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Red Letter Tooth Day & First "Proper" Meg!!


TomWhite

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Hello everyone!

 

After a busy day at work on Friday i decided to take myself down to the local beach for a couple of hours of peaceful, stress-free shark tooth searching. The weather has been horrendous for the past week in this part of the UK with strong winds and waves smashing up the coastline. For those who are unsure of the location, it is a red crag formation located on top of London clay. 

As i got to the steps leading to the beach i could see that the cliffs had taken a hammering, there were falls everywhere, in some places as much as 2 metres had come down. Also on the beach the shingle had all been sucked out to see, leaving just sand and the underlying London clay which is a perfect time/conditions for finding fossils.

I was getting teeth pretty much as soon as i got onto the beach, with most located at the base of the cliff sitting on the London clay. Cosmopolitodus hastalis/Carcharodon hastalis  and Otodus obliquus  making up the majority of the finds. Soon i also picked up a crab or lobster leg which is a first for this location. After spending a couple of hours there and with the worst back pain after being bent in half looking down i headed off home with the intention of getting up early and getting to the beach first thing.

 

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Back at the beach for 7am Saturday morning hoping i would be there before anyone else, sure enough no other mad souls were around and i had the beach to myself again. Didn't find as many as the previous evening with the reason that overnight it hadn't been as rough as i had hoped it would be and the high tide mark barely made it to the base of the cliffs. Gosh darn it, i thought to myself. Never mind i will look over the same place as yesterday to see if i had missed any. Found a few Cosmopolitodus hastalis/Carcharodon hastalis  again and then i spotted it. What looked to be a very black pebble sitting on its own on the sand. Strange i thought to myself. Picked it up, turned it over and my eyes widened. My first proper meg! And only 6cm long so by no means a biggie and very well worn but i didn't care! I spent another hour or so on the beach but nothing else major turned up. 

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I am going to try again tonight as the conditions at the beach can change with a single tide so need to make the most of the good conditions whilst i can....If anyone can give me alternative or additional identifications or would like any more photos please ask. Thanks for reading everyone! 

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Nice finds! :)

Congrats on the crustacean limb and the meg.

And good luck tonight! 

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Life's Good!

Tortoise Friend.

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28 minutes ago, sharkdoctor said:

Wow! That looks like a fun couple of hours.

Thanks! Back is feeling a bit stiff today....

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45 minutes ago, TomWhite said:

Thanks! Back is feeling a bit stiff today....

I'll bet! I've found that using a long handled rake or other strong handle to lean on helps when bending a lot for looking.

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Nice finds, congrats :fistbump:

Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!

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