Search the Community

If you are planning to go to Summerville, SC for your first time, and have been hoping to find Shark Teeth, please read this. My Advice: · I advise only going if you know someone with known locations, or otherwise plan to hire a company or a guide (I do not have someone to recommend). Finding teeth on your own is quite difficult. My hunt: I got lucky this time on a 3-day trip. After having visited Summerville years before with my son to great success, we went through over 25 spots (August 2023) with only two teeth found. We were discouraged. Luckily, we found one location that netted us the teeth shown as a last-minute discovery at the end of day 2. We returned on day 3 after morning rain. Our goal was to find a Megalodon tooth (even broken) of 3" or more, which we were successful!! If it wasn’t for that one spot, the trip would have been disastrous. Unfortunately, the spot that we found will soon have a structure over it so I cannot say this opportunity exists for the future. What didn’t work on my trip? · My known, secret spots didn’t have shark teeth this time. · I had researched fossil formation areas, inland tides, and elevation maps; yet the locations we visited didn’t have shark teeth. We found the right layers, but not teeth (even with low creek flows). What has changed in Summerville? I believe: · Inability to use tools is impactful (there is a law against it). · I believe the hurricane years ago exposed quite a bit of fossils, but since then the volume of fossils are not being exposed quickly. I should have realized there have been a lack of YouTube postings over the past few years. If you go to the Beach without a guide/company: · Going during the day, even at low tide, has too many tourists looking for fossils. We made this mistake. · Go first thing in the morning for better odds. · Go after a storm. · Find a location away from tourists. We are pleased with the results in the images below. I hope this information is useful. Thank you

It was crazy hot, and humid today. I could only stand it, for a little while. I kept these; and I donated the rest to a 69 year old, first time fossil hunter. The white bone, is modern.

Greetings everyone, I have finally had a chance to sort through my Aquia Formation material and to put proper labels to these specimens. Although I have hunted at Purse State Park and Douglas Point several times, I have not done much in the way of identifying specimens and am quite new when it comes to this area. Responses to a previous post in which I sought identification of some specimens has been quite helpful, and hopefully my tentative identifications of this batch are more accurate than before. All specimens came from the Douglas Point area and I have used Elasmo as my primary reference for tentative shark tooth identification. I extend my gratitude to all who view this post and help with pinpointing accurate IDs for these pieces! I will tag a few members who are knowledgeable in this area: @MarcoSr @Al Dente @bthemoose @cck @Bjohn170. A Specimens: All of the specimens pictured above, which for convenience I will refer to as '1a-49a', seem to be Striatolamia sp. If sharper images are needed or if photographs of individual specimens would be helpful, I would be glad to provide some. B Specimens: I cannot say for sure what these teeth belong to. They - or some of them - could very well be Striatolamia sp., but I felt inclined to tentatively label them as Hypotodus verticalis. C Specimens: These all appear to be myliobatid dental plates. Can a more specific identification be given for any of the above specimens or should they simply be labeled as myliobatid? D Specimens: 1c and 3c very closely resemble crocodilian teeth and I have placed 2c along with the others due to the striations on its surface. I have heard that Eosuchus minor is known from the Aquia Formation along with another species of crocodile. Are there any diagnostic characteristics that would allow these teeth to be attributed to a specific crocodilian? Specimen E: This tooth looked quite different from any others that I have included in previous photographs. I have tentatively identified specimen E as Odontaspis winkleri due to the double cusps but I have a low level of confidence in this ID. Specimen F: Appears to be either a ray or chimera fin spine. I recall having come across a post in which @MarcoSr identified a similar specimen as pertaining to a ray rather than a chimera. Specimen G: A possible bony fish element? I do not know if a more specific identification can be given. Specimen H: Pyconodont fish mouth plate? Specimen I: A very small yet curious piece that I found while sifting with a very fine screen. I am unsure whether this is a fossil or whether it is simply a geologic oddity. Specimen J: Fish jaw section?

Found these (and much more) in a Peace River trip. I’m relatively new to fossil hunting, and would greatly appreciate any help in IDing these. The last 2 pictures are the same but at different angles. Best guess for those are, starting at top left and going clockwise, vertebra, dolphin ear bone, deer tooth, alligator tooth,???. Thanks!

