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Water was high today, but just like this tree, I didn’t give up. Not as many teeth as I usually get. I get distracted. My first tooth of this type.
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Went out to Douglas Point (Potomac River, MD, Paleocene, Aquia Formation) on June 5th, first time taking the kids and we had a great time. Found a lot of sand tiger teeth as is typical. But this one has me a little stumped. The crown seems too wide at the base to be a sand tiger tooth. Could it be a small or juvenile Otodus? Or is it some kind of sand tiger after all?
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Live in Southern Maryland. Found this in creek feeding to the Patuxent River. Have no idea if it’s a plant or tooth or tusk of some kind. Also have found many Miocene shark teeth, a wild boar skull from the 1500s, and arrow heads. Thanks for the help
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I found the small bone below yesterday while out at Douglas Point in Maryland, which exposes the Aquia Formation (Paleocene - Thanetian). It has the look and feel of fossilized bones from the area and it passed the burn test, so I'm fairly sure it's a fossil. This is the most complete bone I've found at this site. Any ideas what it might be from? Side 1: Side 2: Side 3: Side 4: Ends:
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I went out to Douglas Point (Paleocene, Aquia Formation) in Maryland yesterday to see what fossils the recent rains helped bring out. I tried last weekend as well, but I didn't find a ton as it was too close to the storms and the Potomac River was running choppy and high with little beach exposed, even at low tide. Yesterday the water was calmer and lower and I had a more successful hunt. It's definitely the time of year for snakes! (They're almost all non-venomous around here.) I encountered this one a few minutes into my hunt and saw four others throughout the day. This is the most complete bone I've found from the Potomac. I'm fairly certain it's fossilized though I haven't subjected it to the burn test yet. If it passes, I'll post it separately for ID. I found a half dozen or so small shark/ray and bony fish verts. My first Otodus of the day: I've found Pachygaleus lefevrei teeth while hunting micro matrix at home, but given their size it's rare for me to find them beach-combing. I was low to the ground when I spotted this one with just its root sticking out of the sand. The tooth's in pretty good shape, and I was quite happy to find it. I also found a couple of small angel shark teeth yesterday. Sadly, not all Otodus are found intact. This is my favorite find of the day -- tentatively IDed as a first or second upper anterior from a juvenile Otodus. Another nice Otodus: This is my second Ostracion sp. dermal plate and the first I've found in the field. I previously found a small fragment of one while searching through matrix at home. Here's an extremely worn tooth with almost all of its enamel peeled away. From the size and shape, it's most likely an Otodus. A better one: Here are a couple of photos to give a sense for what it's like to explore this location. Now that the leaves are fully out, it's a bit more challenging to hunt the shoreline in places. There were some nice exposed gravel beds yesterday, though not as fossil dense as they sometimes are or as I'd expected. A box turtle (thought you might like this one @Tidgy's Dad): My largest vert of the day (about a half inch in diameter), though quite water worn: And finally, a group shot of some of my best finds of the day: Thanks for looking!
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I found this perfect little tooth today along the Potomac River in Maryland (Paleocene, Aquia Formation), which I think may be an Otodus obliquus parasymphyseal. The root isn't as oversized as megatooth shark parasymphyseals I've seen posted elsewhere on the forum, but it sure looks like an Otodus, is laterally compressed, and is quite tiny compared to other Otodus I've found. @MarcoSr, @siteseer, @Al Dente, and others, what do you think? This tooth bears similarities to another I found from this location several weeks ago (tooth on the right below).
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This one comes from a friend. He found this on a piece of sandstone that had fallen from an outcrop. With his GPS coordinates, it’s close to the border of the Greenbriar and the Mauch Chunk Formation. It looks like a modern mammal track to me, with 4 toe pads and a central pad. But I’ve identified 0 fossil animal tracks so far, so it might just be a strange arrangement of shapes. Mammals doesn’t fit, as it’s 100 million years too early. Synapsids are officially 10 million years out. So I’m at a loss. Anyone good with tracks?
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I went shark tooth hunting on the 8th of May. When I got to the shore, I decided to fill a ziplock bag with the sand and shells to take home and search for small fossils later. I’ve never done it and was curious in what I would find.
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Thought this might be a tiny piece of a fish mouth plate.
