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Got to Douglas Point early today and was the first on the beach. Came across a heartbreaking large Otodus root that gave me some hope, soon after I find a large whole one! After a bit more surface collecting I ended up with a few nice sand tigers (one of my largest), three whole Otodus Obliquus and the heartbreaking root, and the icing on the cake two beautiful croc teeth!
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So, I know bone fragments are notoriously hard / impossible to fully identify. Unfortunately, they are my favorite things to pick up I am happy with most of my collection remaining unknown, but there are a couple pieces I feel may have more identifying characteristics? I'm very new to identifying fossils so please let me know if its something obvious or if they aren't even bone fragments to begin with! I will describe each piece and then post photos below. 1. Found at Douglas Point, Nanjemoy WMA in Maryland. Less than an inch long, black, grooved, shiny, looks a lot like many of my other little "unidentifiable" pieces except for a small section of serrations on one edge. Are they teeth? They all seem to be one form, if that makes sense, not individual teeth like shark teeth. 2. Found at Douglas Point, Nanjemoy WMA in Maryland. This one is the most "bone-looking" of the three, but I've read that the only large vertebrates in this area and time period were turtles and crocodiles. Its a strange shape, the bottom is rather concave like some kind of joint, or maybe a scute? I have no idea, I even wondered if it was a modern bone but it has the solid / rock-like feel of a fossil. 3. Found at Flags Pond, Maryland, part of the Calvert Cliffs formation. This is the most confusing to me. I can't even decide if its supposed to be a bone fragment or not, let alone a fossil. Its not black like most of my other bone fragments and is very porous but in a different way than the other pieces. It has the heavy rock-like weight and sound to it though. My first thought was weird rock, then weird coral? Then I thought, I don't know, maybe a bone? I've seen pictures of fossil bones online with similar color / texture but the shape is... strange. I'm very unfamiliar with aquatic mammal anatomy- which is what I'm assuming this would be if it is indeed a bone and not some strange rock or coral. I'm not looking for species identification or anything specific, but any thoughts or info on these guys would be nice to hear, especially so I can compare to what I find in the future. Love the shark teeth but its really cool to find things that aren't sharks too. Even just confirmation or not that they are fossils to begin with haha. Also let me know if I should add photos from different angles / more detailed shots, I didn't want to put too many images in one post. Thank you in advance and maybe I will post some of my less confusing collection soon
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Hello! I am from the eastern shore of Maryland and have only recently started collecting fossils (though I have always been obsessed- wanted to be a paleontologist as a kid) in the last two-ish years. I have lurked on this forum for awhile as a guest to try and find identification info for my local finds, so I figured I should go ahead and join haha. I generally go to the calvert cliffs or potomac river areas so paleocene/miocene fossils are generally what I find. When not fossil hunting I hike a lot and love plant and animal identification, but especially salamanders! I'm also an illustrator who does a lot of scientific illustration! I'm so excited to learn more about fossils and meet you all!
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Hi everyone, I'm new to fossil hunting and live in Maryland. I love beach-combing. If you're familiar with the most infamous MD areas, I live a couple hours north of Calvert Cliffs and Purse, but they're easily two of my favorite places on earth. I try to make it down for day trips as often as I can. I'd love to check out other nearby VA locations at some point and possibly NJ. I'm also hoping to merge my kayaking and fossil hunting hobbies together eventually, as I just started kayaking a lot this past summer. I really enjoy reading about the various epochs online. Always open to any good reading recommendations! Excited to virtually "meet" people with similar interests and learn from those more experienced. Best wishes on your next hunt! KK
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Hello! I'm new to this forum and fossil hunting overall. I'd love some help identifying my best shark teeth finds so far (still holding out for some big ones). Especially the (partial?) on the top row, as it's very serrated and my biggest to-date. These are all from Calvert Cliffs, Matoaka / Long Beach area, and a couple from Flag Ponds, so all Miocene. (Please let me know if it would be helpful to upload any other photos or info.) Many thanks!
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I found the two objects below yesterday along the Calvert Cliffs in Maryland (Miocene exposure). Any insights on what they might be? Thanks! #1 - I’m not totally sure this is a fossil at all, but could it be a dolphin/whale inner ear bone? (Would be my first.) #2 - I know isolated and incomplete bones are hard to ID, but I’m wondering if there’s enough here to identify the type of bone and maybe even type of animal.