All found during a shark tooth hunting trip in Venice, FL. New to fossil hunting and would really appreciate any identification help. Last 2 pictures are the same but at different angles. Thanks!

The past couple trips to Ramanessin for shark teeth have been quite productive for the month of July, likely because of all the rain we've been getting. Note: these photos are not in any particular order. I started off grouping teeth by shared characteristics but quickly realized that 1) I do not know nearly enough to accurately identify these teeth 2) holy cow, there are so MANY of them and 3) it started raining outside while I was taking pics. I tried to include a couple close ups. Please let me know if you'd like a closer look at any specific tooth. Constructive criticism and commentary is very much welcomed and appreciated! Here we go, RAMANESSIN BROOK The same teeth are shown below in better quality but without the ruler for scale: Close ups of some teeth: Pile of teeth because I got frustrated and rained on while sorting And last but not least, ALL of my smaller tooth findings:

I am visiting the area for the next couple days. What are the best areas to find shark teeth? I have access to a private beach in the Western run area which is right up the road from Calvert Cliffs. I have limited time so I want to make sure I hit the right spots over the next couple of days. I’m very new at this and don’t really know what I’m doing. Any assistance would be greatly appreciate it. Signed hopeless

My 15-year-old daughter and I dove Venice, FLA, on the 28 and 29 of March, and here’s our 2 day haul (6 dives). We had a great time. Some of the dugong ribs have possible bite marks as well. Doing it again in September!

Length <1" Since the locality contains lag deposits from Cretaceous-Neogene, age & formation undetermined. Hard to see in pics, but the lingual region is very concave and root highly arched.

Found these teeth and am wondering what they are. Found in a creek an hour south of Mandan ND in the cannonball formation

Hi there, I live about an hour and a half north of Venice beach in FL, so I went yesterday for the first time after perusing the forums and getting to know how to find fossils, tips, tricks and identifiers. I am very new to this, but have always had an interest in rocks, fossils, wildlife, etc. I found a good amount of teeth, mostly broken or pieces, but I did manage to find a whole tooth and it was a very cool feeling to pull it out of the shells and sand and see the beauty there! I'll never forget that feeling~ Since I obviously loved it, I decided to make an account and actually be a part of the community instead of lurking, so hi there!

Here are my finds. Some may or may not be shark teeth due to being so eroded they simply had the shape, but it was still a really fun haul and if anyone knows what the larger one is, I'd be thankful. We saw it looked similar to Bull? No serrations, so hard to tell.

I received a handful of shark teeth from an older local gentleman's collection who told me they were from Baja near the Sea of Cortes between Santa Barbara and Lorentz. I assume they are great white teeth, but I'm hoping for a better geological context if possible (age and formation/group ideally, even if just suspected). I've done some research, but haven't turned up much. I saw a reference to the El Cien Fm, but am hoping for some input from others who have far greater knowledge than I do. Along with the teeth came a small chunk of bone that also came from around the same area. Input on what it is or might have come from would also be appreciated. The largest tooth is 2 and 6/16ths in and the smallest is 2 1/16th in. The bone is 3 3/16ths in long and 1 2/16ths in wide.

I have been to Westmoreland state park and found 4 shark teeth for the first time. So today, closer to home was Chippokes State Park. I was told it was good for shark teeth but I found NOTHING. No sea glass, good shells or teeth at all. I was on the beach (newbie my second trip hunting ever); and a woman came up to me and said she was searching for teeth but found nothing but whale bone. Showed me a piece and so I did get some of those... but I have NO CLUE if that's legit. I mean when I googled whale bone, they looked different. In addition, how do you know a whale bone piece from a shark, dolphin or whatever animal????? I'm going to attach two photos (one of the front and one of the back). ARE these whale bone pieces? Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi there! I have a chance to purchase Indonesian Megalodon teeth wholesale, but I want to make sure they are real first. Of course the seller says they are. The teeth are 10-13cm and seem to be in excellent condition, which is what draws my skepticism. Pictures are attached. Any info/informed opinions are greatly appreciated. Let me know if you need any other info. Thank you!

