My Two Day Trip To The Miocene Of Virginia

[njfossilhunter]

I just wanted to share some interesting finds from my trip to the Rappahannock river in Virginia last week. It was a short trip because area's of cliff face has fallen along the areas I search. The tide was very low,, so it made it possible to search more closer to the water line. I made my way to a spot along the cliff where it usually not exposed due to the high tide level. while I was searching the area on my hands and knees I happen to look over to my right and seen what looked like a tooth protruding perpendicular ,,,crown showing out of the face of the cliff just five feet away,,So I got up and walked up to it and seen it was a mako ,,,a rather large one at that ,,only the root was still in the cliff ,,so I gently wiggled it out ,,, with a smile and a chuckle ,,,I said out loud....what a cool tooth. So I continued search for more fossils and found one little verts partially buried at the very bottom of the cliff ,,,,,Now mind you that this was all in the same area about ten feet wide along the cliff. I was getting tired because I have been up since 10 am the day before.

The next low tide was about 7:30 that evening and not being able to sleep I went back out to the same place and made my way back slowly while searching the beach for more goodies I did find a few small teeth and bone frag's but my real nice find was when I made my way back to the spot I found the tooth sticking out,,,,As I was looking around I seen this beautiful looking shark vert laying about 2 feet away from where the tooth was found in the wall,, I reached for it and picked it up very carefully knowing that these vert are and can be very fragile and can come apart at the slightest movement....I pulled out some TP and put it in the river and also used wet paper towels to wrap it up and placed it inside a plastic ziplock bag. this vert must have fallen out of somewhere in the above cliff ,,,there was a small amount of cliff debris laying around that area and must of came down sometime during the high tide,,, this vert was not there earlier because either I would have found it or walked on it a few times.

It been drying out for just over a week now and I think its time to stabilize it with some paleo-bond to keep it from falling apart. The vert will have to wait for awhile longer before it can be cleaned also.

Edited March 27, 2015 by njfossilhunter

[Terphunter]

Nice finds...great mako!

[mrieder79]

That's a very nice mako! Congrats on a good find.

[Darktooth]

Nice finds!

[jcbshark]

Nice finds, that's a sweet Mako!

[njfossilhunter]

Thank you.Gentlemen I appreciate your comments. I was really hoping to find a complete archaeocete tooth whale skull ,,but I guess this will have to do.

[CrocodileJen]

Awesome! I hunt the Miocene along the Potomac near Stratford Hall and on Shark Tooth Island . Where did you go?

Edited March 31, 2015 by CrocodileJen

[njfossilhunter]

Awesome! I hunt the Miocene along the Potomac near Stratford Hall and on Shark Tooth Island . Where did you go?

Thank you.....I search along the Rappahannock river in Richmond county as well as the Potamic river,,, Westmoreland and north of the park....I have been to the cliff's in Maryland. and Flagpond and a few locations north of Flagpond.......I have never heard of Shark Tooth Island....where is that,,If you don't mind me asking.