Search the Community

This evening I made a very quick stop at the Alfred Ring Park in Gainesville, Florida to do about 20 minutes of collecting in the Hogtown Creek. I did not find much of anything ( bone fragments, small turtle shell portion and ray and shark teeth), but it was fun. Below are a few pics of the area and my finds.

I have a large collection of extant shark and ray jaws that I use to understand tooth features. However, a number of tooth features, especially tooth root features, are really hard to see in jaws. So I’ve started to purchase (40+ species to date) and photograph individual teeth of a number of extant shark species. I’ll try to post some of the pictures (labial and lingual views) as I take them. For this post I’ll post three extant species that most collectors don’t see. Glyphis gangeticus (Ganges Shark) Upper teeth (23 mm, 23 mm, & 21 mm): Lower teeth (22 mm & 21 mm): Somniosus microcephalus (Greenland Shark) Upper teeth (12 mm & 11mm): Lower teeth (14mm, 10 mm, & 12 mm): Dalatias licha (Kitefin Shark) Here is a cool lower symphyseal tooth (17 mm): Two other lower teeth (13 mm & 10 mm) Marco Sr.

Hey everyone, I bought 12 shark teeth from an antique store in Southport, NC earlier this week and the only info that came with them was the little orange card you see in the pictures. I would like some help identifying them please. I think #10 could be a sand tiger shark, but I’m not 100% on that. Also, I’m not expecting an ID on #7 as it’s too worn to even tell if there is any enamel left. Tooth #1 caught my eye due to the tiny serrations. I know they aren’t the best pictures so if you need more please let me know. Ruler is in cm. Thanks in advance!

I just wanted to say howdy. Been lurking for a while and thanks for lots of good information. I'm a green rookie. Me and an old (he's older than dirt, really!!) friend went shark teeth hunting a couple of times and we're hooked. We're old salamander-catching, skinny-dipping, bicycle-riding, sneak-smoking friends that grew up together and who have started back riding around and hunting rocks. Being down here in south Alabama I call it the land of muck and mud...not many rocks.<duh> Then a few weeks back we stopped by a creek and decided to hunt some shark teeth. And by George, we found a few!! We got a couple of little screens from Wallyworld and went back and found a few more. We're hooked.<grin> Only been hunting twice so far, but found a few teeth, some ray plates, a few tiny vertebra, and some coprolite. Pretty much Eocene stuff I think. Anyhow, I'll still be lurking mostly 'cause I really don't know what we're doing or the terminology involved. But, just a couple of trips under our belts and we're having fun...just a couple of old....friends. Anyhow...howdy! Ed

