Galveston Area Shark Teeth

[sharko69]

My son and I have have been finding a few sharks teeth in Galveston that have washed onto the beaches. Does anyone know the age or the formation that these teeth are washing up from?

[Darktooth]

Well you have tiger, bull and lemon so I would say they came from the miocene, but I don't know what formation.

[FossilsAnonymous]

I see some silky shark teeth too I think.. As @Darktooth said, probably Miocene. Exact location would help.

[Al Dente]

I would guess Pliocene or younger. The tiger shark is Galeocerdo cuvier. They might be found in the late Miocene but the oldest I know of are Pliocene.

[Oxytropidoceras]

The shoreface erosion along the barriers and adjacent beaches, e.g. High Island, is too shallow for there to be a Miocene source. At best, erosion along the shoreline cuts into Late Pleistocene strata. The top of the Miocene is about 2,000 feet deep (Young et al. 2012:6-25).  The top of the Pliocene is at about 1,250 - 1,500 feet deep (Young et al. 2012:6-26).

 

Go see:

 

Young, S.C., Ewing, T., Hamlin, S., Baker, E. and Lupton, D., 2012. Final report updating the hydrogeologic framework for the northern

portion of the Gulf Coast aquifer: Austin. Texas Water Development Board.

http://www.twdb.texas.gov/publications/reports/contracted_reports/doc/1004831113_GulfCoast.pdf

 

Smyth, W.C., 1991. Seismic facies analysis and depositional history of an incised valley system, Galveston Bay area, Texas

(MS thesis, Rice University). https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/13511

 

Thomas, M.A., 1991. The impact of long-term and short-term sea level changes on the evolution of the Wisconsinan-Holocene

Trinity/Sabine incised valley system, Texas continental shelf (Doctoral dissertation, Rice University).

https://scholarship.rice.edu/handle/1911/16488

 

Simms, A.R., Anderson, J.B., Taha, Z.P. and Rodriguez, A.B., 2006. Overfilled versus underfilled incised valleys: examples from

the Quaternary Gulf of Mexico. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Antonio_Rodriguez11

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237191122_Overfilled_versus_Underfilled_Incised_Valleys_examples_from_the_Quaternary_Gulf_of_Mexico

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

[sharko69]

7 hours ago, Darktooth said:

Well you have tiger, bull and lemon so I would say they came from the miocene, but I don't know what formation.

How can you tell the difference between bull and dusky? I thought they were Duskys.

[KimTexan]

Galveston Island is Holocene. The mainland/coast is Pleistocene. Out in the ocean off Galveston Island is quaternary.

[Twinlukers]

8 hours ago, KimTexan said:

Galveston Island is Holocene. The mainland/coast is Pleistocene. Out in the ocean off Galveston Island is quaternary.

Very true!!! Good research people. But Kim hit it. I’ve been hunting Galveston beach’s and Bolivar for almost 5 years and most of my finds come from the bolivar area. The three types most common are Bull as the most common and then lemon and tiger. 

 

[Darktooth]

10 hours ago, sharko69 said:

How can you tell the difference between bull and dusky? I thought they were Duskys.

Honestly I have a hard time telling them apart. Maybe they are in fact Dusky. @Al Dente

[sharko69]

12 hours ago, KimTexan said:

Galveston Island is Holocene. The mainland/coast is Pleistocene. Out in the ocean off Galveston Island is quaternary.

That is great info. So these are relatively young fossil teeth. Thank you.

[sharko69]

4 hours ago, Twinlukers said:

Very true!!! Good research people. But Kim hit it. I’ve been hunting Galveston beach’s and Bolivar for almost 5 years and most of my finds come from the bolivar area. The three types most common are Bull as the most common and then lemon and tiger. 

 

So let me ask you the same question, how do you tell whether they are bull or dusky? I have always called them dusky before. I met a couple last week and she had some amazing sand tiger teeth as well. 

[Twinlukers]

When The city of Galveston restored the beaches last year the sand they brought in cane from several areas. One area that held a ton of teeth was from the Channel and I was able to get that information from my work place as they were the funding group for the project. 

 

I found over over a thousand teeth just from daily walks in the area. I would spend about two hours during the weekdays and I was amazed at the variety that came from their. 

 

Whats even harder to believe that the sand the sand they pulled from the gulf had very little in a way of teeth and more broken shells instead. 

 

But yo my knowledge the Dusty Shark teeth’s have a longer or wider root then Bull Sharks.

 

 

[Twinlukers]

Here are more I found on the beach..

 

[Al Dente]

On 10/15/2018 at 11:47 PM, sharko69 said:

How can you tell the difference between bull and dusky? I thought they were Duskys.

