The Imperfect Storm

Summer in South Carolina is hot and the humidity makes it stifling. Digging for fossils under a blistering sun is not fun, but I must still hunt because the need is in my blood like some kind of dire-werewolf pathogen from beyond the K-T boundary. The river is the cure! Its a warm 80 degrees with virtually no effort required to recover shark teeth, artifacts, and other prehistoric knick-knacks to decorate the coolest room in my house.

I never like to go to the river alone, so I set up a trip with da fossz and xiphodan. Its always good to rack in the company of others, plus they could haul back my carcass should one of the toothy denizens of the river decide I look tasty.

The increasing cloud cover made us uneasy as we entered the water. Sometimes foul weather gathers while we are underwater, and by the time we come to the surface we are often in the midst of dangerous thunderstorms. We kept a close eye on the sky, but a closer eye on the bottom of the river since we knew our chances for decent weather were diminishing with the sunlight behind the clouds.

My best find came early - an oligocene Parotodus benedeni. These are rare anywhere, and this was a fine tooth with a textbook U shaped root. I hoped everyone else found something good too. As I surfaced, I heard thunder. What a shame! The gravel layer was so good. The three of us made a judgement call and we waited to see if the weather would improve. Each minute, the thunder came closer and grew louder. We decided to pack it up.

Luckily, everyone had found something good. da fossz always surprises me with his uncanny ability to find arrowheads. He found a gorgeous little one that looked like it was made of agatized coral. Since we don't have that around here, the prospect is even cooler! Xiphodan stole the show, though, with his massive 4 inch angustidens. He was all smiles as he nervously handed it to us to drool over - its his biggest find so far! Congrats X!

The weather tried to keep us down, but we slid in under the wire with nice finds to salvage the day. We ended a short but nevertheless successful day fossil hunting with a trip to Moe's, my "fossil fuel" of choice.