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Hi everyone, I'm buying some shark teeth from someone who hunted a bunch of them in Maryland - I would assume Calvert Cliffs. I'm looking for Isurus oxyrinchus - short-finned mako. Could anyone please confirm if 30 in this image is Isurus oxyrinchus? For reference, each square is 1.5" x 1.5". Also, is anyone able to identify 40? I would say Snaggletooth, but it doesn't appear to be serrated.

A few of the small shark teeth from today. Too many to take a pic of all. My favorite is the nurse.

Hello, I’m new to this forum but have enjoyed fossil collecting for quite some time. Just today my son and I went to Calvert Cliffs. While I didn’t do well with teeth, we found this which I was unable to identify. I was hoping someone might be able to give me an idea of what this might be. Thanks in advance for your time!

Hello again fossil gurus! I went to per state park again today and found over 80 shark teeth and shark tooth fragments! It was really great. I also found these three little bits which I thought were intriguing, particularly the middle one. Is it a bone fragment!? I apologize for the picture with my hand, but it was the one that seem to catch the texture inside the best. Any ideas on what the others are? They were all found near the waters edge. Thanks so much!

Hi all, I'm hoping some of the resident experts here can help confirm or correct my IDs of the three fossil shark teeth and what I believe is a cetacean lumbar vert shown in the pictures below. I found these recently on a beach along the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland (Miocene exposure). Thanks for your help! For the shark teeth, I believe the the two on the left are both Carcharodon hastalis (though am more confident in my ID for #1) while the one on the right is possibly Isurus oxyrinchus though may also be Carcharias sp. All three have worn roots so I realize that may complicate the IDs. See pictures further below for scale bars and labial and side views of these. From pictures online, I believe this is a cetacean lumbar vertebra. The "bumpy" surface in the two lefthand photos also signifies that the epiphysis is missing, and thus this came from a juvenile, correct? Is it possible to further identify this as from a particular species or genus? Thanks in advance for your help!

Hello from Maryland.

Found both of these teeth today while out on the Chesapeake Bay. Would’ve come from the Calvert formation. I’m believe the second tooth is a chunk of a small megalodon based on the serrations and root of it, first tooth I am not sure on. Both teeth are approximately 2 1/3 cm. Thank you!

I found a nice exposure of the Arundel Clay recently. For those who don't know, the Arundel is an early Cretaceous unit known for it's dinosaur, plant, and other fossils, and is the only source of early Cretaceous dinosaurs east of the Mississippi River. I've been hitting the sites a fair bit over the past several weeks, finding a lot of really nice lignified and fossil wood and even some leaf imprints, amber, and what might be the imprint of a piece of bone or shell in a lump of clay. However, I recently found this specimen which has perplexed me. To start off; I'm fairly certain these are fossils. I just can't tell what of. They look similar to petrified wood, however I have not seen such fossilization of the other wood fossils from this site (or elsewhere from this unit). It appears to be silicified/agatized. I know dinosaur remains have been claimed to have been found near this site, including pieces of a leg bone that the finder originally mistook for wood (I can't verify if that's true or not, however). The Arundel is also well known as a dinosaur bearing unit, however I haven't heard/seen of agatized remains from it. After a quick search online it is possible, and my specimen at least bears a superficial resemblance to pieces of agatized bone from the Morrison Formation. Unfortunately my piece is too weathered to really see any features typical of bone in cross section, like a "sponge texture" or "webbing." Along the edge of the piece there is a bumpy, almost crystalline (for lack of a better word) texture, but nothing specific. I've included an image of a typical fossil wood specimen from this locality to compare this piece with the fossil wood.

Some tiny teeth from Douglas Point, Maryland today.

Hello there! I live in southern Maryland, right outside of DC, and am excited to learn from everyone on this forum! I've always liked fossils but never thought of searching for them myself until a friend posted on facebook about her trip to Purse State Park. I had no idea it was there, so immediately took the family, excited about the chance to find a tooth or two and thinking the dino-loving toddlers would be thrilled. Of course the toddlers ended up being much more interested in playing in the sand, but I think i'm hooked. i can't wait to go again, and to other places. I look forward to learning more about how to identify things, good local places to search, and tips on how to search, particularly on the beaches (like, is it best to look under the water, the water's edge, or on the dry beach part? are the fossils usually on the top gravel layer, or should you dig below to the more sandy bits?).