Hi! I just returned home from the Venice Beach area in Florida and I was curious if anyone one could tell me what these broken fragments could have been. I’m a newbie here so any other recommendations on how to identify are welcomed thanks in advance

Hello all! I've been getting ready for the Aurora Fossil Festival (and working on my new display cabinet), and have been going back through my Holden Beach finds. I wanted to share a compilation of my visits to Holden Beach, North Carolina from 2022 to 2023. I have gone 5 times since the replenishment project occurred there: April 2022, twice in October 2022, February 2023, and April 2023. While I was mostly picking up the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids, I found a little bit of everything out there. There was so much that I couldn't include everything, so I stuck with the best of my finds. It's truly amazing what all can be found washing out down there! I am still fairly new to fossils in general, and I'm far from confident in my ability to I.D. a lot of things. That being said, I have tried my best to identify what I could. Any corrections or advice is more than appreciated! I can also take additional pictures if anyone wants a better look at anything here. Here are all my sharks teeth. I am not great with the I.D.s on all of these, but I do know the names to a few varieties. I have tried to group them together by what little I know, and by appearance if I'm unsure. Lots of great white and crow shark teeth were to be found. April 2022, October 2022 and February 2023: This one in particular is my favorite shark find of 2022. It's the largest Great White tooth I've found, and aside from a small chip off of the side and the tip it's in really good shape. It's right at 6 cm (2.36 Inches) long, but I have no doubt it would have been longer with the tip undamaged. (April 2022) April 2023: A modern Sand Tiger tooth snuck in as well. Now for my absolute favorite tooth, my only mostly intact Megalodon tooth that I've found to date. This one is right at 9.52 cm (3.75 Inches) long in it's current condition. (April 2023) On to my Hardouinia mortonis, this is a group photo of my best finds from all trips. The Holden Beach ones get fairly large compared to some of the quarry finds I've seen! I have several well over 5 cm (~2 Inches) in diameter. These are specimens with minor pathologies. The apical disc sometimes is "dented" on these specimens, and I've found a few with "peanut" shaped petals. (Various trips) This is a specimen with a more moderate pathology. the whole shape is unusual, and one petal is turned at about a 20-30 degree angle towards the posterior. (February 2022) These are some of my current "project" echinoids. Due to being found on the beach, they tend to be saturated with salt. while I try to manually remove some matrix periodically I give them a good soak in water for a few days, then leave them out to dry and see if salt crystals are still forming. Sometimes it takes a few tries to completely rid the salt. This batch has some Hardouinia mortonis of some pretty varied shape. (Various trips) These are mostly Mosasaur teeth, though there may be a few crocodilian teeth snuck in there as well. I'm not exactly sure which species of mosasaur these are, there are some distinctly different shapes to some of them. (Various trips) I found plenty of Mosasaur teeth without roots, but only one root without a tooth! The kind folks at Aurora helped me identify this, I wasn't sure what it was. (April 2022) I never got this one identified, but it's definitely a piece of some jaw with a tooth root. Perhaps also Mosasaur, but I'm not sure. (April 2022) Of course there was also plenty of Exogyra to go around, and way too many to photograph! This is a small cluster of them in the matrix, and the largest intact specimen I found, at around 10 cm (~4 Inches) long. (Cluster from April 2022, large one from October 2022) (*EDIT 6-18-23 with proper I.D.) These are Cretaceous Prehepatus harrisi crab claws. All but one came from the April 2022 trip (the darker is from February 2023). These are Pleistocene Equus teeth I found in April 2022. There was a much smaller fourth fragment as well I didn't photograph. This is one of my favorite finds: a Pleistocene Odocoileus antler fragment. It resembles a modern White-Tailed Deer antler fragment! (April 2022) A very large bone fragment from April 2022. Not sure what from, almost looks like a vertebra. Around 9 cm (3.54 Inches) long. A Rhombodus binkhorsti tooth, my only one found. (April 2022) Other Ray teeth and barbs (Various trips) My first and only Pycnodont mouth plate fragment (April 2023). Some sizable shark vertebrae. (Various trips) Some Sawfish rostral teeth and a few select Enchodus fangs / jaw fragments. (Various trips) Some Sea Robin skull plates. (Various trips) Some turtle carapace fragments, and possibly a Crocodilia Dermal Scute (Various trips for the turtle fragments, April 2023 on the scute) This is an interesting bone fragment that, according to the folks at Aurora, might have signs of a shark attack or feeding due to the triangular groove on it. (April 2022) Plenty of steinkerns to pick up! (Various trips) While I found a few isolated casts of ammonite chambers, this is by far the largest and best one. I'm not exactly sure what species, but after reading my NCFC book I'm leaning towards Sphenodiscus lobatus. (October 2022) Unknown vertebra, pretty heavily worn. About 4 cm (1.57 Inches) long. (April 2023) My Sirenia vertebra. (Thank you @Boesse for helping me confirm this!) (April 2023) The folks at Aurora have said this is likely a young Mastodon molar fragment. I've seen even smaller fragments with a similar shine and color that might also be some kind of Proboscidea tooth fragment. (April 2022) A fragment of some unknown echinoid. It doesn't resemble Hardouinia to me, it almost looks more like a fragment from something in the Spatangoida Order. I'm not 100% sure on it though. I wish there was more of it to look at! (April 2023) And last but not least, a couple of Sirenian rib fragments. (April 2022) Bonus pic: These are my favorite Hardouinia mortonis specimens. I had someone at work etch me out the plaque on a laser.

