Shark tooth. What's it from?

[VirginiaWilderness]

I found this in a pit dug in Suffolk, Virginia. It was among lots of shells and other Oceanic remains. Anybody know what kind of shark it might have come from?

[willy]

Carcharias Carcharodon same as modern great white. Nice find, I wonder if some Yorktown has been dug up or maybe James river. Both are miocene. Sorry, I am not sure if the James river formation is miocene. Most likely tooth is pleistocene. 

[tmaier]

Is this scallop found in the same layer as the tooth? The scallop looks like maybe Chesapecten madisonius, from the late Miocene to early Pliocene of the Yorktown Formation. It would be about 5 million years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorktown_Formation

http://www.google.com/search?q=Yorktown+Formation+fossils&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

[VirginiaWilderness]

14 minutes ago, tmaier said:

Is this scallop found in the same layer as the tooth? The scallop looks like maybe Chesapecten madisonius, from the late Miocene to early Pliocene of the Yorktown Formation. It would be about 5 million years old.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorktown_Formation

http://www.google.com/search?q=Yorktown+Formation+fossils&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch
 

Yes. An excavator was used to dig about 10 feet deep in the middle of the woods in Suffolk... Never expected to find this stuff! 

[VirginiaWilderness]

Everything shown in these photos was found in the same pit. Disregard the box turtle    That wasn't in the pit. lol... We found it in the woods nearby and hoped it would come out and make an appearance before we released it back where we found it!

[tmaier]

When I said these should all be in separate threads before, I didn't realize they were very closely associated fossils. In that case, the assemblage of them, in context with each other, becomes a very good topic of a thread. What sometimes happens with new users is that they sometimes start pulling fossils out of drawers that span 1000 miles of distance and 100's of million of years in tiem, and that creates some very confusing threads.

By having this assemblage of fossils found together their combined provenance helps to define each other even better than if they were found separately. You can learn a lot about the time they were found and the ancient environment, information that is often absent or sketchy when fossils are only found one here and one there. This collection tells a story... about a time and place about 5 million years ago... a shallow ocean seashore.

Willy above says this is the tooth of the species Carcharias carcharodon, (common name Great White Shark). But that species has been around for more than 10 million years (?), so that is pretty vague. But if the tooth is associated with these shells, they could help narrow down the time and environment of this shark.

So I'm saying your collection has more more value than just the sum of its individual bits. It tells a detailed story.

One of the shells in your collection above is a Turreltella type shell (long tapered one), and they are often handy for pin-pointing time periods because they change rather quickly (speciate to new forms), and that rapid change is like a ticking clock for tracking time periods.

Some people would grab the tooth, and chuck the shells aside, but you can see the value of the whole thing... taken together.

[tmaier]

That should be "Turritella" in the post above, not "Turreltella". http://www.google.com/search?q=Turritella+type+shell&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

To tell one species from another you need to look at the very small nuances of the shell, such as ornamentations like bumps and spiral groove depth, etc. Finding the species can be very picky work, as there are many species and sometimes the difference are subtle. You photo is fuzzy, to the details are obscure.

[VirginiaWilderness]

5 minutes ago, tmaier said:

That should be "Turritella" in the post above, not "Turreltella". http://www.google.com/search?q=Turritella+type+shell&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

To tell one species from another you need to look at the very small nuances of the shell, such as ornamentations like bumps and spiral groove depth, etc. Finding the species can be very picky work, as there are many species and sometimes the difference are subtle. You photo is fuzzy, to the details are obscure.


 

I'll definitely get some better pictures this weekend. I hadn't planned on coming to a forum like this when I took them, just taking photos for my instagram... lol 

[tmaier]

Do you like detective stories? Your pit is an ancient detective story. :)

The coral looks like the encrusting coral Septastrea marylandica, maybe.

There is a big snail looking dude in the background, and that is a some species of the Strombus gastropods.

These are species found in a warm, shallow ocean. The shark swam by, and spit out a bad tooth. All these items add up to the clues of the mystry, to solve it. The more information that is found, the more easy it is to classify the other specimens. It snowballs into a big picture of the mystery.

Megaldons existed in the same waters, at the same time. The Great Whites would have been tiny in comparison.

