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Howdy all, Just bought this mosasaur tooth from the Pee Dee Formation of North Carolina. Seller has IDed it as Prognathodon and I'm wondering if that is valid or if it could be something like Tylosaurus (I looked at tylosaurus teeth from that area and the patterns in the enamel seem to match). Either way I'm overjoyed to finally have a mosasaur tooth from that region of Appalachia's ancient coast.

Hello all! I've been getting ready for the Aurora Fossil Festival (and working on my new display cabinet), and have been going back through my Holden Beach finds. I wanted to share a compilation of my visits to Holden Beach, North Carolina from 2022 to 2023. I have gone 5 times since the replenishment project occurred there: April 2022, twice in October 2022, February 2023, and April 2023. While I was mostly picking up the Hardouinia mortonis echinoids, I found a little bit of everything out there. There was so much that I couldn't include everything, so I stuck with the best of my finds. It's truly amazing what all can be found washing out down there! I am still fairly new to fossils in general, and I'm far from confident in my ability to I.D. a lot of things. That being said, I have tried my best to identify what I could. Any corrections or advice is more than appreciated! I can also take additional pictures if anyone wants a better look at anything here. Here are all my sharks teeth. I am not great with the I.D.s on all of these, but I do know the names to a few varieties. I have tried to group them together by what little I know, and by appearance if I'm unsure. Lots of great white and crow shark teeth were to be found. April 2022, October 2022 and February 2023: This one in particular is my favorite shark find of 2022. It's the largest Great White tooth I've found, and aside from a small chip off of the side and the tip it's in really good shape. It's right at 6 cm (2.36 Inches) long, but I have no doubt it would have been longer with the tip undamaged. (April 2022) April 2023: A modern Sand Tiger tooth snuck in as well. Now for my absolute favorite tooth, my only mostly intact Megalodon tooth that I've found to date. This one is right at 9.52 cm (3.75 Inches) long in it's current condition. (April 2023) On to my Hardouinia mortonis, this is a group photo of my best finds from all trips. The Holden Beach ones get fairly large compared to some of the quarry finds I've seen! I have several well over 5 cm (~2 Inches) in diameter. These are specimens with minor pathologies. The apical disc sometimes is "dented" on these specimens, and I've found a few with "peanut" shaped petals. (Various trips) This is a specimen with a more moderate pathology. the whole shape is unusual, and one petal is turned at about a 20-30 degree angle towards the posterior. (February 2022) These are some of my current "project" echinoids. Due to being found on the beach, they tend to be saturated with salt. while I try to manually remove some matrix periodically I give them a good soak in water for a few days, then leave them out to dry and see if salt crystals are still forming. Sometimes it takes a few tries to completely rid the salt. This batch has some Hardouinia mortonis of some pretty varied shape. (Various trips) These are mostly Mosasaur teeth, though there may be a few crocodilian teeth snuck in there as well. I'm not exactly sure which species of mosasaur these are, there are some distinctly different shapes to some of them. (Various trips) I found plenty of Mosasaur teeth without roots, but only one root without a tooth! The kind folks at Aurora helped me identify this, I wasn't sure what it was. (April 2022) I never got this one identified, but it's definitely a piece of some jaw with a tooth root. Perhaps also Mosasaur, but I'm not sure. (April 2022) Of course there was also plenty of Exogyra to go around, and way too many to photograph! This is a small cluster of them in the matrix, and the largest intact specimen I found, at around 10 cm (~4 Inches) long. (Cluster from April 2022, large one from October 2022) (*EDIT 6-18-23 with proper I.D.) These are Cretaceous Prehepatus harrisi crab claws. All but one came from the April 2022 trip (the darker is from February 2023). These are Pleistocene Equus teeth I found in April 2022. There was a much smaller fourth fragment as well I didn't photograph. This is one of my favorite finds: a Pleistocene Odocoileus antler fragment. It resembles a modern White-Tailed Deer antler fragment! (April 2022) A very large bone fragment from April 2022. Not sure what from, almost looks like a vertebra. Around 9 cm (3.54 Inches) long. A Rhombodus binkhorsti tooth, my only one found. (April 2022) Other Ray teeth and barbs (Various trips) My first and only Pycnodont mouth plate fragment (April 2023). Some sizable shark vertebrae. (Various trips) Some Sawfish rostral teeth and a few select Enchodus fangs / jaw fragments. (Various trips) Some Sea Robin skull plates. (Various trips) Some turtle carapace fragments, and possibly a Crocodilia Dermal Scute (Various trips for the turtle fragments, April 2023 on the scute) This is an interesting bone fragment that, according to the folks at Aurora, might have signs of a shark attack or feeding due to the triangular groove on it. (April 2022) Plenty of steinkerns to pick up! (Various trips) While I found a few isolated casts of ammonite chambers, this is by far the largest and best one. I'm not exactly sure what species, but after reading my NCFC book I'm leaning towards Sphenodiscus lobatus. (October 2022) Unknown vertebra, pretty heavily worn. About 4 cm (1.57 Inches) long. (April 2023) My Sirenia vertebra. (Thank you @Boesse for helping me confirm this!) (April 2023) The folks at Aurora have said this is likely a young Mastodon molar fragment. I've seen even smaller fragments with a similar shine and color that might also be some kind of Proboscidea tooth fragment. (April 2022) A fragment of some unknown echinoid. It doesn't resemble Hardouinia to me, it almost looks more like a fragment from something in the Spatangoida Order. I'm not 100% sure on it though. I wish there was more of it to look at! (April 2023) And last but not least, a couple of Sirenian rib fragments. (April 2022) Bonus pic: These are my favorite Hardouinia mortonis specimens. I had someone at work etch me out the plaque on a laser.

