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My boyfriend and I finally made our first trip to the Peace River two weeks ago. We were lucky enough to spend the whole week on the river with varying levels of success. We did find a few smaller megs and fraglodons. We need help identifying many of the items we are unsure of. There are LOTS of pictures headed to the ID forum so please help if you can! Pic files are big so I can only upload one at a time. We flew so I had to leave another probably 20lbs of other huge bone fragments, dugong ribs etc with a friend who lives in the area. I won't get them until they drive up here in July. Thanks EDIT: I'll use my new Moderator powers to edit your posts adding item numbers to your finds so they may be more easily referred to later on in the discussion below. -Ken Item #1

Hello there all! I have not been able to do much fossiling over the last few months as I have been busy with this and that, however in the last week I was able to take a couple of trips up to Mathesons Bay. The bay is situated in Leigh, north of Auckland and belongs to the Cape Rodney formation. The fossil bearing rocks in the bay are early Miocene, between 22 and 20 million years old (Otaian in New Zealand's geological scale). The specimen I'm wondering about was found in coarse sandstone, along with some quite nice little brachiopods ( in fact there is a piece of brachiopod attached to it). It is only a fragment but the piece has rows of knobs ranging from 2mm to 0.5mm in diameter running along its curved surface. There does not seem to be a clear pattern in regards the size of the knobs in each row, which leaves me wondering if it is a echinoid or not. However, it is possible the the variability in the knob's size is down to weathering, as the specimen is quite worn.. As far as I have read, the only echinoid known from the locality is Phyllacanthus titan, with that known from its fossilised spines alone (a few fragments of which I found, one quite near the specimen in question). I am wondering if this piece is from Phyllacanthus titan, or some other type of sea urchin. Thanks a lot! Here are a couple more pictures, the specimen is rather worn and a little difficult to make out I am afraid..

I managed to get out to the Peace River yesterday. My hunting buddy has a shallow spot, but I also understand that the river is down and dig-gable in spots. The location we are digging produces marine fossils including occasional sponge and different urchin spines. I found a tooth that I did not recognize: First I wondered if it was a tooth; it seems to be squeezed on its lateral sides. I thought the base seems most comparable to barracuda. Some of the photos are blurry and added more to provide a composite view. All comments appreciated. Jack

I spent a FANTASTIC day at the Stratford Hall cliffs yesterday courtesy of Mid Atlantic Fossil and Nature Trips. HUGE thanks to Cathy for organizing the outing as it was one of the best days I can remember having (collecting or otherwise!) Found a great many teeth during the 4 hours (particularly for a relative newcomer). Favorites of the day were the nice croc at top, a few of the more complete hemis, my first makos, and.... the VERY partial Meg at far left under the bottle cap. I saw the root sticking out of the sand, my heart skipped a beat, and then I discovered, much to my dismay, that almost the entire tooth was broken off. Oh well, I'll save the intact tooth for next time!!

A package arrived from the USA today which I'd been awaiting with trepidation for a while. The content was intact and I did a little dance Aza, who came along with @Jeffrey P for the German excursion had promised to send me a nice Meg as a token of thanks for showing her around and doing a bit of prep work for her on her finds. I've been wishing for a tooth of this quality for quite a long time, so needless to say, I'm a happy man today.

Well it is with bittersweet feeling that I'm leaving Maryland this coming Monday for a new job in Utah. This morning at 4:45 am I hoped into my car and drove to the Cliffs one last time to say goodbye. The tides were exceptionally high and I didn't do as well as last time but still had a good trip and found some stuff. A group of kids on a science trip ran into me at Mataoke cabin beach. Their guide had them gather around me as I had a hand full of Chesapecten nefrens and they were all oooohing and ahhhhing. I accidentally dropped a large tiger tooth that I found a few yards away and quickly picked it up. Their guide exclaimed, "Wow I can't believe you just found that tiger tooth!" The kids (especially the boys) at this point could care less about the large shells and where fixated on the tooth. Then they started looking all around my legs for more teeth. I wasn't about to tell their guide that I had found it a ways back and ruin the thrill of the moment so Injust gave everyone a coy smile and said, "Just keep looking and you're bound to find some good teeth." The truth was that was the first tooth I ever found at Mataoke and I never go their for teeth just for shells. :-) Pictures coming soon! PS - Sorry for the pictures and poor lighting. My canon is packed away and so is my nice measuring board. :-( Here's the loot! I'm not positive if these are all Chesapecten nefrens. I'll have to ID them all later but for now I'll call them C. nefrens. Some of these are matching pairs. Pro-tip: If you can get to Bayfront Park by roughly 5:45 am then the Beach Patrol (teenagers with green shirts) shouldn't be there yet collecting money. This was beneficial as I didn't have to cough up $18. I just found out those over 50 can get in for $10. What gives?! Just because I'm a young man doesn't mean I should be punished for it! Very high tides today. Overcast with high tides. This is going to be fun... and wet... Ecphora popped right out of the matrix. I believe this is from the St. Mary's formation because this was found in some rubble that fell from the very top of the cliffs and I know for a fact that's the St. Mary's layer. Golfball sized Ecphora in the Matrix. Please be complete... And... it's missing the bottom stem... Other than that it looks good. I'll keep it. View of a large baseball sized Ecphora. This one isn't worth extracting as that would take hours with special tools and super glue. What a heart breaker. Someday I'll find one this size that won't be so brittle. Here are a bunch of Hammer and Bonnet Head shark teeth with a few Requiem. There's an Angel shark tooth up top. I find fewer of those than cow shark teeth! Some large ray plates. The one in the middle might be the largest plate I've ever found at Bayfront. A collection of newly acquired Ecphora gardnera and Turritella. I don't usually keep bones but this one has some neat dimensions to it. Small C. nefrens are usually not kept but these have beautiful color to them. Not a bad day for Makos. Three of my best Makos from the trip. Not my best trip but certainly not my worst either.