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Ok I know I promised y’all some dinosaurs from Maryland. So here I go. I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about the Arundel formation and I’m glad that people are knowledgeable about Maryland’s past. Everyone wants to talk about Calvert cliffs and the stuff coming out of there and that’s great but it’s so rare to see someone talking about the dinosaurs that roamed Maryland 110 million years ago. Anyways, the amount of fossils I’ve found here is astounding, which is why this is going to be a long post. My finds from this area include petrified wood, plant material, dinosaur footprints, and dinosaur bone chunks. A lot of people have said they’ve found bones here, but most of the time it’s really not. I however believe that based on other fossils in my collection, the bones from here look and act fairly similar. On one of these pieces, it has that ceramic ping that is a good tell tale for bone. But anyways, here’s all the stuff found over the course of 6 months hunting this place. It includes one nodrosaur footprint (from the looks of other footprints online) a lot of petrified wood, and chunks of bone, I think the bone that’s the most detailed may be a shell of a tortoise or turtle, but anyone with differing opinions can weigh in. Anyways, I’ll definitely be going back to this spot in the hopes of finding a dinosaur tooth.
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Ok I think I’m gonna be posting fairly regularly on this site from now on. So I’m a DC native, which means that the amount of fossils in dc are mostly sparse. However, neighboring PG county is a hotbed for all types of stuff! In the future, I’ll post my dinosaur stuff from here (still on my bucket list to find a tooth). In the mean time, I’ve just recently came back from southern PG county and I came away with some pretty cool stuff. The shells that come out of this creek are to die for. They’re some of the most intresting I’ve ever seen! But what I’m really excited about are the shark teeth! I couldn’t believe that just 10 minutes from the border of DC, you could find shark teeth here! I’m gonna go back here on Saturday hopefully to go find more teeth. I’m most interested in gathering the silt from this site and searching for micros because my micro collection is lacking. Anyways, here’s all the finds from this place. Oh, and I’m getting the smallest of my teeth from that fine clay down there, believe me my camera cannot capture how small these teeth are they’re like 1 mm big!
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Hello everyone my name is Nick and I'm from the D.C. area. I'm a university student dreaming of finding dinosaurs in Maryland. I've been to Big Brook Creek in New Jersey and spend most of my hunting looking for shark teeth around the Calvert Cliffs.
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I recently took a trip to Purse State Park, MD, U.S. and found this tooth fossil that I cannot identify. Because of the location (Potomic River), I assume it is Paleocene era. The fossil is 13 mm (0.5 inches) across. The pictures are of each side. Please help me identify this fossil.
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Took a trip down to Calvert County this past weekend and did some searching around the Matoaka Cabins and just outside of Flag Ponds Park. Think I did pretty well for a two day search!
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These are also from Calvert Cliffs (Maryland). I’m not sure if they’re just rocks or poop.
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This was found at Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. I’m not sure if it’s a super worn down tooth or something else.
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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 tough if not impossible to access some of the other municipal beaches along the coast. For example, Brownies Beach, Dares Beach, Cove Point, and Flag Pond are all restricted in some way to town or county residents only. Matoaka Lodges however will grant day-pass access for a small fee, and the beach is from my experience very diverse and productive in its fossils. We spent a total of 5 hours there, employing an 1/8" sieve and also simply walking the surf line. The largest tooth pictured here actually washed up at my feet as I was surreptitiously bending over at the same time. Most of the rest were found with the sieve. Most of these are shark or sting ray teeth and a few turtle shells plus some of the smaller items I could not identify. A local told me that porpoise teeth can be found there also. This lot comprises the smallest fossils found; in addition to these (mostly) teeth and shell fragments were found a large and diverse sample of vertebrate fragments, corals, miscellaneous other fossils (snails, mollusks, etc.) which I will post in the follow-up report to this one. Having spent some time at some of the other sites along Calvert Cliffs this summer, I would say based on the diversity, number of fossils, and time spent collecting, that Matoaka is definitely worth the return trip.
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I thought at first it might have been a small lower hemi but the more I looked at pictures, it also looked like it could be a symphyseal tooth. It is hard to see in the pictures but there are faint serrations on the tooth closer to the root. This was found near the Scientist Cliffs area of Calvert Cliffs. Thank you in advance!