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Fossil Hunt 3/14 21 and 5/8/21 - Glad to be back
FossilsAnonymous posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
It's been a long while since I've had the opportunity to go hunting - indeed, trips have been far and few between. But the few I have had have been lucrative. There's been quite a bit of new material, ending up with some new finds (for me, at least.) One of these was a complete ray mouth plate. A couple Otodus jumped into my hands as well, including this perfect one, about an inch. The wildlife was out in full, including a dog that must have been born into the hobby Thanks, FA
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Two separate trips (Stratford hall and Douglas Point)
Fossil_Adult posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
I hit the Potomac yesterday after a long hiatus for some Paleocene sharks teeth. I also decided to include a few of my finds from the recent Stratford hall trip, which was pretty decent. I always go to Douglas point for my Paleocene teeth because it’s just a good area and I almost always come back with a complete otodus. This time, that didn’t happen, though I did find a few broketodus teeth so meh. But I did come back with some good stuff, including a monster croc tooth, and a gigantic goblin sharks tooth. I also got a fish jaw with a lot of teeth in it and some other nice stuff, in addition to what I think is either a tortoise or turtle leg spur, which I thought was a large worntodus on first glance. On the Stratford trip, I got some cool Snaggles (not pictured below) some makos, and a drum fish jaw with two teeth on the side that came right out the clay. 6 people walked right by it! Plain as day I don’t even know how they could not have spotted it the thing was very obviously exposed! Anyways, here’s all the spoils.
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Hi Everyone, I'm very excited to have found and have an opportunity to post on this forum. The rock with a potential fossil was found by my six year old son while we were hiking along a riverbed (Paint Branch watershed) within greater Silver Spring, Maryland area. The rock was in a shallow stream. My son was pulling me by the sleeve to show me a "fox track". He loves nature and always draws my attention to various tracks and animal bones on the ground so I didn't think much of it at first until I realized this time the track was in stone instead of the usual sand/mud. I'm wondering if it could be an early mammal, a small dinosaur track, or some other type of fossil? I attached several photos that I hope are helpful and show the rock with the potential footprint/track form various distances. One of the photos is showing the size (about 1.5 inches or 3.8 cm long), and one is a close-up showing what seems like a "thumb" imprint with a claw and even something that looks like a thenar/pad area of the bottom of hand/foot. The bottom of each of the "toes" appears rounded, as one would see on animal tracks- this cannot be seen in the photos. Any help is greatly appreciated.
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I made a trip out to Douglas Point today and had one of those incredible fossil days that just makes you want to head out over and over again. There were two cars in the lot already when I arrived early this morning but their occupants must have been up to something else because I never saw them and I had the beach all to myself for most of the day. It was a chilly but beautiful morning on the banks of the Potomac. There's just no better sight at Douglas Point than a nice Otodus obliquus tooth waiting for you in the sand. And that wasn't the only one -- as it says in the thread title, today was an Otodus kind of day. #3 #4 #5 Yep, still going -- #6, which was in the best shape: And finally, lucky #7, which I found on somewhat higher and drier ground: I didn't only find Otodus today. There were also quite a few nice and sharp sand tigers. I often find large Striatolamia striata roots with broken crowns. But this one was complete! It doesn't hit the magical 2-inch mark, but at 1.7 inches, it is my largest sand tiger find to date. You can't tell in the photo, but the blade is sharp and the tooth is in quite good condition. I found another tooth that at 1.5 inches is also quite large, though this one's more river worn. Beyond shark teeth, I found a nice ray plate. There were also beautiful butterflies. All in all, it was a rather splendid day!
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Galeocerdo aduncus/Physogaleus contortus artificial tooth set
bthemoose posted a topic in Member Collections
Below is my third artificial tooth set for an extinct shark, this time for the Maryland Miocene tiger/tiger-like shark(s) Galeocerdo aduncus/Physogaleus contortus. This adds to the artificial tooth sets I previously constructed for Striatolamia striata and Hemipristis serra. For this tooth set, I’ve presented G. aduncus and P. contortus as the same species, with the former contributing the upper and the latter the lower teeth in the dentition. The possibility that these species are the same is further discussed in a recent topic started by @WhodamanHD here; I relied on Applegate’s construction posted by @Al Dente in that thread as my model. In addition to being an interesting proposal, I don’t have the teeth to make a full G. aduncus or full P. contortus dentition (if they are separate species), so the combined approach was borne out of necessity! The largest teeth below measure about 7/8” on the slant. I haven’t yet found an upper symphyseal for G. aduncus so there’s a placeholder for that tooth in my set for now. These teeth were collected by me from Matoaka Beach over the last year or so. The full tooth set: Quadrants: Final with labels:
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Douglas Point (Nanjemoy, MD) is as much fun as everyone says it is.
0sprey posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Took my first trip to Douglas Point with a couple of (equally amateur) friends, and while I didn't find anything rare or unusual it was a beautiful day and we had a great time. There was a family there with 3 little kids who had no idea it was a fossil site, the parents asked what we were all bent over looking for so I (safely, at a distance) gave the kids each a tooth and explained to them what to look for. The kids absolutely lost their minds, they were finding their own teeth in minutes. Half an hour later when the parents told them to pack up to leave the kids got very upset and insisted that they had to stay and find more shark teeth. I think I created several monsters haha. I found nearly 200 shark teeth in all, if you include the junky little fragments, plus some ray plate fragments, some gastropod molds, and a crocodile tooth. Here's a photo of some of the better-looking shark teeth.