I am doing the jury duty thing today so I have a lot of time on my hands to make a trip report post. This post isn’t rich in fossils despite visiting 3 different sites. It was something of a strike out for the day, with the exception of 2 pieces from the 3rd place we stopped at. One of the pieces was a true keeper for me though. I was on call for my work this past week, including the weekend, which means I have to stay close to home. I had a couple really long days without sleep. One 27 hour and the other 24 hours. It wipes me out. Thankfully I didn’t get called in Saturday night, because I had plans to go poking around a few spots with @Fruitbat aka Joe. He lives maybe 7 minutes away from where I do. The day was on the cool side, in the low 50s, overcast and breezy, but reasonably pleasant. The first place I wanted to check out was about 15 minute from my house. It was in the Austin Chalk, upper I think. I didn’t have high expectations of finding anything noteworthy, but I keep trying, because I’m surrounded by the upper Austin and upper Ozan, which have next to zilch from what I’ve on numerous attempts. The area we went to is a new development that recently broke ground in Garland on the southwest corner of Shiloh and Buckingham roads. It is mostly black clay like material, but a bit of white chalk and light gray shale are exposed and I think limestone or marl was exposed during trench digging. There is also the Duck Creek waterway on the east side of the development. We didn’t find much more than Inoceramus clam fragments in the development area. I did find an interesting looking clam about 1.5 inches wide imbedded in chalk. No clue what it is. Since we didn’t find anything there we headed to check out the large creek. It seems the city channeled the creek to bury water or sewer lines in it. So it was down to the bedrock with a concrete strip running down the center. The banks were about 10-15 feet high in most areas. The East bank being layers of chalk and marl like stuff. The west side dirt and clay. When I got into the creek I couldn’t find my phone. I assumed I’d left it in my car. Later I realized I’d put it in my coat pocket and had it the whole time. I didn’t get any pics. There was only one picture I wish I’d been able to take. In the creekbed we came across a circle that looked like a giant flat cinnamon roll about 2 feet wide. It didn’t look like any ammonite I’ve ever seen. Joe said it was an Inoceramus clam. I squatted down to have a closer look and sure enough the side was exposed revealing the tale tale pattern of Inoceramus shell edge. It isn’t the biggest clam I have found out hunting, but it was probably the most complete large one I’ve seen. I’m tempted to go back to take a pic since I drive by there most weekdays. There wasn’t much of interest otherwise. Since we didn’t find anything of interest we headed south to Dallas to our 2nd spot. I’d seen an exposure off of 30 I wanted to check out. It was part of the Eagle Ford formation. We arrived and parked our vehicles on the edge of a large field and made our way walking towards a hill in the distance with an exposure visible. There were huge piles of construction dirt and rock in the field. I have explored those before so I didn’t revisit them this time. Most notable were the very large septarian nodules with brown and while crystals. I’d been here before and collected a few pieces. We walked through high grass and underbrush then headed downhill only to encounter a wash or small creek we couldn’t cross. The creek doesn’t show up on any map. We worked our way along through considerable underbrush between knee and waist high along the creek. Joe took a little rest while I explored the area looking for a crossing. I found one a Joe soon followed. After crossing a couple of them I came to a dense hedge of Chinese privet. If you’ve never encountered it you’re blessed. If you’re considering it for landscaping think twice. While it is pretty it is a very aggressive shrub that grown incredibly dense making areas impassible. It will take over a whole field and thin forest if left unattended and nothing else can grow there. I didn’t notice it until I came to it and realized there was no getting through or around it. Here you can see a dense patch of it. It’s maybe 5-8 feet tall in most places. We realized there was no way to make it to the outcropping from where we were. We walked back to our cars after maybe 30 minutes of trying to get to the outcrop. We would have to come at it from a different direction. There were lots of spring flowers in bloom along the walk. I thought I’d share them with you. Per Joe this is a form of wild mustard. This is actually the bud of my favorite wildflowers. It is a milk thistle. I don’t like the prickly part, but I think they’re beautiful, but that isn’t why I like them. I like them because I am fascinated by them. I have picked them many times and arranged them in a vase beautifully. I leave for a few hours or overnight and they have completely rearranged themselves! Not just a little either. Individual stems will move by an inch or more at times. I think it is chemotaxis or something. It isn’t phototropism, because it happens at night and the direction they move is not uniform or unidirectional. Can’t wait for them to be in bloom. I don’t know what these are. I think these are 2 varieties of evening primrose. I think these are a form of verbena. We drove around the back side of a large warehouse and found a spot to park. We were able to access the exposure from there, but only because someone had bulldozed a path through the Chinese privet. Much of it was the Eagle Ford gray flacks shale. I found the top valve of an oyster or possibly clam (I still need to clean it up). I also found a very weathered fragment of a medium size ammonite that was only identifiable because of sutures. Other than that the only thing of interest was more septarian nodules. This is one of the smaller ones I saw. You can’t see the septarian qualities on the exterior, but it’s definitely a septarian. It was very heavy or I’d have taken it home to open up. If they have a split in it like this one they usually are filled with crystals. I also found quite a bit of small crystals laying around. Usually it’s calcite, but I’ve read the formation has abundant gypsum. Nothing of real interest there other than septarian nodules so we moved on to look for our third location. We drove west on I-30 and then south on loop 12. The first spot didn’t have anywhere to park nearby. So we drove across the freeway to look at an exposure off of a parking lot in a low area. I think this is likely to be the Kamp Ranch formation, a subunit that underlies the top layer of the Eagle Ford about 75 feet under it near Arcadia Park. This location was not very fossiliferous, but it did have yellow/orange thin plates largely consisting of conglomerates of shell fragments. It also had gray and black clay/shale with large septarian nodules. These are some of the fragments I picked up. This is one, which was buried that I tried to extract but I wasn’t successful. It was too big and I didn’t feel like putting in the effort needed to extract it or break it up. I walked around picking up plates looking for anything of interest. I came to a wash area and found this plate. This is the find of my day. It is covered with small ammonite impressions. It’s the only hint of ammonite that I found. There are a number of impressions that are partially covered up. I think with a little prep work it could be a real beauty. I’ll have to practice on the back side to make sure it doesn’t leave white marks. While I was off finding this Joe was off harassing this poor mama killdear bird nearby. He was trying to find out where the eggs were so we didn’t step on them. Turns out she was sitting on them. He said she was giving him the broken wing routine. She also spread her wings and tail trying to defend her eggs and nest. Her eggs are just behind her. Joe found this little plate and gave it to me. It’s got a little shark tooth on it on the top left. From there I had to leave to go home. It was a relaxing day, except for fighting through the little jungle like underbrush and vegetation trying to cross the wash/creek and having to retrace our path because of the Chinese privet. But it was a nice day overall. Oh, this is a closeup shot of part of the ammonite impression plate that I forgot to insert above.