[VirginiaWilderness]

1 minute ago, tmaier said:

Do you like detective stories? Your pit is an ancient detective story.

The coral looks like the encrusting coral Septastrea marylandica, maybe.

There is a big snail looking dude in the background, and that is a some species of the Strombus gastropods.

These are species found in a warm, shallow ocean. The shark swam by, and spit out a bad tooth. All these items add up to the clues of the mystry, to solve it. The more information that is found, the more easy it is to classify the other specimens. It snowballs into a big picture of the mystery.

Megaldons existed in the same waters, at the same time. The Great Whites would have been tiny in comparison.


 

I went searching to see if I could find out what the "skull type thing" is and couldn't find anything. That's how I wound up here. I'm very interested in learning about all of it though. It's so fascinating to find evidence of the ocean reaching so far inland. So far, there have been 3 shark teeth found. One very large. 

 

I may also wind up starting a thread with photos of arrowheads found in the area. The arrowheads are, obviously, not so deep in the ground. They're uncovered when the farmland nearby is plowed. 

[tmaier]

Whenever you find things of interest, look around the spot that you found it and try to understand the area and the story behind what you found. The object is telling you something. Most people just run off with the interesting object, and then that is the end to the trail of clues. Then they forget exactly where they found it, and it becomes a cultural "float" object, a curio with no provenance.

[VirginiaWilderness]

5 minutes ago, tmaier said:

Whenever you find things of interest, look around the spot that you found it and try to understand the area and the story behind what you found. The object is telling you something. Most people just run off with the interesting object, and then that is the end to the trail of clues. Then they forget exactly where they found it, and it becomes a cultural "float" object, a curio with no provenance.


 

I can see that. I have a bunch of shark teeth I found around Hilton Head but everyone finds shark teeth there... I am a lot more psyched about fossilized shark teeth found on a farm in Suffolk... lol

[tmaier]

"I can see that."

Yeah, sorry, I was really trying to point out to other people the value of this collection you have made. I didn't mean to lecture at you, you DID pay attention to the surroundings. :)

Your teeth will be all the more interesting if you can give the formation they were found in and the estimated age. We haven't really verified that this is 5 miilion year old Yorktown, formation, but I think it is likely.

And you might find more ... bones and teeth of the Yorktown formation...
http://www.google.com/search?q=bone+and+teeth+from+Yorktown+formation+virginia&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

Teeth normally have a shiney, polished look, and bone is not likely to have this. Some seashells have this shiney look similar to the enaml of teeth when they become polished by wave action.

Black color can be a sign of fossil bone, but also other objects, like shell, can pick up this black color.

[doushantuo]

http://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/39124/etd.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[VirginiaWilderness]

1 hour ago, tmaier said:

"I can see that."

Yeah, sorry, I was really trying to point out to other people the value of this collection you have made. I didn't mean to lecture at you, you DID pay attention to the surroundings.

Your teeth will be all the more interesting if you can give the formation they were found in and the estimated age. We haven't really verified that this is 5 miilion year old Yorktown, formation, but I think it is likely.

And you might find more ... bones and teeth of the Yorktown formation...
http://www.google.com/search?q=bone+and+teeth+from+Yorktown+formation+virginia&btnG=Search&hl=en&gbv=1&tbm=isch

Teeth normally have a shiney, polished look, and bone is not likely to have this. Some seashells have this shiney look similar to the enaml of teeth when they become polished by wave action.

Black color can be a sign of fossil bone, but also other objects, like shell, can pick up this black color.
 

If you look at this chart, the location where I've found this stuff is close to where you see the number 51

report.pdf

[tmaier]

That "report.pdf" is incompatible with my viewing software. Is it corrupted or something? Can anybody else read it?

[Al Dente]

1 minute ago, tmaier said:

That "report.pdf" is incompatible with my viewing software. Is it corrupted or something? Can anybody else read it?
 

 

It works for me.

[doushantuo]

that was one badly scanned PDF.Illegible,almost

[VirginiaWilderness]

16 hours ago, doushantuo said:

that was one badly scanned PDF.Illegible,almost

Sorry, it was just a page from that?Yorktown Formation link.