Two Trips Along the Maryland Miocene

[Bjohn170]

I had been itching hard to be on the beach, so I slipped away to the bay Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving to find some fossils along the Calvert cliffs. I really want to beat my personal best megalodon tooth from Calvert which measures at 4” on the dot; I know that will be difficult so I’m really trying to go more often. (Spoiler: I don’t find my record breaker)

Day 1:

I really didn’t have time to go out on Saturday but I figured I could delay my responsibilities for a little and fight the wind to spend at max two hours on the beach. I arrived on the beach about 20min before sunrise and started searching with my flashlight and quickly found a nice little megalodon, a little beat up but hey, a meg is  a meg. I continued on and found a heart breaker cetacean tooth, the crown much larger than most cetacean teeth I find here, but alas the crown was missing a chunk and the root spit in half and hollow.

 

 

Before starting my walk back I found a handful of usual teeth from this beach, a few hemipristis and physogaleus and a thumb nail size posterior meg. As I get back to the beginning stretch of beach that I first searched with my flashlight, I found a beautiful epiphysis disk with a 1.8” diameter sitting right next to a 1.9” megalodon

 

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Leaving the beach just over two hours of walking I got a surprising haul, definitely worth the trip.

 

 

Day 2:

I had more time to hit the beach on Sunday, so accompanied with my girlfriend we launched our kayaks for sunrise then landed to begin our search. Same as the day prior the waves were hitting the beach rapidly and the water was murky making it pretty impossible to search beneath the water, so most of our finds were right at the edge of the shell line or high up on the beach. We started by each finding a few large hemipristis teeth all measuring around 1.4” and a couple nice hastalis. My girlfriend found her second megalodon tooth measuring 1.5”, it was a bit beat up but for her second meg she was thrilled.

 

 

 

I don’t often go out back to back and I remember why, I’m exhausted. None the less I’d do it again in a heartbeat if I got the time and the weather and tides want to cooperate. It was a great two trips even though I didn’t break my record, but that day will come! Thanks for reading y’all! 

[Trevor]

Glad to see you getting out. Nice finds, generally, and also nice cetacean tooth.

[Bjohn170]

3 minutes ago, Trevor said:

Glad to see you getting out. Nice finds, generally, and also nice cetacean tooth.

Thanks! Always exciting to find nice cetacean teeth. I’d been interested to know the size it would have been if it were whole.

[Darktooth]

Those are some nice finds! Congratulations on a successful hunt!

[Andúril Flame of the West]

Those are some beautiful megs and hemis. Kudos to you for getting out there even in the coldest hours of these frigid days! 🥶

[Bjohn170]

22 minutes ago, Andúril Flame of the West said:

Those are some beautiful megs and hemis. Kudos to you for getting out there even in the coldest hours of these frigid days! 🥶

Thank you! I have some nice cold weather gear to keep me going out on those colder days when everyone else would rather stay by the heater. 

[sixgill pete]

Congrats on the personal best meg, along with a few real nice looking hemi's.

[Bjohn170]

19 hours ago, sixgill pete said:

Congrats on the personal best meg, along with a few real nice looking hemi's.

Thank you! I really hope I’ll be able to top my best meg this year, don’t get me wrong I love find little two inchers like the one pictured above, but another 4 inch tooth would make the year! Just gotta keep after it.