Found this cool tooth in matrix while hunting with my son this weekend. Not a lot found in matrix where I hunt so cool addition.

Hello again. I found these fossils while searching a small creek in north Texas over the weekend. I'm pretty sure that one is a ptychodus but I'm not sure what type of ptychodus. the other is obviously a shark tooth that's missing about half of the root. But again I'm stumped when it comes to the species. The other fossil has me completely stumped. any info is much appreciated. Thank's for looking.

Well, I wrote a whole long story about my first trip from NJ to MD, and then I hit some key on my keyboard while I was typing and it deleted or overwrote everything. So here is the shortened version. I left NJ at 2AM on 3/30 and made it to the beach parking lot about 5:45AM. I may have left later but my assessment of the tides seemed to indicate that low was around sun-up. I think I got it wrong. Oh well, there was less traffic anyway. I knew nothing about this place except what I could read on the internet and the advice from a few people in here (Thanks you all!!!). I was dressed and on the beach by 6AM, and I was excited! So I spent the 21 hours over the next two days searching high and low on the beach. It was the most frustrating time I can remember (doing anything!!). I guess I was just not prepared for hunting at the beach. I couldn't find anything. Not a single tooth. At least not for a good 3-4 hours. Then, I chatted for a minute with a woman that was collecting near me. She looked like she was finding things in spots I had just walked over. I told her my story and she helped my see a little better. And she showed me how to find baby teeth in the shells. I felt a little better at least having something in my pocket to show for the trip, even if the teeth were around a 1/4" in size. So most of the rest of my 1st day I spent searching the gravel piles for these baby teeth just so I could have something to bring home. I actually did find 2 other damaged teeth that were of a more legitimate size (in my mind ). One was a Snaggletooth and the other I still don't know what it is. But it was heavier and thicker than anything I had found earlier. Maybe you guys can opine. I didn't do much better the next day either but it was a beautiful, pre-Easter day and I was away from home at the beach and I talked with a lot of really nice people that were also out looking for lightly buried treasure. I spent 12 hours that day (6AM-6PM) roaming from one end of the beach to the other. I did actually find a bunch of interesting souvenirs to stuff my pockets with. Nothing fancy, but interesting to me at least. And I even managed to find a handful of bones and ray plates (which I liked!) and a few vert's and some shells and even a handful more baby-sized teeth with a few medium sized ones thrown in as well. The day was winding down for me. I had to make the 4 hour drive home that night and I was tired, so I began to subconsciously head back to the parking lot. I hadn't found a trip maker yet but it was beginning not to matter anymore. I had a fun trip and figured I'd just have to come back and try again someday. But on my way back to the parking lot I actually did find my trip maker. I found a beautiful blue Snaggletooth. I almost stepped on it as I climbed over some washed up debris. When I looked down and picked it up out of the sand, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I think I may have yelped out loud a little bit. And I never figured I'd find a Megoladon tooth, so to me, this was the tooth I had hoped to find. NOW, I felt satisfied. And I actually found a couple more and some other medium sized teeth on the way out. When I got the home and spread them out, I was very surprised by the number of different types of sharks I had found. I have some Hemi's, some Tiger sharks, Some Lemon sharks, Some long teeth like Sand Tigers or maybe even a Mako. I'm sure there must be another type or two in the pile. Maybe you guys can lend some expertise for me. So I felt very satisfied with the trip, even though it was the last hour or so that blew things wide open for me. Please feel free to offer an opinion on any of the things I found. I am only able to guess at some of the teeth. I would guess I found some porpoise ribs and some other bones. And 2-3 types of vert's, not counting the white one that probably isn't a fossil. One other thing that was surprising was the number of different looking Ray plates. Thanks for looking and for the trip tips before I left! Andy

Just a few of my favs!