Took a trip down to the Calvert Cliffs with the Buffalo Geological Society last weekend for some fossil hunting. It was my first time ever hunting at this location and I would call it a success. I can see why this location is such a popular spot, great beaches along the Chesapeake and beautiful weather made this one of the most scenic fossil hunting locations I've ever been at. The first day was Flag Ponds, which is where most people had better luck finding good sized shark teeth during low tide conditions. I found a small fragment of a Meg here, which was exciting. The second day was Matoaka Cabins, which was where much better invertebrate shells could be found. I took a walk a bit past a recent cliff failure and ended up having a lot of success finding teeth during high tide by churning up the sand and letting the waves wash it out. After I got a system down in the afternoon, this method yielded me a tooth every 5 to 10 minutes. I also filled a 3gal bucket with gravel deposits from the low tide to bring home and sift, I would not do this again as I only found a few teeth from this bucket. Looking forward to the next time I can get back. Total finds. Everything above the coral is from Matoaka, everything below the coral is from Flag Ponds Dolphin ear bone, probably my favorite find of the trip. Awesome preservation from what I have seen Some of the best teeth Some of the better ray fossils Crab claws Bones

A trip report from a busy week that started with combing through some drilling cores of the Rochester Shale that were being dumped from an old project. No major finds, which was what I expected. I did happen to find a nice Dalmanities pygidium and a few brachiopods that look neat. This weekend I was down in NJ visiting family and took a stop to Big Brook on Saturday. Thank you to a kind member of this forum for giving me hunting advice. Saturday was very rainy, but the rainwater washing the sand off the gravel bar was helpful in my search. I am not familiar with a lot of these fossils, I have tried my best to use online resources to ID what I have. Finally, this week I am in the southern tier near Olean and working near a stream that is on private property. The stream is loaded with brachiopod fossils, hoping to grab a nice piece that hasn't been weathered and stained. A lot of pictures below, ID help is greatly appreciated. 1. Rochester Shale cores drying, revealing some weaker fractures. Finds from Big Brook: I tried to organize these from left to right for ID help 2. Vert and turtle shell piece? 3. I tried to put everything small I did not know in this picture. First tooth in row 2 and the last tooth in row 4 are ones that I am especially having trouble with. Each item here has some feature that is telling me that it is more than just a rock, but I could be wrong. 4. Best teeth that I found, very happy with these. 5. Hoping row one is coprolite. Row two could be other bone pieces? 6. Ray teeth, sawfish and other unknowns 7. Bones? 8. Bone looking r ock? 9. Crab claw and a few other unknowns. No serrations or teeth-like features on these unknowns. 10. Concretions? Southern Tier Field Pic 11. According to maps I am in the Late Devonian, Conneaut Group. Someone told me small sea stars can be found in this similar looking southern tier fossilized strata. Not going to hold my breath.

