them for a cheap price !!). Be very very careful!