Fossil Megalodon and many other Shark teeth near Sharktooth Hill area on private property near Bakersfield, California

November 12

Great trip with SoCal Paleo to a private dig in a Miocene era deposit near Sharktooth Hill! The owner Joe found a well preserved Megalodon tooth in a matrix with Whale fossils! Also found many shark teeth from relatives of modern Great White Sharks, Mako Sharks, Tiger Sharks, Angel Sharks, Blacktip Sharks, Stingrays, Dogfish, Whales, Dolphins, Seals, Walrus, Sea Lions, shellfish, and even plant fossils. First time for me in this area and last time I was out here, we went to the more publicly accessible Ernst Quarry dig for Shark teeth. Found a rare Hemipristis serrated tooth as well as many of the other species' teeth!

Also found a very well preserved fossilized twig complete with bark and tree rings! It probably washed out into this bay from the ancient river delta.

Great trip and was glad to be able to join the field trip!

Some background from the handout:

"Sharktooth Hill, one of the bone beds of Oildale (along with Rainbow Basin) offers one of the richest marine mammal sites in the world. Studies have shown that the layers of bones represent a time period some 15 – 16 million years ago when the area was a huge shallow sea. Marine life, animals that died in the water column, and sediments were pushed along the seafloor by strong currents, and everything aggregated en masse. The bonebeds hold millions of bones of just about everything that lived in the seas as well as the animals that grazed along its shore.

Fossils commonly found here include shark teeth, whale or dolphin bones / vertebrae, etc. They have been identified as belonging to the Round Mountain Silt Formation, Miocene in age (15 million years old). However the good areas require digging on hands and knees. If you don't want to do that, you can use a shove and scoop dirt onto a mesh screen to sift through the dirt. It's not too difficult and there are usually shark teeth"

Edited November 12 by ezeemonee

November 17

Some rough ID's on these:

Otodus megalodon: (Joe's find)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251199130

Hemipristis "Snaggletooth Shark"

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527010

Carcharodon planus "Hooked Great White" and Carcharodon hastalis "Narrow White" (and others)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527234

Isurus oxirhincus "Mako Shark", (and others)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527512

Physogaleus contortus "Tiger like Shark" and Galeocerdo aduncus "Tiger Shark" (and others)

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527420

Squatina california "Angel Shark" and Carcharhinus "Requiem Sharks" and others:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527657

Squalus occidentalis "Dogfish Sharks" and others.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527748

Petrified Wood Twig from Miocene era:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/251527960

Also found miscellaneous mammalian teeth like seal, sea lion, dolphin, and maybe whale or walrus.

November 17

It is advisable to post the photos directly on the forum, many people do not want to leave the forum to see them.

Coco

November 17

8 hours ago, Coco said:

It is advisable to post the photos directly on the forum, many people do not want to leave the forum to see them.

Coco

Coco, yes all the pictures from the links are already here. I don't see any way for me to go back and edit the original post to tag the pictures by species. Thanks. -Chris

November 17

@ezeemonee I guess an administrator came to your aid on your first post, but for the next one we see only links. Are these the same photos ?

For information, the posts are editable by the authors only for a period of 24 hours to 48 hours because some people emptied the photos of their subjects when they had obtained an identification, and especially when it did not go in their direction. To overcome this problem of empty and unnecessary posts, it was decided by our administrators not to allow editing beyond this time limit and that’s fine.

If you need to make a change, ask an administrator or moderator who will help you with pleasure, provided that you give him the link of your post to modify

Coco