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Showing results for tags 'choptank'.
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Collected by the Smithsonian Vertebrate Collections Manager at Scientists Cliffs on the Chesapeake Bay after a storm early 2020s.
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Inspired by trip reports by other members on the fossil shells of the Middle Miocene Choptank Formation, especially @I_gotta_rock's report from 2018, over the past several months I have made a couple trips to Matoaka Beach Cabins in Maryland to collect some of the incredible invertebrate material exposed along the cliffs and in that way draw the quizzical looks of other collectors there combing for shark teeth. It is a lot of fun to just park myself along the beach and break down pieces of talus with a screwdriver to uncover hundreds, if not thousands, of shells. Unfortunately the shells are i
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I collected these micro shells during a recent trip to the Middle Miocene Choptank Formation near Matoaka Beach Cabins. I have consulted a couple publications and yet I am a bit stumped on these last nine fossils. Any help further narrowing these down would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much! #1- Calliostoma sp. but it doesn't seem to fit any in the publications #2- Drillia? #3- Busycon? #4 #5- Parvilucina crenulata? #6- Caryocorbula cuneata? #7
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Calvert County, MD beaches, Matoaka Lodges, Miocene diversity, September 2020
Chris Carpenter posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
Here is a brief report from one of our latest forays into Calvert County, MD. The well-known stretch of shoreline along the western Chesapeake Bay is loaded with Miocene fossils, with the Calvert, St. Mary's, and Choptank formations progressively exposed along a ~24 mile stretch of beach and cliffs. We found an Airbnb in Lusby, MD which was not too far from Matoaka Lodges, which seemed the best bet since the nearly 2 mile walk to the beaches at Calvert Cliffs State Park is impractical for our family at this time. Covid-19 and Maryland's onerous private land regulations can make it -
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 we
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Hi everyone! I recently went to the Matoaka Cottages in southern MD where I found a mysterious looking object, the Choptank formation is exposed here and from what I can tell it is bone of some sort, as it still seems to have bone marrow inside of it. My second guess of the object was some sort of tooth, I had my bets on a peccary canine but my main guess is still bone. If someone could help me identify this it would be a huge help!
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The title says it all.... And if you can't find them here, where can you? Thanks, FA
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From the album: Virginia Miocene
Ecphora sp. Miocene Choptank Formation Virginia -
I found a rare tooth from my local miocene exposure in calvert county md. Found along the choptank formation. Believed to be carnivorous dog. But not positive. Any help with a confirmed id would be appreciated
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Okay, here's a weird one for any shell people out there. Found this on the Potomac's beach where the cliffs have Eastover, St Mary's and Choptank FM exposures. At first, it was a blob of clay with what looked like a hinge showing at one end. I chalked it up to oyster or mussel. Brough it home, cleaned it up most of the way and said, "What the heck?" The texture is really strange. It's convex where I would expect it to be concave. It's lumpy, but not heavily sculptured. I took it to some people who were more familiar with the spot and/or knew something about vertebrates, in case my mollusk asse
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I found this a few days ago along the Virginia side of the Potomac River along a miocene cliff. It's mostly if not all Choptank formation. Any ideas about a genus? Grid is in inches. Looks like maybe mature dolphin tailbone, but it's so small???
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Hi all, I finally made the trek to Matoaka Beach, a fossil collecting site along the Calvert Cliffs on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. The beach is accessible to the public for $5 per person per day. Once we arrived, we reported to the front office where the property owner and his adorable newborn daughter were happy to collect our fee and give us access to the beach along with advice on how to best hunt the grounds. He advised us to head North (left of the entrance), which was what I had also read online. Apparently, the farther North you head, the better the
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Hello. I found this tooth today at Matoaka and wanted to get a different perspective than mine. This tooth seems way old for the Choptank formation. First, it seems like a Paleocene tooth snuck in to a Miocene formation. To me, it seems more like otodus obliqqus than hastalis. Reason? Cusps. My tooth has more pronounced, albeit worn down cusps than any I've seen on hastalis. All i'm trying to say is that it is very different and uncommon and would like to know what it is. Tooth.
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Bony Fishes of Maryland and Virginia: accurate?
FossilsAnonymous posted a topic in Questions & Answers
Hello All, a friend recently recommended this site to me who lives right down in Calvert itself. He recommended it to me if I wanted to learn more about Maryland Fossils. My question to you all is: is this source present-time and accurate? It was published this year, but may contain information from previous years that has now been proven different. Thank you all because I am eager to learn! Site itself:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327907444_Miocene_bony_fishes_from_the_Calvert_Choptank_St_Marys_and_Eastover_Formations_Chesapeake_Group_Maryland_and_Virginia -
Unusual coloration. Typically these are red, sometimes with buff patches, but not usually all buff. The broken areas show the buff color to be a layer on the outside as there is red showing through the breakage. Collected from fallen cliff matrix in the bay containing index fossils of the Drum Cliff Member, Shattuck Zone 18. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History
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From the album: Maryland Fossils
1/2 inch in height Miocene Choptank Formation -
From the album: Calvert Cliffs
Can you believe I found this just sitting there, sticking out of a block of landslide material on the beach and wiggled it out with a screw driver? Never found even a suggestion of one before and this is only one of two I found in three days of carving through that block to discover the rest of its treasures. The other, sadly, is not in as good a shape, but still a treasure! Found at Matoaka Beach, St Leonard, Maryland. -
Sometimes you just get lucky. This geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck) was sitting with its mate in living state, filled with matrix, under a pile of landslide rubble at the water's edge. The exteriors of both shells were almost completely clean of matrix. Most other specimens were badly cracked in the matrix and would never have survived the fall. This shell was donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
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From the album: Calvert Cliffs
I excavated this from matrix that fell out of the Drum Cliff Member of the Choptank Formation in Calvert Cliffs. I have looked at all the books and online resources I have to find a species, but nothing quite matches. If anyone has a species, I'd love to hear! This is the only specimen I've ever seen, let alone found. This one, like most other shells in the matrix, is extremely fragile and would not have survived exposure to the elements long. -
From the album: Calvert Cliffs
A recent landslide revealed an ancient bed of these paper-thin shells, all in pairs. They lived buried well into the sand and extended long necks up to the water to feed. Consequently, the shells did not get moved, just filled in and stayed in pairs after the animals died. They can be extracted mostly whole with some great care. -
Collected on the beach. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
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Due to the extremely fragile nature of this specimen, and the species in general, I was loathe to clear out any more of the matrix from the interior of the shell, so bits and pieces of other shells are present. The large central piece is the inner "cup," which attaches to the "saucer" at only a very small point in the tip. Collected from landslide material in the bay. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
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Collected on the beach after a storm. This is an index fossil for the Drum Cliff member of the Choptank Formation, Shattuck Zone 18. Choptank is the dominant formation at Matoaka Beach. Donated to the Delaware Museum of Natural History.
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We took a trip down to the Matoaka Cabins in St. Leonard Maryland Saturday. I knew we weren't going to be making low tide in the morning or late in the evening, so we were there pretty much at high tide. The boys had fun playing in the sand and finding a few fossils. Our 2.5 year old actually found the first, he picked it up and asked if he found a fossil. We hung around for almost 4 hours before we headed pack home and beat the evening storms. Our 8 year old was thrilled to find fragments of ecphoras, chesapectans and ray dental plates. I found a few pieces of coral, a couple shark teeth,
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