 

22 hours ago, Darktooth said:

Honestly I have a hard time telling them apart. Maybe they are in fact Dusky. @Al Dente

I no longer try to differentiate between them. There are 3 references that I know of that are detailed enough to show the differences between these teeth and they contradict each other. It makes me wonder if at least one of the references had mixed up the teeth they were using. Two of the references show bull sharks as having U-shaped roots on the upper teeth with dusky sharks having a fairly straight root, the third reference has the opposite. One of the references has the dusky with finer, more regular serrations and another has the bull with finer more regular serrations. Add in the Oceanic white tip and you now have three species that are difficult or impossible to tell apart. 

[Darktooth]

1 hour ago, Al Dente said:

 

I no longer try to differentiate between them. There are 3 references that I know of that are detailed enough to show the differences between these teeth and they contradict each other. It makes me wonder if at least one of the references had mixed up the teeth they were using. Two of the references show bull sharks as having U-shaped roots on the upper teeth with dusky sharks having a fairly straight root, the third reference has the opposite. One of the references has the dusky with finer, more regular serrations and another has the bull with finer more regular serrations. Add in the Oceanic white tip and you now have three species that are difficult or impossible to tell apart. 

Which is why I believe that the bull shark is probably used as a "default" ID for most collectors when confronted with these types of teeth.

Thanks for your input.

Dave

[sharko69]

On 10/15/2018 at 10:52 PM, KimTexan said:

Galveston Island is Holocene. The mainland/coast is Pleistocene. Out in the ocean off Galveston Island is quaternary.

So these teeth are anywhere from 1million to 10,000 years old. I am finding fossilized mammal bone as I walk the beach as well Pleistocene?

[siteseer]

On 10/17/2018 at 5:53 AM, Al Dente said:

 

I no longer try to differentiate between them. There are 3 references that I know of that are detailed enough to show the differences between these teeth and they contradict each other. It makes me wonder if at least one of the references had mixed up the teeth they were using. Two of the references show bull sharks as having U-shaped roots on the upper teeth with dusky sharks having a fairly straight root, the third reference has the opposite. One of the references has the dusky with finer, more regular serrations and another has the bull with finer more regular serrations. Add in the Oceanic white tip and you now have three species that are difficult or impossible to tell apart. 

 

Al Dente,

 

What are those references?  If pressed for an authority on duskies vs. bulls, I would ask Dr. Gordon Hubbell.  He knows modern and fossil sharks. 

 

Jess

 

[Al Dente]

11 hours ago, siteseer said:

 

Al Dente,

 

What are those references?  If pressed for an authority on duskies vs. bulls, I would ask Dr. Gordon Hubbell.  He knows modern and fossil sharks. 

 

Jess

 

I used the Elasmo website which included the modern jaws and Bill Heims descriptions, also used Garrick’s “Sharks of the genus Carcharhinus” and Voigt and Weber’s “Field guide for the sharks of the genus Carcharhinus”. Here a snip of Garrick’s showing the Dusky shark (U) as having finer serrations than the Bull shark (T).

[KimTexan]

On 10/16/2018 at 11:36 AM, sharko69 said:

That is great info. So these are relatively young fossil teeth. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

I need to make a trip down there sometime. It has been years since I’ve been down there.

Trying to get my kids to go out hiking or fossil hunting is like pulling teeth sometimes. I’ve seen some nice mastodon and mammoth stuff coming from out of the area lately. Some guy even said he had found gomphothere stuff down there. I haven’t confirmed that gomphthere are found in the area though. The guy didn’t post his find.

[Twinlukers]

My last big tooth I found was last year near Murdock’s

 

 

[sharko69]

3 hours ago, Twinlukers said:

My last big tooth I found was last year near Murdock’s

 

 

Wow! That’s a big’n. We just got back from Galveston and found a lot of nice teeth this trip. I will post in a while. The colors are amazing, I think.

[sharko69]

[sharko69]

2 hours ago, sharko69 said:

Wow! That’s a big’n. We just got back from Galveston and found a lot of nice teeth this trip. I will post in a while. The colors are amazing, I think.

Hey, I just took a harder look, that’s a GW!?

[jwfornow]

I've never been to Galveston, but I am meeting friends down there in a couple of weeks. Could you tell me what part of the island is a good place to start looking? Thank you!

 

Oh I just googled Murdoch's, I think we're renting not far away!!

Edited May 22, 2019 by jwfornow
to add to it

[Twinlukers]

3 hours ago, jwfornow said:

I've never been to Galveston, but I am meeting friends down there in a couple of weeks. Could you tell me what part of the island is a good place to start looking? Thank you!

 

Oh I just googled Murdoch's, I think we're renting not far away!!

Well for a better search area go on the ferry to the bolivar side. It’s a great day trip or half day trip. The food at Stringrays is very good. I hunt that area once a month and find at least 20-30 little teeth on low tide.  But back on the island east beach at the end you can find some good treasures. Enjoy