megaholic Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 I just returned from a one week visit to Wilmington NC. It's a ten hour drive for me from my home in Florida, and I had no vacation time to use for missing work for a week, The summer hotels are a bit high for my budget, but the fun of it all makes it worth the cost. The weather did not permit diving on three of the seven scheduled days, but I more than made up for the lost fossil time. I had the privilege of being with a group of divers that shared my passion for fossils, and we shared the time together like a group of teenage girls at a sleep over. Ten minutes after we found out our dive had been cancelled, I was invited to meet the others for a road trip to a quarry a couple hours away. We stopped at a Lowe's to buy hard hats and nail aprons, a couple "more" potato rakes, and we were off. After a few hours in the August heat the idea surfaced that we could still do the Aurora museum, just another hour and a half further away. I really was disappointed at that point since I hadn't found much other than very poor quality makos, so I walked the service road back to the truck, and as I walked along the ditch in clear view was this beautiful auriculatus! Arriving at Aurora is easy to miss if you blink. It is a very small place, with very few buildings. The museum is great, and the yard across from it has piles of material for the kids to look for teeth in. (Kids of any age)! "Follow us" was the order when we finished the museum. One of the guys knew about some bigger "private" piles a block away where we could all play dirty without feeling so guilty about displacing the kids. We all came home with a nice variety of small pristine teeth, many of which I could never have found in Florida. I used another day to visit the battleship North Carolina which was also a very wonderful surprise adventure for me. As I said, the weather was bad, or we would have been 30 miles offshore diving. While I was about three decks down inside the ship it was hit by lightning, and ALL the lights went out. It took a few seconds for the generator to power the ship up again, but it gave me a hint of what it was like serving on those ships in harms way. A final day at the NC aquarium, and it was finally time for the two hour boat ride to dive each day for the rest of the week. We did four days of diving with two tanks per day to the no decompression limits of nitrox. That is one hour of bottom time per day X 4 days = 4 hours of looking for teeth. The final count was; 13 chubs, 13 megs, 55 big frags, 37 makos, 11 great white, 4 benedeni, 2 contortus, 2 aduncus, 10 hemis, 3 whale bulla. 1 broken 5 inch tooth with cool pathology notch on the blade. 147 small teeth from Aurora, 2 dolphin teeth, 17 makos, and 1 great white from the Onslow Quarry. "A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life".
jcbshark Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 Great finds and beautiful colors on some of those Chuck! It's ashamed that patho Meg is busted One day I'm going to do some hunting up that way! Every once in a great while it's not just a big rock down there!
caldigger Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 You got some very nice teeth, I would definitely been ecstatic with that haul.
mrieder79 Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 Wow! What a great haul. Glad you got to finally get in the water and glad you found those great teeth! Luck is the most important skill of a fossil diver.
Triceratops Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 A nice lot of teeth. It sounds like you had loads of fun! Thanks for sharing. -Lyall
FLINTandBONE Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 Every time I see what can be found diving it makes me want to get certified. Congrats on your finds!
Al Dente Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 Nice finds. In your last picture, are there some Florida fossils mixed in or are all of these NC finds? Is the tooth I circled Alopias? I would like to see a close up of this tooth if possible.
megaholic Posted August 23, 2015 Author Posted August 23, 2015 Yes, those are the Florida fossils I am prepping. I am so busy (lazy) that I just piled the trip teeth on top of what was in work. I will add a good picture of that tooth later today. Thanks for looking! MH "A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life".
megaholic Posted August 23, 2015 Author Posted August 23, 2015 Eric, Here is that tooth up close. I had not considered it anything other than a benedeni. What do you think? Also would like comments on this tooth small meg vs large chub? Thanks. Chuck "A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life".
Al Dente Posted August 23, 2015 Posted August 23, 2015 Thanks for photographing this tooth. I think it is Alopias grandis which is much rarer than Parotodus in North Carolina. I would call the other tooth a chubutensis.
megaholic Posted August 23, 2015 Author Posted August 23, 2015 Thanks Eric, and everyone for commenting. To find a new species I don't have, makes a great trip even better . "A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life".
Big Bend Brian Posted October 11, 2015 Posted October 11, 2015 Outstanding Megaholic!! I LOVE that pathy meg frag! Brian
Texas Fossil Hound Posted October 13, 2015 Posted October 13, 2015 This is one of those places on my bucket list! Need to do it before I get too old! "Silence is Golden, but duct tape is Silver."
Khyssa Posted October 13, 2015 Posted October 13, 2015 What a beautiful range of colors on those teeth! Really love that first blue and that last orangey tooth.
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