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Following up on the artificial tooth set I recently constructed for the Paleocene sand tiger shark Striatolamia striata, I decided to see if I could put one together for the Miocene snaggletooth, Hemipristis serra, using teeth I've collected along the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. I haven't found a great resource for an H. serra dentition, but I consulted a few different sources to get a sense for the arrangement, including Fossilguy.com, J-elasmo (which has a dentition for the extant H. elongata), and various TFF threads. The resulting tooth set is below. While I've found quite a few H. serra teeth, their abundance from the cliffs isn't anywhere near that of S. striata from the Potomac River, so this one was a bit more challenging to construct. In addition to several fairly worn teeth in my set, some that I've slotted into various jaw positions are likely a bit more fanciful than the last one. The best extreme posteriors I've collected are proportionally too large, so I also had to use less good substitutes for those positions. The largest teeth below are about 1.25" inches in length. Most of these were collected from Matoaka Beach over the last year, but I found a few of them from Brownie's Beach and Calvert Cliffs State Park. The full tooth set: Quadrants: Finally, here are some better examples of extreme posterior teeth. Both of these are a tad over 0.7" long.
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Day started out foggy, but eventually got better.
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I was going through my unknown fossil bits and thought this looked like the main cusp of a cow shark (Paleocene). My problem is....I can’t remember if I found this at Douglas Point or at flag pond (this is my only fossil that got mixed up)
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Shark teeth from Paleocene Aquia Formation at Douglas Point, Potomac River, Maryland
traveltip1 posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
This riker mount displays the best shark teeth that I collected on 3 hunts sifting at Douglas Point beach, Charles County, Maryland. This is the Paleocene Aquia Formation. Bottom row contains several Odotus teeth. There are many goblin shark Anomotodon and sand tiger shark Carcharias. Also appears to be one pygmy white shark Paleocarcharodon in lower left corner.
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I was able to get out to Purse State Park this morning for a Maryland Paleocene (Aquia Formation) hunt. I usually prefer the nearby Douglas Point when I hit the Potomac River but I decided to give Purse a try as I haven't been to that stretch in a while. I was the second car in the lot but first on the beach, which is always the best way to start the fossil day. My first good find--a croc tooth, though the enamel is very worn: Followed by an Otodus -- also quite worn but a decent size for the site (approx. 1.25"): It really turned into a gorgeous day! Can you spot the bald eagle? My find of the day: I've been finding ratfish material on most trips lately, but just small fragments. This is my first mostly complete tooth plate. Something interesting in the water... Multiple Otoduses always makes for a very good day. Like the other one (and all of my shark teeth today), this one's river worn. A good sized croc tooth: I did a fair amount of walking and exploring along the shoreline and didn't see too many people along the way, but the entrance to the beach was quite packed by the time I headed for the exit. Thanks for reading!
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I've wanted to put together an artificial tooth set of Striatolamia striata from the Aquia Formation in Maryland for a while given the abundance of that species in the formation. Until recently, though, I was missing a lot of the less commonly collected tooth positions--extreme posteriors, intermediates, and first lower anteriors. After searching through several gallons of Potomac River gravels over the last couple of months, I finally filled in the gaps. I put together the tooth set below a few days ago and just finished mounting them in a riker box I received in the mail yesterday. I used the Striatolamia macrota artificial tooth set on elasmo.com as my guide. I'm sure some of the teeth in my reconstruction are out of place, including some of the upper or lower teeth possibly being from the opposite jaw instead. I couldn't properly size match the intermediates and first lower anteriors, but can always swap in replacements if I find them. One of the extreme posteriors is also reversed in the display (labial side showing rather than lingual like the rest) as I'm still missing a tooth from that position. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the result. This is my first artificial tooth set, and it was a fun project that taught me a lot about tooth positions! Here's the full tooth set -- the largest teeth in the display are just over an inch long: Left and right sides: Quadrants: The final riker display:
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Crowded beach, but I still hunted a little.
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I went out to Douglas Point (Paleocene, Aquia Formation) in Maryland yesterday and found a couple of unusual shark teeth. The tooth on the left is about 1.5 cm long and I'm pretty sure is a pathological Striatolamia striata. The tooth on the right looks a bit like an Otodus obliquus or Cretalamna appendiculata to me. Since it's only 1 cm long, Cretalamna might be the better guess. I'd appreciate any thoughts on the IDs. Thanks! Here are some more views of the sand tiger on the left. The root is both relatively large and very flat. It appears to be chipped in a couple of spots as marked in the top middle photo below. There is a small cusplet on one side but not on the other. This is perhaps the most peculiar-looking tooth I've found. And here are more views of the "Otodus/Cretalamna". The blade is a bit wavy and might perhaps be pathological too.
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Had a couple hours free today, so I had to get out.
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