Newbie here, to the forum and fossil hunting. I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and have a couple spots within an hours drive, however so far have only visited Big Brook on a few different occasions with my family over the past month. Definitely addicted! Thought I would share some of my finds. All are fairly common, but totally amazing to me. Not sure on the ID of a few of them, and some I'm not sure if they are even fossils. I find your mind tries to make something out of nothing, especially with rocks. In any case, thanks for looking, and appreciate in advance any feedback, good or bad! 1979 3 3/4" Boba Fett for scale

Took my shark obsessed 8 year old to Point A Dam for the first time yesterday! The water level was fairly high so we hung out in the first bend but he had a blast! He found 388 items (whole and pieces) total. We know what the more common ones are (lemon, tiger shark, stingray mouth plate bits, some bull possibly) but there a few were unfamiliar with! I'm guessing picture #6 is nurse shark? #7 honeycomb coral? #8 tip of a coral? and I dont have a guess of what the other items are.

Heres a fun thread for those to show off their widest and fattest looking megalodon teeth fossils in thier collections. I'll set the tone with the widest fat boy in my collection, I don't have digital calipers but it measure roughly 5.4 inches wide by 6.1 inches long. When I close my hand together it looks even more monstrous. Share yours and join the wide boyclub Got the idea while thinking about what the widest megalodon tooth ever found measures, if anyone does know do share in this thread!

Found these two teeth on the beach at Tybee yesterday. Thinking maybe bull sharks, but I really don’t know. Thanks!