Last week i enjoyed my holidays in the Netherlands/Belgium and found also many fossils especially shark teeth. I was in Hoevenen near Antwerp and in many other found locations on the coast. I will post my finds in the next days but I in this case I am not sure with the determination and its probably rare? The shark tooth is around 2 cm long and I found it in the MIocene of Antwerp. In my eyes it looks like a broken Somniosus microcephalus or? Are those teeth rare in Antwerp? Thanks for helping me!

Hi guys I'm on holiday in Sardinia (Italy) , yesterday I went in a place called S'archittu , it was full of miocenic limestone I found a lot of sea urchin , bivalves and this one that I don't know what can be. It's splitted in many parts

Spent the day on 2 different beaches and was rewarded with a rare excellent summertime hunt. Paper towel is from on the Bay in the morning low tide and a close up of the good stuff the bigger meg is 2 3/4 teeth on the plate are from the river on the afternoon low tide before the storms chased me off the beach with a ground shot of the river meg oh how rare it is to find megs on the river!!!

Headed out yesterday to Westmoreland State Park for my 2nd ever collecting trip. Arrived about 30 minutes before high tide and found (for a beginner, anyway!) a pretty nice haul of teeth. The park itself was gorgeous and I'm already itching to head back out there. Favorite finds of the trip are definitely the nice sized Mako at bottom (I think it's a Mako anyway) as well as the croc tooth. That one definitely surprised me when I saw it in the sifter!! A few decent tigers as well. best, Bronco

Hi all! I'm brand new to the fossil collecting world (though I've always had a strong interest in natural history/mammalian predators) and, given that i've already gleaned TONS of useful information from the site, figured I ought to introduce myself! I'm a 22 year old student from Virginia with one trip to Brownie's Beach in MD under my belt, already clamoring for more adventures! I look forward to spending lots of quality time on these boards.

As many of you know , the Peace River is currently unhuntable due to rains and river depth. In many locations it is 10 feet deep. I thought I was finished for the season but then my regular hunting buddy called to say he had found a "shallow" location. What could this be? Always believe your friends!! Not only was it a shallow spot , but underneath the typical 12-15 inches of normal Peace River black gravel was a layer of crushed limestone , clay, and brown gravel and shark teeth. Many had the white roots typical of bone Valley teeth. And then THIS Meg ?? Only a touch of enamel left. Has the entire Meg been replaced or is it hiding under a layer of limestone? Whatever. I had a bonus day Monday on the river in the sunshine! I am feeling GOOD this week.

Hi all! After my first ever collecting trip to Brownie's Beach, I'm chomping at the bit to go look for more fossils! As a Virginian, I'm incredibly lucky to have stumbled onto this hobby given the plethora of great sites in the MD/VA area. Now, I would LOVE to find a good spot on the Potomac, as Brownie's was a 2.5+ hour drive which makes it a bit long for a day trip. Having done some map recon and online browsing, it seems that Fairview beach and Colonial beach might make for promising spots. What are y'alls thoughts? Has anyone been to either of these sites? I haven't found anything online about fossils at Fairview but it's quite close to Colonial so I figured it might be worth a go! (not looking for specific tips, just a simple head nod that I'm headed in the right direction with either of these beaches) best, Bronco