Hello there fossil experts! I'm a total newbie and just went on my first fossil hunt --a couple hours at Purse State Park. I found a bunch (like 60!) shark teeth, mostly tiny but i'm still thrilled. But i also found some things that look like fossil shells, and one thing that looks like fossil scales, that i was hoping you could help me ID. The first picture is what looked to me like fossil shells, but are they? are there fossil shells at purse state park? most of the online discussion of finds there seems to be of teeth, rays, and mouth plates and doesn't mention shells so i wasn't sure. They were mostly found about halfway between the water's edge and the cliffs. the things in the second picture (with two large items) were found basically at the water's edge. Are these fossils? if so, what are they? i thought the one on the left sort of looked like underbelly scales. I also found two small mystery objects which are in picture 2, below the tape measure. Any ideas what these are? they are smooth and seem heavy. Thank you so much!

It's been awhile since I've posted...but the good news is that I've been able to make many trips to Calvert Cliffs since my last post. Yesterday was my most recent trip down. The predicted tide and swell forecast looked good and I had visions of megs dancing in my head during the 2.5 hour trip down. I arrived by 6am and after a nice nature walk I was beach-side by 6:30. The tide was high as it usually is during the summer, but it never really went down at low tide (~11:00). That being said, there was very little beach to search and not much being kicked up. However, it was great weather and I spent about 6 hours enjoying the Chesapeake Bay before I called it a day (I usually stay until 5:00ish, but with no beach to search I decided to skip the traffic jam on 695 that is inevitable between 4:00-7:00). I found about 50 small teeth, some bay glass, half a cookie, and saved a few fish & horse crabs. My find of the day and total trip maker is below. Besides some large (for the area) meg frags, it is my largest tooth to date. I couldn't believe it when I saw it sitting along the high tide line, and even forgot my phone in the water when I examined it after snapping a few pics and filming an uncovering video (thank goodness for waterproof cases). Anyway, below are a few pics as found, unearthed, and dried. Although I didn't score any megs, it was a great day to enjoy nature by myself without seeing another person other than a family on a boat that anchored and was enjoying the bay themselves. Any help on ID and scarcity would be great. I'm thinking either lower isurus oxyrinchus/desori (mako), carcharodon hastalis, or possibly carcharodon plicatilis. The exposed formations at this location are Calvert and Choptank, with possible wash from St. Marys.

Hi all, I was wondering if this is an otodus obliquus tooth? TIA

Hi all, I found this strange vertebra today in a small creek that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. If it's a fossil, it is from the Calvert Formation. It's unlike anything I've seen before, and certainly not a cetacean vert, so that begs the question: what is it? I have not done the burn test on it yet to confirm it as a fossil, but can anyone identify it based on morphology? I believe it to be from a large terrestrial animal, but I'd like an expert/experienced opinion. Thank you in advance!

I found this at Matoaka Beach (Miocene exposure) in Maryland the other day. Does this look like an osteoderm, or something else? Thanks for your help!

Hi all, I recently found the items below at Calvert Cliffs State Park (A-F) and Matoaka Beach (G-I) in Maryland (both Miocene exposures). Image scales are in inches. I'm not sure what these are. Could some or all of them be coprolites? If so, any ideas as to what kinds of animals they came from? Thanks for your help!

Can anyone I’d these teeth found at Purse State Park? Thank you!

Hi, new guy here. Sorry if this post is all wrong, but here goes. My Mom found this on a sandy beach on the Maryland side of the lower Potomac River. Is it a coprolite, a rock, or something else? Thanks.

