The Wednesday Wetness

13 News, Tucson,  Three swift-water rescues along Alamo Wash in Tucson

A powerful storm rolled through southern Arizona on Monday, Sept. 13, leading to swift-water rescues, power outages, damage, and closed roads. According to the National Weather Service in Tucson, there were at least three swift-water rescues along the Alamo Wash.


13 News was there for one rescue near 22nd and Kolb. While everyone was out of the vehicle, 13 News found a car in a flooded dip in the road. Another rescue allegedly happened near Grant and Craycroft, behind the Tucson Medical Center. The third one allegedly happened near 5th Street and Wilmot.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Coffee & Sweater awaiting your digital pleasure.

Beach Report 2/28/26

The end of Feb saw an almost spring-like day. Sunny, 60 F at home, but only 45 at the beach, thanks to a slight breeze off the nearly icy waters.

Tides were high, so I only reached the rocks at Matoaka.

But I didn't do too bad for teeth. 13, not counting this 3/4 intact crocodile tooth, the first of the year. 

The Counting of the Year Jar

 

A bit of an odd year. 4337 teeth, including sharks, dolphins and crocodiles and a couple of boar's tusks, which is a first (I think, we're really not sure what might be buried back in some past years) for an average of 11.8 teeth per day. We found only 1 Megalodon, and it was Georgia's tiny Hubble Meg (in front of the jar, left) and even the bigger teeth weren't really standouts. One arrowhead (front of the jar right). Total tooth weight was 2' 15 1/8 oz or 1332 grams, averaging a smaller than normal 0.31 g average. No really big outstanding bones, other than the whale ear bone (periotic) in the upper left.

Beach Report 10/12/24

Another fine fall day. The sky was clear, temperatures were right around 70 F, the wind was negligible.

The tide was nearly low when we started, but managed to drop a few inches as we walked,

Tooth hunting was not as good as the amount of gravel and shell hash would have led us to suspect, but we managed 15 sharks teeth, and I was the winner of the day with this stubby crocodile tooth.

Beach Report 8/1/24

I got a late start, in the afternoons heat, in the mid to upper 80s. Initially the wind was pretty light, but it picked up to a decent south wind on the way back, which helped.

I caught the tide on the way down, and made it a long way up the beach.

Not pretty, but pretty rare, a Geoduck pearl. The first this year. 

A big, but partially broken Crocodile tooth. A pretty fair number of shark's teeth, 23, not counting the 4 I gave to some kids, and the usual other stuff, crab claw, drums teeth, ray plates and barbs.

Beach Report 7/1/24

TV alarms went off last night for a possible horrible thunderstorm last night, with 80 mph winds and ping-pong ball sized hail. The storm fizzled, and went around us with just few raindrops. However, in its wake came delightful cool air, a stiff breeze, and blue sky with fluffy clouds. 

The wind also blew the tide out, resulting in a pretty easy walk up the beach, and lots of gravel and shells to sort through

I found 27 fairly ordinary teeth, and this nice stubby crocodile tooth.

Beach Report 3/3/24

A very nice March day, in the upper 50s, with no wind to notice.  

Despite the fact that the tide was significantly lower than it was yesterday, we found less than half as many teeth. The winner for the day was the big (1.5 inch)  Crocodile tooth I found wedged between clay cobbles (above).

An elaborate sand castle waiting for the tide to come in and melt it.

Beach Report 3/2/24

We hit the low, but not as low as yesterday, tide right after lunch. We had a rainstorm overnight, with 1.5 inches of rain,  and the sky was still overcast.  The temperature was a pretty tolerable low 50s, and what wind there was came from the SW, so it barely affected us.

Georgia got the morning off. 

We did amazingly well on teeth, 32 each, not counting my odd mammal tooth (below) and Georgia's fragodile.

Here's the one I'm playing stump the experts on Facebook with. A small mammal tooth, it looks broken (or shed), and either has a wear facet or a split.

Inside it's hollow. Most often, these things are dolphin teeth, but peccary or seal is also a possibility.

Beach Report 1/7/24

Yesterday was a total wash-out, it rained all day, which is not too bad considering it was snowing not too far north. When we got around to the walk today, the clouds were back, but the wind was light, and the temperature was pushing up towards 50 F.

The tide was just off high, and a pretty high one too, but there was a lot of shell and gravel to look through for teeth, and we found quite a few, 28, but nothing remarkable . . . 

. . . with the possible exception of this smallish crocodile tooth. We usually find a few each year. It will keep a place for a larger specimen on the kitchen window sill.

The Wednesday Wetness

At WUWT, Hoboken Wisely Improved Water Management, Even Though the New York Times Got the Reason Wrong

The Wombat has Rule Five Sunday: Meanwhile, In The Mountains up on time and under budget at The Other McCain.

