Of Giant Sloth Turds and Ammonite Bites

My friends Jon Marsh and Patsy Dow availed ourselves of the "museum free Tuesday" deal at Balboa Park in San Diego, CA, to enjoy the Natural History Museum. Below are the high points for me.

Note: below are some other posts relating to this visit to San Diego.

My Last Night Into Morning At Bannister House
No Whaley House Wailing
Sitting Pat In Petco Park
Snakebitten by Mojave Green

I love banyan trees. 

San Diego Museum of Natural History. 

The museum is in Balboa Park so plants figure prominently. 

Megalodon manikin.

Petrified wood is one of my favorite mineral items of interest. 

The fossil sample above seen being removed from its discovery site.

My friends Jon & Patsy. 

Mastodon skeleton

Mastodon mouth parts and tusks.

Finding one of these is on my bucket list,

Giant ground sloth

This cave is in Mojave County, Arizona, to which I'm well-aquainted and it contains awesome extinct sloth poops.

Fossilized extinct giant ground sloth coprolite.

I LOVE fossilized whale bone as much as petrified wood. 

Fossilized walrus skulls and tusks.

I LOVE megalodon teeth!

I was surprised to discover that the infamous Don Wobber nephrite jade boulder "Big Thumper" erroneously declared the largest jade boulder ever extracted from the Big Sur Coast of Central California (retrieved in 1969) was not only here but now owned by the CFMS.

I love slickenslided surfaces!

Orbicular gabbro which is a new thing to me... this from San Diego County. 

         

Twenty-eight million year-old carnivorous goat-like Oreodont skeleton from Carlsbad, CA. 

Twenty-nine million year-old cat-like Nimravid skull from John Day Fossil Beds, OR. 

Forty million year-old rhino-like Brontothere skull.

Forty-three million year-old tortoise carapace from El Cajon, CA. 

Not sure if this is authentic or a mock-up but it shows the K-T Boundary (End Cretaceous Boundary) caused by the Chicxulub Impact and the Deccan Traps flood basalt event at the same time in geologic history. This is from Sussex, WY, or is a model of material from there. 

The ammonites and the ones below are all 75 million years old and were found in Carlsbad, CA. 

I LOVE ammonites!

I love it when a fossil does this: notice what I'm talking about?

THIS! (secondary crystalization within the chambers of the chambered mollusk fossil. 

Whom, I wonder what bit this puncture holes in this ammonite?

Oh this did it! I'm not certain but I do believe that is a mosasaur skeleton on the attack. 

This 500,000 year-old fossilized Colombian Mammoth was discovered in 2009 in downtown San Diego in a construction project. 

I found these modern turtle and tortoise skull collection most intriguing. 

The layout and architecture of this museum is most pleasing to the eye.
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).