I was lucky enough to be invited on a hunt to a southeastern North Carolina quarry for yesterday. This quarry contains exposures of the Eocene Castle Hayne formation and the Cretaceous PeeDee formation. The quarry had not been hunted at all since late April / early may, so with all of the rain we have had over the summer and from the recent Hurricane, I wa pumped to get in there. It was a small group of people, only 8 of us, but all experienced quarry hunters. After arriving and filling out all the necessary paperwork we headed to the first area around 8:30. This area was a small section in an old part of the quarry that contained a small but very good section of Eocene material. We decided to stay there until 11 and then move to another area. Well the finds here were awesome. Several very rare varieties of echinoids were found by several of us along with the usual common ones. Bivalves, gastropod molds and brachiopods were also found. There were also a few nice nautaloids found. But, no teeth. However with the amount and variety of other things that was fine with all of us. No one left to head to the second area unhappy. We arrives at the second area around 11:30 and headed straight to an exposure of PeeDee sand. For those of you who remember the posts a few years ago about the "Big Hole" by FossilFoilist, this is the exact same type of exposure. Echinoids and oysters galore. Many of us left from there and continued hunting Cretaceous piles, while others went in search of Eocene material. It was really a fantastic day. One of my best ever at this quarry, and I'm sure a few of the others also. Some of the items found ( sorry I dont have pictures of the others finds) were, Eocene echinoids ...... Echinolampas appendiculatta, Rhyncholampas carolinensis, rare Eupatagus wilsoni, rare Linthia hanoverensis, rare Agassizia inflata, very uncommon Maretia subrostrata, uncommon Linthia wilmingtonensis, Eurhodia rugosa ideali and depressa and a very nice Coelopleurus carolinensis. On the Cretaceous side I would guess there were over 100 Hardouinia mortonis found along with over 30 of the rare Hardouinia kellumi also. There were also a few Hardouinia mortonis emmonsi found, this is a subspecies of the H. mortonis with a higher dome, looks more conical. But the truly best finds of the day were 3 complete and one partial Phymotaxis tournoueri with attached spines. There was also an amazing Enchodus ferox tooth found, it was over 3" and an amazing and extra large Squalicorax pristodontus. lso C. auriculatus but none in great shape. All of my cleaned finds finds on my drying table.

I have an Exogyra costata from the Peedee Form.(Maastrichtian) in North Carolina that has an oddity embedded in the right valve. It is not a shell or barnacle attached to the surface, and is almost perfectly round ,unlike any boring clams I have seen. I have picked ( dental probe) around the oddity to confirm it has depth and is not a surface attachment. It appears it was hollow as it is now filled with hard sediment. It has been suggested this may be an example of bioimmuration of some sort. Anyone have any ideas ? Thanks.

Hello All, I was picking through some micro material from SE North Carolina, its a mix of Maastrichtian (Peedee Form.) and Eocene ( Castle Hayne Form.). I found what looks like a tiny ( 7mm long) jaw bone with teeth. If it is a jaw bone , is it a tiny reptile or a bony fish ? Or perhaps it is neither but something else. Thanks for your help.

Hello Everyone, I need some help identifying what i have here. I have several pieces of matrix with a shell valve attached. All the pieces are less than 6 inches. They all have sort of a wavy-ness to them. Some seem to be part of a cluster ( 2 or 3 attached at the base) . These are maastrichtian from the Peedee formation in SE North Carolina. Thanks for your help.

I’m curious about these nodules along the side of the steinkern, found Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Cretaceous, Pliocene, and Pleistocene age strata in the area. Largely Cretaceous from the Pee dee formation. Any ideas welcome! The nodules are 1-2 mm. Are they pebbles that settled in during fossilization?

My find found this at a recent quarry outing and is asking for a positive ID, it is cretaceous, pee dee formation, there is also eocene, castle hayne formation there. It is concave on one end and convex on the other end. Thinking croc or mosasaur ? Need some help please. Thanks.

I found what appears to be a cochlear. Any thoughts? Greenville, NC. Miocene, PeeDee, mixture of eras.

Have always thought that these were spines but they sure do look like miniature Enchodus teeth. Was also curious about this manner of preservation. Have seen it in the New Egypt of New Jersey also. This specimen is from the Belemnitella americanum zone of the Peedee very near the base. Is there a name for this type of preservation? The bony fish mateial is clear and honey colored. Scale is MM

a local collector gave this to me for identification. I think it represents some kind of worm that was attached to the inside of a snail shell which was later filled with sediment. As all the aragonite is leached out of the Peedee Formation we don't have a shell. It is also possible that it is a boring clam of some sort but the flat, attached looking characteristic doesn't seem like a boring clam. any more specific suggestions would be appreciated. Image is about half an inch across. Age is late cretaceous, Maastrichtian.

Have any of you folk found or have a picture of this species? Am trying to find out what "crassostrea" is found in the Peedee exposed on the Cape Fear River as cited in Sohl & Owens 1990.