4/11/23 Beach Report

A bright sunny day, with a temperature in the high 50s, and a stiff wind from the west.

A pretty decent tide, nearly low, and lots of shell and gravel, got us 11 sharks teeth, a drum tooth, a big crab claw, and . . .  

A picture that was intended to show off a small, worn crocodile tooth (the first complete one of the year) really ended up showing how clear the water is.

Beach Report 10/16/22 - Crocosaurus Rex

Another gorgeous fall day here. Sunny, mid 60s, not windy. We had a great low tide, with lots of shell hash and gravel.

Unfortunately we didn't find very many shark's teeth. 

I did get lucky enough to find the Crocodile tooth of the year, possibly our largest ever, a full 1.75 inches long, very robust, and in pretty good shape, with the hollow underneath still packed with clay. When I spotted it, it was a thin dark circle in the sand; the tip was pointed down.

Poop on the Bay News

It was 22-24 F out all day, and blowing 20+ kts out of the the north. A terrible day to try to walk on the beach. so I looked at the Bay news feed for inspiration, and low and behold, at Chesapeake Bay Mag, Prehistoric Fossilized Poop Found at Calvert Cliffs.

The Calvert Marine Museum is studying a surprising aspect of the fossil record: prehistoric poop left behind more than eight million years ago along Calvert Cliffs in southern Maryland.

The findings just published in an international paleontology journal are unprecedented—but also a little stomach-turning. Put down your sandwich before you read on…

Paleontologists from Calvert Marine Museum (CMM) and the University of Pisa in Italy have together studied two key findings from the Miocene epoch.

First is the fossilized skull of a stargazer fish that was probably scavenged by worms on the ocean floor after the fish died. It appears that while feeding, the worms left behind tiny fecal pellets known as micro-coprolites. According to CMM, this is “the first skull known in the fossil record to be infilled with feces.”

Stargazer skull with microcoprolites

The second finding is a set of prehistoric crocodile droppings, larger coprolites. These had been tunneled into by some kind of unidentified poop-eating animal on the ocean floor. While the study authors don’t know exactly which animal was feeding on the feces, they note that this practice helped recycle nutrients present in the poop. If this recycling hadn’t been taking place, “the ocean floor would have been buried deep in droppings,” CMM notes.

How did these feces, created between eight and 18 million years ago, survive to be found in modern southern Maryland? They were preserved in sediments laid down over millions of years on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean when it covered this area. The fossils have been found by amateur and professional paleontologists in and around Calvert Cliffs. Don’t worry, the marine museum says these fossils don’t have that distinctive fecal odor; Mineral replacement has removed the organic materials that produce such a smell.

CMM is leaning into these important recent discoveries with a new celebration: Universal Coprolite Day, which will be marked on Feb. 22 starting in 2022 and every year going forward. The marine museum says in its announcement, “Universal Coprolite day is recognized to celebrate coprolites wherever they may form in the universe.”

On Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022, CMM will place activities and learning stations throughout the museum. Their Paleontology Collection has a wide range of coprolites, including shark and fish-bitten coprolites, a coprolite preserving the impression of a baby turtle shell, and partially-eaten coprolites, along with the recently discovered coprolite-filled skull mentioned above.

I am aware that there are fossil poops possible on our beach, but it's not something I've ever collected a lot of. To me, they look too much like the random concretions also found. I did stumble on one while we were excavating a whale skull up the beach a ways with folk from the museum, and other volunteers. Some one else took it, though. I do have a piece of what I think is a shark coprolite, though.

Beach Report 12/13/21

It was clear, and in the lower 50s when we reached the beach today. There was a 10 kt south wind that cooled us a bit on the open beach, but didn't make it through the cliffs.

At one point on the way back, Georgia stopped and called for me to catch up for a picture.

Certainly the largest crocodile tooth in a long time, and perhaps the biggest ever, a little more than 1.5 inches long. 

Beach Report 4/3/21

A nice, bright sunny day, the temperature around 45 F, but not a lot of wind, only about 5 knots from the south

A message left in the sand. Not the usual love message, but one I understand, just having received the second shot.

You can see it was a pretty low tide, and I did all right for fossils, 13 teeth, including two pretty nice Snaggletooths:

And a crocodile. . .

Beach Report 3/9/21: Short Sleeves!

A warming spell, and a west wind brought temperatures up into the mid 60s, and I opted for a T-shirt. I could have worn shorts. Maybe tomorrow.

It was so warm, Skye had to wade to cool off.

A gaggle of Canada Geese passing by. Although they are common in the area, we don't often see them out in the Bay like this.

Despite a high tide, we did OK for fossils; 26 shark's teeth, 2 fragodiles (fragments of crocodile teeth), 2 crab claws, a drum's tooth, and some misc. broken stingray plates. No Megs, though.