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Found this skull in a cliff in southern Maryland. Was dug out of grey clay in small cliff. Looks to be a Boar skull? Any ideas to the age?Miocene?
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Was trying different areas, so I didn’t get as many of the small teeth that I like.
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I've had this weekend marked on my calendar for a few weeks to take advantage of favorable projected tides by going shark tooth hunting at Matoaka! The remnants of Hurricane Sally scrambled that forecast, bringing high winds and surf to Maryland, but I decided to head down this morning anyway. When I arrived, the sky was fairly clear, but there was a strong, steady wind generating a constant stream of waves, and the tide was well above normal, leaving only a narrow strip of beach. The beach opened up a little bit after I walked and waded north but the storm had dumped a layer of fresh sand and there were almost no exposed shell beds. I searched for an hour before I found my first fossil of any note (a cetacean epiphysis). Then, shortly after that, I found my first shark tooth. It was worth the wait--a nice Carcharodon hastalis up near the high tide line! About a half hour later, I found a pristine Galeocerdo aduncus tooth at the water line. The serrations are still super sharp on this one.
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Well my job has shifted me from West to East and now I will be visiting DC as. Part of my new territory. I have been fortunate to hunt in California but now will have the opportunity to add some east coast teeth to my collection. my question is where the best spot is to hunt with any short windows of time I have while I am in DC. Brownie’s appears to be about 45 minutes but wondering what other sites I should visit while I am there for business. Any onsite and tips for hunting this area would be greatly appreciated. Looking at tide charts it looks like I might get a little time as tide is going out in the evening while I am there. Thanks in advance!
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Dear TFF members, Ive taken a photo of all the shark teeth that I am having trouble identifying. Could anyone help point out if I got any ID's wrong? These were all found at Calvert Cliffs, MD. Top 3 rows near Choptank and St Marys Formation and bottom half underneath Calvert Formation. 1. Snaggletooth (serrations are similar on both, the first one has a strange enamel color) 2. First two are white sharks, probably plicatilis? Third, I have no clue 3. Requiem shark tooth (just suspicious because I've never found a tooth in the area with that color) 4. Posterior tiger shark teeth 5. Worn down tiger shark? 6. Snaggletooth front tooth piece 7. Cow shark (is this pathological? ive found a couple of other cow shark teeth and none of them have opposing edges) Thanks for the help, James
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I found the tooth below this morning at Douglas Point (Aquia Formation, Paleocene) in Maryland. The cusp is fairly narrow, it's missing one cusplet and the other is small and/or worn down. But between the prominent lingual protuberance and what looks to me like a small bourlette, I'm getting an Otodus obliquus vibe. What do you think? I also found a tiny Cretalamna appendiculata -- just over a quarter of an inch.
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I have here a 3" piece of bone, found in Calvert Cliffs, Maryland. I'm not well-versed enough with these to narrow it down further from marine mammal, and am hoping that these photographs contain some identifying features that may be useful to one more familiar with these. Can it be narrowed down any further?
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We were able to get out to visit the Calvert Cliffs area over the weekend and enjoy the nice weather and lower tides. We were able to take the kayaks out, water was a bit choppy on the way out but as time passed the wind calmed down quite a bit for the return trip. After beaching my kayak, within a few feet of it, I found a very small chub (first for me) and in great condition! Within a few more minutes I spotted the small shark vert rolling in the surf and knew it was a good day already. After some more searching, my wife found the biggest of the mako's pictured. We were also able to find three mostly complete Ecphora as well and some other smaller teeth. We didn't think we would beat the chub and mako this trip, but towards the end of our trip walking back to our kayaks I spotted a tiny black speck while surface scanning, I picked it up and had seen similar teeth posted here and in other groups and new exactly what it was. Was super ecstatic to have found my first symphyseal, cow shark upper. One to check off the bucket list for sure. Below are some pics from the day. In the process of getting a macro lens, sorry about the low quality on some of the up close pics. Also found the black flat bone fragment I wasn't sure what it was, so any insight would be appreciated!
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Recently took a trip to Douglas Point and found this odd shaped piece in matrix. Not sure if it is anything or just some sort of concretion, appreciate any help! Thank you
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From Douglas Point, Maryland, I kept this because it looked like a claw, maybe turtle?
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