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Hi, I found this external mold shell on Honeymoon beach, Florida USA. It's about 2" long and 3/4" on the widest end. Unfortunately it is broken and worn on the right edge, but I still thought it was a cool find. It's limestone and has about 3 more shell imprints on the flip side (not shown). This was an unusual shape so I made a clay mold to better see the shape (3rd photo)I looked through many seashell books and narrowed it down to Eastern Turritella or Florida Cerith. What do you think?

I found this shell cast on Honeymoon Island, Florida, USA. As you can see from the photos it's a complete shell cast and measures about 4 x 3 1/2 inches. I did some research and found similar pictures that looked like Turritella Shell. Would the Forum agree with this ID?? If so I read that this is an extinct species of fossil sea snail. Is this correct? I appreciate your feedback. Thank you!

Love these little guys, they are a distinctly different color than the rest of the pitch black fossils I generally find at myrtle beach, and the crystal like lines are dazzling to me. I believe they are in the turritella family but any info is always welcome:)

There are so many testaments to Purse State Park being a fantastic fossil collecting site online, and because of this I thought I’d go there myself and test my luck. I kept on hearing about quantity, and how Purse yields more fossil sharks teeth per trip than just about any other local site. I was blown away when reading that people come home from a single trip with hundreds of teeth, and of decent size and quality too! And so a few days before Christmas, I packed up my gear and made my way across the border and down the Potomac to Purse State Park.The drive there was just fine, and the park is very secluded, unlike some other common sites. Perhaps its isolation contributes to its lack of a crowd in comparison to the Calvert Cliffs. The park is quite difficult to find as it is not clearly marked; I actually drove past it at first and had to turn around! The parking lot is on the left side of the road, and you have to cross the road to get to the trail. The hike is a little under a mile, which can be a pain if you have a lot of gear. It’s also practically in the middle of nowhere, so be cautious. Eventually, you’ll find yourself on a very nice little beach along the Potomac River. The cliffs run along the majority of the beach, and you can even see the exposed shells and cliff mix in the lower layers of some parts. In terms of area, this site is astonishing! There is at the very least a mile of beach, not to mention the fact that you can venture far past that thanks to the high tide line law in Maryland. You really could just keep walking, and I did just that, but even then I couldn’t cover all of the area even in the eight or nine hours that I hunted. If your looking for a place to hunt where there’s more beach than you know what to do with, head down to Purse.The fossils found here are from the Paleocene Era, much older than the Miocene exposures at the Calvert Cliffs. They are approximately 60 million years old, which is nearly dinosaur aged! One area where Purse does lack, however, is variety. Although you may find loads of teeth, they will all likely belong to only a handful of species unlike the Calvert Cliffs that yield hundreds of different species. This being said, the species found at Purse State Park are fascinating. The majority of teeth found will be those of extinct Sand Tiger Sharks, although you are able to find ray plates and mackerel shark teeth as well. Maybe you'll even be lucky enough to uncover a dreaded Otodus!I got to the park just a few minutes after sunrise, making for a beautiful sight. Once I began searching, I quickly learned that my shovel and sifter were rendered near useless, as I was finding teeth left and right by simply using my eyes. Surface hunting allowed me to cover a lot more distance in a lot shorter time, and I also began developing an eye for sharks teeth; there were a few time I spotted a nice tooth with only the root showing in the gravel or sand! The air temperature was not too bad, but the water was absolutely frigid and I had to take multiple breaks to avoid losing feeling in my hands completely. I tried to cover as much beach as possible without going too fast and missing teeth, and I was quite successful in doing so. To the left of the entrance, I walked for at least a mile finding tons of teeth, and I eventually stumbled upon a large and complete Turritella mold! I had found tiny fragments towards the entrance, but I was ecstatic with this find. But then, I found another. And another. When I looked up I realized I was standing right by a multitude of cliff falls that were full of these Gastropod fossils! There were hundreds of them, both in the rocks and freshly washed into the surf beneath them. I picked up the prettiest ones I could find, even carefully prying one out of the matrix. As sunset approached, I had found hundreds of fossils including teeth, plates, molds, and possible bones (turned out to be pseudofossils). But aside from some good sized sand tigers, I didn’t have anything too spectacular. But in the last hour of searching, I turned over an object that was mostly buried in the sand. To my delight, it was a nearly complete Otodus tooth! My first relatively large tooth, and a great way to end a great day of hunting! Otodus obliquus was a giant shark, nearly 35 feet in length, that was likely the ancestor to megatooth sharks like Megalodon. And since Megalodon was not alive during the Paleocene, I’d argue that finding a tooth from its great great Grandpa is just as cool! And with that, I found another handful or two of teeth on the way back to my bag and began to leave as the sun set over the horizon. On the way out, I got to share my finds with a family who was walking their dog along the beach. They were the only other people I saw in the park all day long; other than that I had the site to myself. I said a big thank you to Purse State Park, and hit the road.In total, I found an incredible 619 sharks teeth, along with over 50 other fossils! Like I said, this site delivers when it comes to quantity. Some of my favorite finds are the large Otodus in the middle, the Turritella, and the long and complete Sand Tigers. I was only able to display so many teeth before my space was overcrowded, and I had to put the rest in a pile. I am beyond happy with the results from this trip; it was by far my most productive trip yet. I hope you all enjoy seeing my finds and hearing my report, and I hope you’ll pay a visit to Purse! As always, Hoppe Hunting!

