An Eocene Wonderland

Today I got a rare opportunity to collect at Giant Cement. Collectors are seldom let in any more, so as you can imagine, I had a pretty good day. The first thing I had to do was figure out the layers, but once I did, I found teeth all over the place. The only problem was that almost all of them were badly worn and broken. Very different than at Lafarge where the teeth are better preserved. I'll bet the reason is the height of the limestone - its elevation was high in the area all around where I hunted. Plus, the Green Cap was sandy instead of claylike. The layer was most likely reworked in this area. Thus the worn teeth. Anyway, I hardly saw any bone anywhere, so I came up empty handed on the archaeocete hunt. The first interesting find of the day was a little hemipristis tooth. But this spot is eocene, and the hemis I normally find are oligocene through pliocene. This would have to be a species that I've never found before today - hemipristis curvatus I walked a little further and my quest for a big, nice auriculatus finally reached a milestone. There it was, glistening in a clear stream on the limestone was the root of a giant tooth. I saw a nice cusp with all of the exposed parts of the tooth present. I poked it with my finger and it felt like it was still embedded in the limestone. Time for a ground photo! I had the new camera, so I snapped one and quickly put the camera away without confirming that I wanted to keep the photo I just took. :-( Anyway, I wiggled the tooth loose and basked in its glory. True to form, the tip was nicked from feeding damage, but the rest of it is killer! The last find of the day was a large complete sand dollar. I'm not normally into stuff like that, but I had to pick this one up because it was shaped like a bell! Is it a pathology or a different species? I love hunts like this where I find stuff I've never seen before. I'm like, all expanding my horizons and stuff. Here's an account of my experiences with the Pleistocene Camelot site at Giant Cement in SC.