Shark Tooth Color

[Shellseeker]

Shark teeth that change color..  Here is one... a Mako. A Photo taken within 10 minutes of removing from a heavy blanket of mud, gravel, clay mixture.  This tooth had not seen daylight in a couple of million years. Then a photo of the same tooth 2 hours later when I arrived home. 

Yes I applied water, then oil and neither the  blade or especially the root darkens again..

 

If some type of organism that dies/fade in sun light, how about this hemi that came from the exact same location. Why is the root still black?

Figure this will be a good discussion for shark experts. 

 

 

[caldigger]

The teeth in the areas I dig are just the opposite. They are dry to begin with, much like the lighter pic of your Mako.

Yours might be a combination of drying out and being taken from an anaerobic  enviornment introducing it to Oxygen. Perhaps briefly putting water on them or oil isn't enough to fully saturate within the core like they were when pulled from the river.

I know the colors change on the STH teeth, which tend to fade to duller coloration. Some have brilliant colors when first exposed, then turn to a grey or much more subdued color within a very short time. And these are not wet to begin with, so I would attribute it to more of an exposure to the gases in air.

 

I have quite a few Floridian black teeth that I am sure are just as they were when pulled from the rivers. I can't explain why some of your teeth changed while others did not. 

Maybe the minerals available in the Hemi were different than where you obtained your Mako. 

[Daniel_63]

The conditions of fossilization have got a lot of parameters to understand what's happening at the end : the nature of the initial material, the density, the condition of the sedimentation and its nature.... I have got a lot of cases in which I have found the same specie at 10 metres difference, in the same layer but the color was not the same. It is not very reliable to identify some findings with the color.

[Shellseeker]

11 hours ago, caldigger said:

Some have brilliant colors when first exposed, then turn to a grey or much more subdued color within a very short time. And these are not wet to begin with, so I would attribute it to more of an exposure to the gases in air.

My last photo from a land find at the same location...

4 hours ago, Daniel_63 said:

The conditions of fossilization have got a lot of parameters to understand what's happening at the end : the nature of the initial material, the density, the condition of the sedimentation and its nature...

Yes, I get the feeling that I am not going to understand that complexity. I also get the feeling that the bottom 2 Megs, went thru a very different fossilization process.

 

Thanks for the good responses,

Made me stop and think. I have a number of shark teeth from this area. The Mako and Hemi were found within feet of each other. Normally I hunt the Peace river, where teeth are dark roots with black shiny enamel and stay that way forever. The Meg below is exactly the same colors as 3 years ago with the lingual shiny black and the labial dull.

 

At this new (for me) site, some teeth look exactly as they came from the matrix (#1 below) and about half of the others lighten significantly. And the teeth, whether they lighten or not come from a 25 foot square area.

 

But then , many teeth that seem to lose color over time.

[caldigger]

It may also depend if one is in a clay pocket and another right next to it was just in sand/ travels.

Other than that.. I got nothin! 

[FossilsAnonymous]

I'm going to have to agree with Mr Doren. Maybe it has to do with what it was found in or fossilized in? Not one of my teeth has changed colors. Maybe the minerals fossilized in the tooth have a reaction or something when exposed to light in your teeth.

[caldigger]

Jack, just display your teeth in the dark. 

[ynot]

There are several elements that are light sensitive and when buried (unexposed) will be one color, but when exposed to light will change color (think of the old photographic mediums.).

There are other compounds (mineral) that will change color dependent on moisture content. (litmus paper).

It does not take much of these elements/minerals spread out through the material of the tooth (or other fossils) to create conditions that will cause a color change upon exposure (removal from matrix), whether it is from dehydration, oxidation or reaction to light.

[digit]

Yup. I was going to comment on this but Tony pretty much covered my theories.

 

I was quite impressed by the "bleaching" of the tooth at the top of this post--quite the dramatic difference!

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[JBMugu]

I have the same problem as Caldigger. I have noticed that if a tooth is sealed in butvar quickly after it is unearthed the colors seed to fade less. Something to try. Interestingly all of the teeth I find seem to fade except the orange teeth. Go figure

[Gaver]

Not sure how this fits...

I did some experimentation with In Vitro Propagation of Ornamental Tropical Plants a long time ago.

The books I had called for double distilled deionized water for mixing the chemicals that were used to grow the material.

I spent a lot of time trying to find that type of water - finally called and spoke to a scientist working at one of the Florida spring well bottling plants.

After a good chuckle - he explained that that type of water exists in high end laboratorys only - and is very expensive (very).

He told me that once you remove the cap on a bottle of water - it begins reacting with the environment surrounding it.

It wants to "balance" with it's surroundings.

For demonstration purposes he had me put a digital PH meter in the water immediately after removing the cap.

The change was immediate - you could watch the PH change on the gauge - rapidly.

The PH on the entire gallon of water was changing by absorbing elements out of the air exposed thru the 1.25 inch diameter opening in the jug.

 

I'd bet the sharks teeth you are finding are  also having a reaction to the atmosphere.

They are trying to balance with their new environment.

Gasses in the atmosphere are interacting with chemicals in the teeth - some chemicals react faster than others.

 

You could try bottling some of your sharks teeth in situ using river water and see if that postpones the changes.

 

G 

 

 

 

 

 

[Shellseeker]

On 12/16/2018 at 6:15 AM, Gaver said:

I'd bet the sharks teeth you are finding are  also having a reaction to the atmosphere.

They are trying to balance with their new environment.

Gasses in the atmosphere are interacting with chemicals in the teeth - some chemicals react faster than others.

Thanks Gaver. This sounds like a very real possibility.  The large majority of Peace River shark teeth come out black on black, due to the high concentrations of tannic acid from leaves and vegetation. Occasionally, I find teeth from clay deposits that are "tan" or "blue" in color while digging in the Peace River. This 1/2 Meg from June 2013 is STILL the same color. I do not have a theory that explains.

 

Lately, I had been digging in mud & clay, recently exposed NOT in the river.  You see examples in the Mako and one of the Meg photos above. These teeth have changed color, both immediately after and again 24 -36 hours later gradually.

 

So the color change was rare, so I am thinking that the teeth were in a zero oxygen environment and I exposed them to alien light and air, to which the teeth reacted.