Found in Purse SP, Maryland . Need help identifying

It's been a long while since I've posted on here. I haven't been able to collect much lately, but I recently went out to some new haunts and came back with some pretty intriguing stuff I'll hopefully get to follow up on later. I'll start off with an interesting discovery I've had recently. The outcrop exposes rocks stretching from the upper(?) Brallier Formation to the middle(?) Foreknobs Formation. Although I tried searching in the past for brittle star trace fossils, I was mostly unsuccessful in this regard, and over time my interest in it shifted to the much more fossiliferous beds of the Foreknobs (formerly Chemung) Formation. A couple of years ago I posted about finding a fish bone in a boulder next to the outcrop, as well as pointing out I found some potential teeth. Going over my posts, that finding intrigued me so I dug deeper into the presence (or lack thereof) of fish remains in the upper Devonian strata of the region. What I came up with was an 1887 report of the Genesee Shale from New York, an upper Devonian formation roughly analogous to the Scherr (and possibly the lower Foreknobs by the sound of it, it's all rather ambiguous) in Maryland. The authors noted multiple occurrences of fish bones and isolated teeth in sandstone and "fine pebble conglomerate"...similar in description to the rocks of my own outcrop. Coupled with the knowledge of possible fish remains I found previously I decided it'd be worth it to give the outcrop a more thorough look over, this time concentrating instead on the conglomerate facies and ignoring the shale. What I discovered has so far been fairly interesting. As I stated previously the outcrop exposes parts of the Brallier and Foreknobs Formations, including several dozen feet of shale and siltstone in the Foreknobs grading into upper siltstone and sandstone beds closer to the axis of the syncline. Towards the top of the exposed section of the Foreknobs is a bed several inches thick of hard, pebbly conglomerate. After some searching the silty shale above and below the bed is mostly unfossiliferous, although local profusions in brachiopods, crinoids, and other creatures are present. The conglomerate, however, is densely fossiliferous to the point that it forms a veritable coquina in parts running for several feet along the exposure. Because the conglomerate is so hard (made up of quartzose pebbles and sand), and the underlying and overlying beds made of much softer shale and silty rock, the conglomerate is poorly exposed outside of the exposure wall, forming something of a canopy between it and the less resistant layers. It is covered in part by a dense layer of talus from the overlying beds, likewise obscuring part of the exposure. Luckily, however, a few boulders have eroded out from the cut and are free on the ground to examine, and a few loose pieces weathered from the boulders are present around those. In these rocks I have found one chunk of blueish-white fish bone(?), and several possible tooth fragments. I recently examined the outcrop wall looking for more bone/teeth still present in the outcrop, and discovered part of a fish tooth(?) exposed slightly above one of the boulders, and similar looking black enamel(?) specks that could be fish derivatives. They are distinguished from the quartz pebbles by their shiny black appearance, whereas the quartz is mostly lighter gray and translucent. Is this a possible bone bed in the Foreknobs Formation? More scouting is of course needed, but there's a strong possibility in my opinion that, at the minimum, this conglomerate layer is a decent source of fragmentary Devonian fish remains. Note the blueish tint to the fossil. This possible bone fragment was found in a boulder of quartzose, pebbly conglomerate in the middle-upper Foreknobs Formation (Famennian). Note the associated fauna of crinoid and brachiopod fragments. Crinoid stem fragments in particular are extremely common, comprising a large part of the conglomerate "pebbles." This boulder is derived from a layer above a Cyrtospirifer disjunctus bearing shale, indicating it's Chemung age.

I’m thinking this is modern. Anyone know what this is from? 5 mm across

Hi, friends! First time poster here. We found this interesting one at Purse Beach, Maryland. Any thoughts. Thanks! PurdyFamilyFossils ... and please forgive my lack of professional photography skills.

Hello everyone, I have just joined the forum in hopes of learning more about fossil hunting in MD. I am looking for any points related to the Frederick County formations. I had reviewed the geological maps and some info in the history of the site but would like to know if anyone could be generous enough to help a newbie find a good starting point so that I can get my children more involved. I have been to the typical Southern MD shark beaches and would like to try another region. Any help on the area near Emmittsburg or others in that area would be greatly appreciated. Chris

Some miscellaneous fossils. Teeth are from Flag pond, MD. Vertebrae (10 mm) is from Douglas Point, MD.

Fish or reptile? Douglas Point, MD. 8 mm