Bone Valley White Whale (Blue Shark?) - September 24, 2022

[Meganeura]

Shorter trip report today - but I caught my white whale! Or in this case - blue shark. Finally got a Meg over 3 inches, and it is perfect. Anyway:

 

Megs and Frags:

 

 

3 Hemis 1.5” or over and a lower Mako:

A pathological, double-tipped bull shark tooth (First ever pathological tooth I think.):

 

And a really pretty piece of turtle shell, chunk of tusk, a tarpon scale, an Equus astragalus, and a tridactyl horse ectocuneiform (pretty sure on that last one, tentative ID):

[Nimravis]

Nice finds Daniel- collecting at that fee site is very nice. I will hit it again when I get down there next year.

[Done Drillin]

Glad to be there when you found it - Was a beautiful day and a good time was had by all ! 

[Meganeura]

11 minutes ago, Done Drillin said:

Glad to be there when you found it - Was a beautiful day and a good time was had by all ! 

Wouldn't have had it any other way - you certainly had your haul of Megs too. That white one you got was something else. So beautiful!

[Shellseeker]

3 hours ago, Meganeura said:

Shorter trip report today - but I caught my white whale! Or in this case - blue shark. Finally got a Meg over 3 inches, and it is perfect. Anyway:

Congratulations Daniel... It is great to be successful in goals.  I think, if you keep at it, you will likely reach new plateaus going forward.  Possibly 4 inches, maybe even 5 inches.

 

I am curious about the Megs you and others find using these methods.. I have never gone to a fee_based site and I am considering it.

What kinds of colors, size, quality (broken versus not) , serrations etc are you seeing?

[Fin Lover]

Very nice finds!

[Meganeura]

1 minute ago, Shellseeker said:

Congratulations Daniel... It is great to be successful in goals.  I think, if you keep at it, you will likely reach new plateaus going forward.  Possibly 4 inches, maybe even 5 inches.

 

I am curious about the Megs you and others find using these methods.. I have never gone to a fee_based site and I am considering it.

What kinds of colors, size, quality (broken versus not) , serrations etc are you seeing?

Thank you! 4" is definitely the next goal with Megs for me... and is definitely going to be another plateau. 

I'd say the size is consistent with the Megs you'd find in the Peace - 1-2" is common, 3-4" is rare, 5"+ is very rare. I've found... I want to say ~40 complete Megs from this site, and maybe 5 of those are above 2", only one being above 3".  Colors - blue of varying shades, the occasional white as well. I know that the other paid site in the area has green Megs instead of blue, but I haven't gone myself. As far as quality goes - Definitely more complete ones than the river, but still plenty of fragments. The ones I showcased in this post were only the more complete ones - there were a whole bunch of smaller frags that were just blade chunks or root chunks. Serration wise - they're not super crisp/sharp, but they're very much still present. I'll grab some close ups of the big one in a few min.

Probably worth noting that I've been ~8 times now, and have walked away with at least one Meg that I'd consider solid - 85%+ complete - each time, with the last 3 trips resulting in 5 or more complete Megs. 

@Done Drillin Anything you wanna add, or do you think I covered it?

[digit]

The turtle piece above is most of a right epiplastron (front of the lower shell).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Meganeura]

3 minutes ago, digit said:

The turtle piece above is most of a right epiplastron (front of the lower shell).

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

The fact that you know that honestly makes it a much cooler find to me. I found… way too much turtle shell there yesterday. I left it - but too much. 

[Meganeura]

@Shellseeker Here’s all my complete/mostly complete teeth - 36 of em (including the one I wear as a necklace - also they’re a mess currently cause the cat knocked the box) so this should give you an idea of color/size.

Serrations on the big one:

 

And on the 2 to the right of the white one:

 

 

 

[Done Drillin]

I would say at first I was looking at this from a purist point of view which is valid - until I did it and had a ball - my wife who loves fossil hunting but is maybe not as adventurous as I can be as successful as the most seasoned hunter - at this point in my life a big smile between friends, great people around you and a love for the outdoors is a wonderful thing ........ here’s my wife and i’s take from the day , good times !

[siteseer]

Am I missing it somehow?  Where's the blue shark?  I didn't know there was a fossil occurrence of it on the east coast (seen it from California, Peru, and Chile).

[Meganeura]

1 minute ago, siteseer said:

Am I missing it somehow?  Where's the blue shark?  I didn't know there was a fossil occurrence of it on the east coast (seen it from California, Peru, and Chile).

 You're not missing anything - my "White Whale" was a 3" or bigger Meg - which happens to be blue cause of the location. Blue Megalodon tooth -> Blue Shark.

[siteseer]

55 minutes ago, Meganeura said:

 You're not missing anything - my "White Whale" was a 3" or bigger Meg - which happens to be blue cause of the location. Blue Megalodon tooth -> Blue Shark.

 

Oh okay.  You've found some nice teeth at that pay site.

[Shellseeker]

I am always curious, Jess. Never heard of one...  From the teeth below, looks like Hemipristis.. Do you have photos of fossil teeth and, if so, how do you differentiate ?  Thanks Jack

2 hours ago, siteseer said:

I didn't know there was a fossil occurrence of it on the east coast (seen it from California, Peru, and Chile).

Quote

The blue shark (Prionace glauca), also known as the great blue shark, is a species of requiem shark, in the family Carcharhinidae, that inhabits deep waters in the world's temperate and tropical oceans. Averaging around 3.1 m (10 ft) and preferring cooler waters,^[3] the blue shark migrates long distances, such as from New England to South America. It is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.