This might prove very easy for more advanced fossil collectors to answer. In 2004, the floodwaters from Hurricane Gaston swept away a large amount of soil and clay from an existing stream near the backyard of our suburban house near Mechanicsville, Virginia, exposing a clay bed littered with numerous fossils. The turritella you see in the picture occurs the most frequently of all our finds, and the small clam fossils are a close second. We've recently started to find more of the kind of scallop fossil in the image, which we guessed was a chesapecten jeffersonius, Virginia's state fossil. I found one moonsnail fossil in the same clay, but it's the only fossil of that kind that we've found. Anyway, I'm not much of a geologist, so I haven't been able to precisely date these, or identify them with a specific epoch. I have what I think is a reasonable guess, but I'd like to get a specific date on just how many years worth of soil Gaston scrubbed away from our backyard. Thanks!

Hi, Had a family break at Waton on the Naze, Essex over the New Year period and spent 5 mornings combing the beach with the wife and kids. It was remarkably unproductive on most days (as well as freezing!) and so our usual haul was very much reduced. This is what we found: Glycymeris and a couple of Turritella - Red Crag A few nice examples of sharks teeth (striatolamia) - London Clay ..and my personal favourite, a piece of whale bone (balaena sp) from the unconformity between the Red Crag and London Clay. Apparently the waxy appearance is a giveaway but what causes it hasn't been explained to me. Hopefully we'll find a lot more next time.

I have lived in my neighborhood for the last 11 years and have never explored the cliffs along the beaches. I usually head north to one of the parks to look for shark teeth, but after seeing some of the shells on this site I thought I would take a look to see what I could find about 5 minutes away. I seemed to find just a few turritella along the cliffs. I also came upon a crisp $100 bill. Overall not a bad use of an hour.

The linked photos are my first attempt at making thin sections of fossils. I have labelled the presentation as preliminary as I was not confident in grinding a fossil slice to a minimum thickness. The result is the slides are a tad too thick. I will give them a further polish with the 600 grit wheel. The fossil was cut across the short side to produce two middle slices. The other three are chips from the top and bottom of the specimen. There are (to me) obvious fossils in the thin sections, but identifying the Turritella is left as an exercise for the observer. The photos are all stitched from multiple images (36-44) using a 2x objective to show the full specimen. Details: Microscope: Labomed LB-592 Camera: Canon 5D MkII Compositing: Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) Post processing: Adobe Lightroom Web page: redrex basic gallery. Click on the image to see the photos.

Found this weekend while searching a nearby creek for artifacts. Turritella Woodbine form Dallas Co. Tex. Jess B.

Hello, All: I'm a new member, live in Colorado but, mostly collect fossils on the family ranch in central Texas near Bandera. The rock there is lower Cretaceous limestone. However, I'm mainly interested in some (Edwards Formation?) chert nodules that are scattered here and there all over the ranch. Some of the nodules have fossils. I've looked around the Fossil Forum site and I'm very encouraged. There seems to be lot of expertise, covering many types of fossils. Great. I've been able to identify some of my chert fossils but, not all, not by a long shot. Attached photos show a fossil conical marine gastropod (possibly, genus Nerinea or, Turritella?) that's pretty common on the Olive ranch. I've found dozens of them but, I don't know what the heck I've got. Any ID help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mike Olive Boulder, Colorado

These are my recent finds from a March 2013 trip to Calvert Cliffs, MD. The image you see is of the Maryland state fossil, Ecphora. Didn't find an intact megaladon this time, but I'll go back out.