Finally made it out to Purse State Park, now known as Nanjemoy Wildlife Management Area, yesterday. I had read that there was no beach to speak of at high tide, but wow! Low tide yesterday was at 11:15. We got there at 12:30 and there was already almost no beach! If only we'd gone when @RCW3D went two weeks ago! The air temp was a balmy 50 degrees, but the water temp, not so warm. Did that stop us? No. Did we get frostbite? Maybe. We weren't expecting to have to go wading when we left the house 3 hours earlier, so warm, waterproof shoes were not with us. We went barefoot on the chilly sand, wading occasionally, then warming our feet again. That way, we had warm, dry shoes and socks for the trip home. The only fossiliferous exposure we found, admittedly not going far north as we'd have had to wade waist-deep, was between the two trail openings. There is an exposure of the Aquia Formation that reaches about 10 feet above beach level there. The cliffs further north are much higher, but empty, so not a lot to look at along the walls. That's okay, most people don't go to Purse to look at the walls anyway. There were plenty of teeth to be found on the beach until our toes got numb. I dug a hole in the sand in front of the fossiliferous exposure and to my joy found some blocks of matrix buried there after they'd fallen from the cliffs. There was also a complete oyster hanging in mid-air from a fine tree root, three feet above the ground, that I managed to slide off without so much as nicking the root bark. Ha! As an added bonus, I got to enjoy the forsythias blooming on the beach! There are almost no fossil shells on the beach. They are so punky in the cliffs that they just disintegrate when they are exposed. However, I am optimistic that when my blocks dry out I'll have some nice specimens that I can eek out with some dental picks, paleobond, and patience. I also brought home a backpack full of micro matrix to sift. Never know what might be lurking in there!

I'm gonna be around Summerville tomorrow and I was wondering if anyone knows of any promising spots to look for shark teeth and other fossils. I actually came here a few years ago and had no luck at all, but I found out I was looking in the wrong places. I know most people don't want to give out the really good secret spots, but if anyone has any hints for someone who's just coming to town for a day, I promise I can keep a secret. Heck, you could even join me if you want. Any hints or suggestions are welcome!

Collecting in SC, small controversy. http://www.thestate.com/latest-news/article205982124.html

Hey Hi Y'all, I have been searching some very fine (nano) matrix from Shark Tooth Hill. The matrix went through the window screen but not the "grease splatter" screen. I have not taken any pictures with My scope yet, but thought I would show a "teaser" to peak some interest... My finds so far. Largest pieces are about 1 millimeter.

Hello! I am brand new to fossil hunting. We went out to Purse State Park along the Potomac River in Maryland and found the attached. Any help in identifying any of these would be much appreciated! This is my first time at this! Thanks so much in advance!

I've been cleaning and remodeling my son's old room these past few weeks, making it a safe and presentable guest room for my son's son, my 4-year-old grandson. Lots of dinosaur stuff in the room now. As I was cleaning out old baseball and hockey cards I had a fossil-brained idea. Such ideas usually lead to many hours of neglect for all the responsibilities of a husband and homeowner, even one who is supposedly retired. This particular idea involved those "collectible" baseball and hockey cards. Why not "collectible" fossil cards? Not just photos though. Real fossils. Even better, how about using the cards to display my own small but growing microfossil collection. Some fossils I've found in gravel matrix I've collected myself, but mostly matrix I've obtained from other TFF members, especially @Sacha I thought about attaching those wonderful little "gem jars" to the cards, but they really wouldn't be ideal for this job. I ordered, instead, a package of 19mm coin capsules, exactly the size of a U.S. penny. Each capsule would hold a microfossil and each card would include a photo of that fossil and it's relevant information. I liked the idea, and I gave it a try. Here's how it looks so far. There are a few ID's I'm not actually sure about, but I wanted to get going on the cards. I'll fix them as need be. Each card has a catalog number that refers to the photo files for that fossil. I attached the coin capsules with either Velcro dots or that tacky putty stuff that's not supposed to damage walls. I wanted the capsules to be removable. Each capsule has a small label inside with the catalog number, in case it falls off the card. I put a bit of cotton in each capsule, and the fossils are sitting on the cotton. I would love to find 19mm foam dots, but the cotton will do for now. The millimeter rules are at the same scale as the photos. The cards fit in anything designed to hold a baseball card collection, mostly boxes and album pages. They also stand nicely in those little plastic frame holders. I used different colors for each location, so far, to make it easier to keep track the cards and the fossils. When I add more locations I might have to change the designs a little as well. It's been a bit of a slow process so far, it should be quicker in the future. I think any shark teeth that could fit in these 19 mm capsules would display nicely as well, as long as they aren't too thick for the container. I'd be glad to hear any ideas which might improve the usefulness of the cards, or any inaccuracies you notice. I'll be posting a few of my questionable ID's in the ID section soon. Thanks for looking. Mike Most of my current ID's are thanks to the incredible photos and research by TFF members @oldbones @MarcoSr and @Al Dente, and others as well. Thank you!!!