 

 

[Meganeura]

3 minutes ago, Shellseeker said:

I am always curious, Jess. Never heard of one...  From the teeth below, looks like Hemipristis.. Do you have photos of fossil teeth and, if so, how do you differentiate ?  Thanks Jack

 

 

Whoa. This is really neat. Carcharhinus crossed with hemipristis? 

[siteseer]

20 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

I am always curious, Jess. Never heard of one...  From the teeth below, looks like Hemipristis.. Do you have photos of fossil teeth and, if so, how do you differentiate ?  Thanks Jack

 

 

 

I think it was in the early 90's that I had a chance to sort through a collection of Pliocene shark teeth from Oceanside, San Diego County, CA.  It was a beer flat full of teeth and I sorted them by genus.   The vast majority of them were great whites with maybe 20-25 makos, about that many Carcharhinus, maybe 5-6 angel shark, maybe that many Hexanchus (incomplete but mostly there), and then there were four little teeth that turned out to be blue shark.  My friend let me buy a sample of the groups.  He wanted to keep at least one of everything.

 

Like you, at first, I thought they were Hemipristis - maybe even juveniles.  However, the serrations on the upper teeth are finer and the lowers are generally unserrated (though they can be worn away too).  They seem to be a little flatter (labiolingually compressed) too.  I still thought they were Hemiprisits until a friend sent me labeled blue shark teeth from Peru and I realized what I had.

 

I've heard that the blue shark appeared in the Middle Miocene but you see it most from the Early Pliocene of Peru.  I've seen just the few from Oceanside, 1-2 from Chile, and maybe 10-20 from Peru.  A guy running a souvenir stand in Los Angeles told me they come out of the Pleistocene San Pedro Sand as well.  It's more of an open water shark so the teeth would be rare in near-shore deposits.

 

I have an upper and lower from Oceanside and a few different jaw positions from Peru.  I'll get some photos of those and post them on the Forum.

 

I found an FF thread with notes on blue sharks and it's linked to @Northern Sharks gallery photo (fantastic gallery for anyone interested in shark teeth).

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/81107-shark-tooth-prionace-or-carcharias/

 

[Meganeura]

3 minutes ago, siteseer said:

 

I think it was in the early 90's that I had a chance to sort through a collection of Pliocene shark teeth from Oceanside, San Diego County, CA.  It was a beer flat full of teeth and I sorted them by genus.   The vast majority of them were great whites with maybe 20-25 makos, about that many Carcharhinus, maybe 5-6 angel shark, maybe that many Hexanchus (incomplete but mostly there), and then there were four little teeth that turned out to be blue shark.  My friend let me buy a sample of the groups.  He wanted to keep at least one of everything.

 

Like you, at first, I thought they were Hemipristis - maybe even juveniles.  However, the serrations on the upper teeth are finer and the lowers are generally unserrated (though they can be worn away too).  They seem to be a little flatter (labiolingually compressed) too.  I still thought they were Hemiprisits until a friend sent me labeled blue shark teeth from Peru and I realized what I had.

 

I've heard that the blue shark appeared in the Middle Miocene but you see it most from the Early Pliocene of Peru.  I've seen just the few from Oceanside, 1-2 from Chile, and maybe 10-20 from Peru.  A guy running a souvenir stand in Los Angeles told me they come out of the Pleistocene San Pedro Sand as well.  It's more of an open water shark so the teeth would be rare in near-shore deposits.

 

I have an upper and lower from Oceanside and a few different jaw positions from Peru.  I'll get some photos of those and post them on the Forum.

 

I found an FF thread with notes on blue sharks and it's linked to @Northern Sharks gallery photo (fantastic gallery for anyone interested in shark teeth).

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/81107-shark-tooth-prionace-or-carcharias/

 

So what makes blue sharks so different from Hemipristis that they were put into Carcharhinus instead of Hemipristis?

[Family Fun]

Daniel, great finds.  I’ve never been to that site, but thought of going many times. If you ever need an extra for a day let me know, I’m all in.

 

Rick

[Meganeura]

1 minute ago, Family Fun said:

Daniel, great finds.  I’ve never been to that site, but thought of going many times. If you ever need an extra for a day let me know, I’m all in.

 

Rick

Thank you! Always happy to have more around - I've definitely found fossil hunting to be a lot more fun with friends as company. So once Ian has... blown over, we can possibly plan something!

[Family Fun]

Sounds like a plan. 

[Shellseeker]

2 hours ago, siteseer said:

Like you, at first, I thought they were Hemipristis - maybe even juveniles.  However, the serrations on the upper teeth are finer and the lowers are generally unserrated (though they can be worn away too).  They seem to be a little flatter (labiolingually compressed) too.  I still thought they were Hemiprisits until a friend sent me labeled blue shark teeth from Peru and I realized what I had.

Thank you.  I always like to ask you questions, because I know that your answers will be packed with insights. Here is a site with pretty pictures.

https://shark-references.com/species/view/Prionace-glauca

[fossilnoggin]

went a month ago to this site with my son, and we had a wonderful time!    we will be going back next time we are down there. 

[Meganeura]

1 hour ago, fossilnoggin said:

went a month ago to this site with my son, and we had a wonderful time!    we will be going back next time we are down there. 

It really is so much fun - and the owner is awesome!

[siteseer]

6 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

Thank you.  I always like to ask you questions, because I know that your answers will be packed with insights. Here is a site with pretty pictures.

https://shark-references.com/species/view/Prionace-glauca

 

Thanks, Jack.  It was interesting to see specimens from Australia and Italy.  I didn't know about those occurrences.