My wife and I just returned from a trip out west (western USA for our international friends) which featured a trip to the famous Miocene site near Bakersfield; Ernst Quarry or Sharktooth Hill, whichever name you prefer. As most of you know this site it well known for the rich fauna of sharks teeth, marine mammal bones and other related items and has been written up numerous times on TFF going back over the years. We had originally planned this trip a year ago, but a family emergency caused us to reschedule. So we decided to try again this year and picked late April to try and avoid the "rainy" season and beat the start of the summer heat. One out of two isn't bad - haha. We had beautiful blue skies but unfortunately had an unseasonably early heat wave that had the temps climbing into the upper 90's! My main goal of this trip was to find some of the beautifully preserved, richly colored, good sized sharks teeth (Mako's being the most common) that I have seen millions of pictures of and read dozens of trip/ID reports about here on the Forum. It seemed with a diligent amount of work digging and sifting, I was sure to come away with a bagful of beauties! This is where my caution part comes in. We had a good trip, but the results were no where near our expectations. I have been fossil collecting for over 40 years and have had plenty of down days/visits/trips, but when we walked away with maybe a dozen teeth and the largest complete one at just over an inch long from a site that represents supposedly one of the richest around after a whole day of steady digging, suffice it to say, we were a bit let down. We worked steadily throughout the day, tried several different spots and outlasted everyone. As the day heated up most of the folks were gone by very early afternoon, we had the place to ourselves for the last couple of hours before we bailed out just after 4 pm (the car thermometer read 99 when we left). We had to be out by 5. From what I saw of about half the other collectors that I talked to, were similar results, a modest number of teeth, nothing very large. Someone may have found a ton of great stuff, but I did not hear or see it. So, my caution is not that this place is not good, don't go: no, not at all. It is to keep your expectations realistic. There is no doubt I oversold this to myself. I found some nice teeth as you will see below, just not the size or quantity that I thought was the norm out of here. It could be I had a down day, it could be I didn't know the best spots to dig, it could be the quarry just does not produce like it used to, it could be that I just didn't move enough dirt to support my expectations, it could be a lot of things. But when I raised my expectations to high levels on a trip half way across the country that this was the focus of, I guess I kind of set myself up. Keep it real!!! I mostly bring this up as I often see on here that people would love to go here, it is on their bucket list, etc, etc. Again, I'd encourage you to visit, just keep your expectations in line, dig as much as you possibly can, and you will probably find the mother lode! Ok, enough of my blathering. The trip was fun, we did find some nice teeth, the preservation of them is excellent for the most part and I am working my way through some matrix I brought back which contains some very cool little teeth in there. Here is what we found: The whole kit and caboodle with my tentative ID's scribbled on the paper towel. I will follow with close ups of most of them. This was actually the first tooth we found, just an edge sticking out of the chunk of matrix (on left). On the right is after a bit of prepping so you can see the whole tooth. I think I'm going to do a bit more shaving down but leave this in the matrix. The round object by the root is just a pebble that was in there. I also found another small sharks tooth as I was removing matrix that is no longer in the picture. These Cosmopolitodus hastalis are the most common tooth found in the Round Mountain Silt from what I read (and my 1 day experience). These Cosmopolitodus planus (Hooked or Curved Mako) were neat and more the size I though we would encounter. Unfortunately, neither of these are complete. These tiny ones we managed to see as we were sifting. Since my napkin writing I have learned they are indeed a Carcharhinus, but the species seems to be an ongoing topic of discussion (not uncommon for this genus from what I have found). In the matrix I am picking there are lots more of these but that will be a topic for a future Micro post. These three are some of my favorites, very neat little teeth. Since the napkin writing, I have found the the upper sharks tooth may not be Hemipristis but rather a Hexanchus upper anterior. If anyone can corraborate from this picture that would be great, otherwise I'll probably make an ID post for a couple of these items to sort them out. These small ones are also nice. I see I did not take a picture of the most diagnostic side of the Squalus, but it does have the finger like extension to below the root on the other side. I also have found several more of these in the fine matrix. And lastly for this group a neat little bone that I believe is a cetacean periotic. I saw another post in which @Boesse identified a similar looking one as Aulophyster morricei, but there were some differences between this one and that post which I don't know if its due to simple variation within the bone or it is a different animal. Again, if I can't get a confirmation or different ID based on this one picture, I'll be happy to create an ID thread. We also found a lot of bone, I brought home a bag full of some of the bigger chunks I found in one area. I only recognize some rib fragments (second pic) and a possible beat up vert (third pic in middle). I'm not sure what the rest of the fragments represent. And finally, just a quick bit on the matrix I brought back. I did a quick sieve separation in the field just to have a mix of different sizes. This turned out to be a waste of time as the matrix was too damp to properly sieve. When I got back home and had water available, I was able to quickly run it through a small series of sieves and get down to some pickable matrix. I used a window screen (about 12-14 mesh) and a 40 and 60 mesh sieve. 95% of the matrix was fine silt (hence the name of the Formation) and went through the 60 mesh and therefore contains nothing that I'm going to spend time on (60 mesh is 0.25 mm, too small for me to try and pick with the equipment and dexterity that I have). The material caught on the 13 mesh contained almost all the sharks teeth but only represented a small baggie of the couple gallon bags of matrix I was able to fit in my luggage. You can see in the picture below the small bag of matrix to the right and the little beaker contains about 26 cm3 of fossil material picked (about 17% of the bag volume). This is mostly small fragments of broken bone but there are lots of shark and ray teeth in there as well as a few other items (future post in Micro section). I have only looked at the 40 and 60 mesh material a little bit. The 40 has a few very small ray teeth, and some fish teeth (and more broken bone fragments). I have not seen much in the way of identifiable fossils in the 60 mesh material yet. That is all for now, thanks for following along. I appreciate any thoughts or comments on my ID's or anything else. Mike

Hi everyone and thank you in advance for the immense knowledge that everyone has compiled here for us to learn from. About me. I have been digging for about a month now.... I have been a Licensed HVAC contractor in LA since 1991. I worked for a GC before that...and was also an apprentice machinist for a couple years. In construction, the one thing I detest is digging ditches. Yet to my amazement, here I am in the desert heat, digging a hole looking for fossils. It has been therapeutic to dig and not think about anything else in life....... With 3 kids, we went surfing a lot, water skiing in Blythe, tons of fishing all over Cali, hiking, gold panning, mostly up in the Kern. The Kern River system never ceases to amaze me year after year. There is always a new adventure that presents itself. I'm primarily interested in the Miocene era around CA. Absorbing as much information online so I can identify items in the field. It has been nothing short of amazing so far.