Found these pieces while beach combing for sea shells last summer. Didnt realize until i got back home and washed the shells that i found these. I know that they are real rough from the sand but i think that theyre parts of shark teeth. I found these in Capitola CA. Am i correct or are they just shell fragments (sorry the pics might be low quality im new and still figuring this posting out)

Hello all! I found this cosmopolitodus tooth. It appears to have fine serrations. If these are serrations it would be a lower anterior C. Escheri. Can anyone confirm? It’s over 1.5 inches long.

Hi all, I am trying to plan out my first fossil hunting trip of 2018, and I would love to go to Calvert Cliffs. I was wondering if anyone had any insight or advice regarding hunting spots, etc... any advice would be appreciated! Thanks, H.

Hello all, I recently visited Aurora Fossil Museum again, and I found this piece of a shark tooth. Now I am fully aware that making an id by a piece very well may be impossible. However, I also know that many of you are very knowledgeable. Here it is, take a stab at helping me identify it if you don’t mind. It has no serrations, so I know it’s not from the carcharocles line. The root is very conical.

Hello everyone! Yesterday I found some of my best teeth yet. Take a look, and tell me your favorite!

Hello all, I stop collecting shark teeth from the cenozoic. I offer all my shark teeth for trade here. There are 3 different location. -Antwerpen, Schelde. Collected in 1970 (not by me) -Balegem. Collected in 1986 (not by me) -Steendorp. Date not known. There is one Megalodon (Steendorp). It's about 8 cm and has all serrations. There is some damage at one side. Steendorp is a closed location were fossils from the Neogene were found. Next there is about 4,5 pound of Balegem shark and ray teeth. These were collected in 1986. There are a couple of Otodus teeth (at least 3 complete), I heard these are pretty rare, but most are from Striatolamia macrota. The biggest one is over 2 inch. This is also a closed location where fossils from the Lutetian (middle eocene) were found. Many complete teeth altough there are also broken teeth in it. No junk. The last location (Antwerp) includes about 1,1 pound of teeth that were found in the Schelde in 1970. Most teeth are broken but there are some nice small ones in it (Notorynchus, Hastalis...). (No pictures yet). At last I will throw in some teeth from Cadzand/Breskens (The Netherlands). There are waaay to many teeth to take pictures of every single one of them, so I just took some pictures of some. If interested, Pm me and I will send you more pictures. I know the pictures aren't the best, but I don't have a camera and my smartphone don't want to cooperate with me. I'm looking for: -Fish -Anything insect -Anything dinosaur (no chunkosaur) - Fossils from Liaoning or similar locations in China - Trilobites - Permian/ Triassic reptiles (teeth,jaws, bones etc.) - Anything I don't have from the KemKem Beds. -All shark teeth that are at least as old as the Cretaceous. - Fossils from the Eocene of Morocco. - ...

No work today so decided to have some fun & at least cross this off my list. Being same age as Peace River/creeks (mid mio- possibly early plio) & hearing some hype about it, knew it couldn't be too shabby.. Very very shallow, like about a foot or 2 of water on average (most digging/sifting done on my knees). Surprising for a long creek. Seeing gravel on some of the banks, gut feeling I wouldn't have too hard a time finding rocks and indeed didn't for most of the spots I hit. Mostly smaller stuff, might be bigger gravel spots I'm sure, just no luck with it this time. But didn't mean I didn't find nothing noteworthy.. Early on found a unique vertebrae, looks like snake, surprised the delicate spiny processes were still intact. Mostly typical grey shark teeth from the time period (lemon, bull, tiger, snaggle) but I'm sure there's lamnids too in there. Eventually found my largest grey shark vertebrae to date, a whopper compared to my micro one in my trip to a phosphate mine! But still relatively small, almost the radius the size of a dime, bought one recently before today that dwarfs it, but still a great uncommon find in my book. Lots of trash, I suppose from decades of "good ol boys" being there, both large stuff along the banks and remnants dug up, exponentially more than Peace river & Joshua creek. But also more colorful shark teeth on average & some pretty rocks (threw back frags of red ones early on, thought it was man-made before finding more of them). Overall lighter colored rocks too than the area much farther south I'm use to digging up (fortunate I guess I live in central FL). Yeah felt like I found more than that, some holes provided more than others.. definitely felt on par with the Peace river overall, just not as scenic of course. Still, I'd go there again perhaps..

Can anyone help me identify these two teeth? I am new to fossil collecting and need to learn more. Can you also explain how you know what type species the teeth came from- this way I will know how to identify in future. Found at Onslow Beach, Jacksonville, NC Thank you

My last time out I found a lot of shark teeth. They are all black. Can these be cleaned or are they just black? If they can be cleaned how does one go about cleaning them?