Had a really fun short trip this morning to Calvert Cliffs. The tide was especially high and I didn't expect many people to be there due to this fact and upon arrival noticed only a few cars. Then I noticed a group of teenagers surrounding the gate with green shirts that said, "Beach Patrol." It was a weird scene. There where a bunch of tennage girls all on their phones and the teenage boy says, "It's $18 to pass." I only had $9. Luckily he let me in but it seems like a ridiculous price to pay to get beach access. Had a good trip and found more cow shark teeth than all my other trips combined. Not sure why. Cow shark teeth aren't as rare as a Meg or Chub but they aren't that easy to find. See below. Horseshoe crabs moving in the surf. Almost stepped on them. Very high tide at 7:00 am. I was out there with four others. Excellent camouflage for a moth on the Choptank Formation. Starting things off right by finding this Mako within the first five minutes of searching. I can usually get down to that pier out there but the tides where exceptionally high today. High tides and some freshly fallen trees. This is a tree shark tooth. ;-) Watched a guy step on this Hemi. Held my breath he wouldn't notice it then walked over and snatched it up! Large turritella from the St. Mary's Formation. This stuff had Ecphora and other shells but they were to chalky and fragile to recover. You know it's been a good day when you see this on your way back to the car. My haul! 8 Cow Shark teeth of various sizes. Hemis and Requiem. Another nice Hemi up top.

So... I was on the Chesapeake Bay a few weeks ago and I found this little oddball. At first I thought it was plant based, because it sort of looks like a plant bud. But when I picked it up, it is definitely a tooth. You can't tell from the pictures but the top of the black root is hollow inside. I actually suspect that this is not a fossil and that it is a current tooth, partly because of the vibrant colors. I figured I would ask the experts. :-) any chance of this being Miocene?

My kids wanted to make today special so they all wanted to take me to the river and search for teeth along side me...they know how to make me happy! We only stayed for a couple of hours since it was extremely hot and the finds weren't as numerous...I think we will have to start heading up river to the Aquia formation for the rest of the summer, more and more people are showing up on this beach and piles of sifted material is all over. Anyway, we all had fun and despite not finding a whole lot, we did get some cool finds and some interesting unknowns. Total haul Best tooth, love Makos. Dolphin tooth I believe that this is a puffer fish mouth plate (side 1) Side 2 Here's an unknown that I was about to cast off as a rock but then looked at it closer...I'm thinking some sort of coral, ay thoughts? (side 1) Side 2 Find of the day goes to my daughter, she found this tooth and brought it over to me because it "looked weird"...I believe this is a pathologic tooth. I looked at it under my digital microscope and it doesn't look as though it is split. The other side My wife found this and I was about to throw it away as being a random bone piece, then I saw the circular marks in it. Any ideas? Opposite side All-in-all it was an awesome day! My family made it special...even stopped for some fresh strawberry shortcake on the way home! Hope all of the fathers out there had as good of a day as I had!

Recovered this Cetacean tooth last Saturday at Calvert Cliffs and wanted to know if anyone knew the species it comes from. Most teeth I have seen in the past are stubby, short, and resemble amushroom. This tooth has a deep thick root and a sharp thin narrow blade covered in enamel. I have no idea what this is but would like to classify it.

Here is a fossil I found from the Miocene in Southern California. The rocks should be marine. Any idea what it could be? Thanks in advance

Last week I had a great time to hunt in the Netherlands/Belgium for shark teeth. I was mainly at a good site near Antwerp but those finds I will post in the next days. What i want to show you here are the teeth and other things, which I found on various beaches there. For example i was in Cadzand or in Vlissingen. Too bad the shark teeth dont really have a good quality but nonetheless I am happy with my finds But pictures say more than words... Zwarte Polder: There its very difficult to find shark teeth with a good quality and the beach is often full with tourists. The fossiliferous sand comes from the Westerscheide so from eroding layers underwater. The fossils come mainly from the Miocene, Pliocene until the Pleistocene. Here are some "shabby" finds: (shark and ray teeth) The shark teeth are also very small ... This tooth is with 1.2 cm one of the prettiest: A damaged Geleocerdo: Beside of the shark teeth i also found some fish vertebrates. The biggest one is 1.5 cm long:

So sorry its been a few months since i posted my finds just been really busy. Here are my finds from Calvert cliffs for the past couple months sorry for the delay in posting my finds and this was my first Giant Thresher ever in 25+ years of collectin on the bay!! Plus a ground shot of one of the megs and some associated whale material it was a good spring but alas now the sand and high water have arrived come on fall!!!!

What an awesome day today, started out by getting a brief of the geologic formations and the fossils found within them on the Virginia side of the Potomac from Dr. Weems. Part of his brief was more of the tracks in the bog iron like the one Marco shared here, something that has caused me to pay a lot more attention to the them when I see a larger piece. After the brief we were off to the river to search, I don't think we could have had a nicer day. My wife went one way, I went the other, and we spent the next four hours "looking for treasure"...and we both had a blast! My wife's haul Unknown fish vert Another unknown fish vert from various angles My haul I meant to ask for an ID on this but I was so worn out by the time we got back, I forgot to. I'm guessing that this is an Atlas vertebrae...thoughts? Drum plate, no teeth though Shark Vert My biggest Mako, this thing has seen better days! I liked this little Mako, both the color and the outward curve