rapp creek hunting

[Rowboater]

Too cold and rainy to fish (no speckled trout yet for me, just out of season rockfish, huge cow nosed rays, and stiffback perch).   So went tooth hunting.  Unfortunately the kids(?) had dug a giant hole in one of my favored spots, so I ended up hunting one of the kids' favored spots.  A hard grayish blue clay area which is usually too hard and unproductive for me, but when walking past I saw a black shiny object glinting in the sun; looking closer I noticed a fine serrated edge and digging around it soon discovered just a shard from a megalodon (which I had never noticed in the creek before).  Very disappointed of course that it wasn't whole, but the clay was softer than usual with all the rain so I was able to dig into the bank and did pretty well.  Several hemi teetch and pieces (lots of busted stuff here) plus a few makos and lots of teeth that are not the usual sand tiger spikes.  Not sure what they all are, but usually these are in the minority, today they were the main things I was finding.  Generally these teeth were fewer than what i find in the sand and gravel, but bigger and heavier.  The kids must have found some nice stuff here.  A layer of giant tree oysters below and mostly scallops (pectans) above, some in better shape than the teeth.  Having some issues with my scanner, but will post some of my more "normal" finds from last week as well if I can get the scanner going.  

 

[FossilsAnonymous]

Looks like you got a bigger shard there. Ever pulled a whole one out?

[Rowboater]

@FossilsAnonymous  I've only found one decent meg tooth in years and that was on a Rappahannock beach this winter. I had never even found a shard of a meg in the creek where I hunt, although 30 years ago I remember stories of kids finding some (not many, and I never saw them).  I mostly find sand tiger spikes and have pulled several out of the banks, mostly in sandy, gravelly areas with lots of shells.  Never found much in the blue clay until this past trip.

Do you recognize what the smaller teeth are in the scan?  Usually I find more, but smaller, more delicate teeth: infrequent cow shark or hemipristis, medium mako (1" or more), or tigershark, some gray shark triangles, many angel shark teeth, lots of tiny unknown to me, and the vast majority sand tiger shark teeth.  I do find an occasional one like the ones in the scan, but am curious what they are.

[FossilsAnonymous]

Well yes, there are a lot of smaller teeth. They are the same ones we find up in Calvert, so I know them somewhat well. I think the difference is that we have the propensity to find a lot more larger teeth. However, different formations have slightly different teeth and that is to be expected.

[Rowboater]

@FossilsAnonymous this area where i hunt is a small wooded creek that has been heavily hunted by local kids (some older kids like me!) for over 50 years.  So a microcosm of the traffic and the bigger area at the Calvert Cliffs.  Despite small diggings the area is mostly just the creek bed that yields teeth.  Thirty years ago I remember several whale vertebra like tree stumps, but too big for the kids to carry away (long gone, although they were visible for several years).  Screening was done with larger screens back then, the kids weren't interested in the smaller teeth, nor broken, nor skate teeth.  I occasionally see kids there, but without the passion (think that goes into gaming).

I think most of the flat triangular serrated teeth I find, mostly at the beach, are different types of grey sharks.  I'm more interested in the small mako-like non-serrated teeth, and the more "spike-like" but heavier for their size than the typical "retroflex" curvature of the sand tiger shark teeth I usually find.  Are these small mako teeth, or some other species? Thanks for IDs in advance.

[FossilsAnonymous]

I’m not entirely sure. I do see things that look like makos to me. Remember they are in different positions in the jaw, so some teeth look different but are actually similar. It’s infuriating with some of the smaller teeth.

[Rowboater]

@FossilsAnonymous, Thanks.  I guess I'll go to some of the older sites (one good Japanese one) to look at dentition of different fossil shark teeth.   The little teeth are mostly what's available where I hunt so  I need to figure out what they could be.

[Fossildude19]

Another nice trip report! 

Hope your scanner gets back up, @Rowboater !  

Thanks for the post!

[Gizmo]

Great teeth, congrats!  

[ShoreThing]

Looks like a great trip to me!