Turkey Day

2th h00ver called me up this morning and said "yo weez. let's hunt." I was all "fo shiZzlE my niZzlE." Not really, but we did go hunt at a new spot he just found out about. He told me that the other day when he went, he found 5 megalodon teeth lying out in the open. 2 were fully exposed on pedestals. Get this - its been two weeks since a good rain!! This spot has been just waiting to be hunted. I could see the rocks pouring out of the edge from 200 feet away, and I started salivating as I finally sunk my shovel into the freshly exposed layer. Mere moments into the hunt, I saw a huge chunk of irregularly shaped enamel poking out of the hole I was digging. I carefully used my trowel to dig the dirt away to expose a big chunk of mastodon tooth. A few feet away h00v hit another mastodon tooth. It turned out to be just a few small pieces, but it might actually fit with mine. We'll have to see if it does later. While he was digging out his elephant tooth, I continued to dig my trench. Every few shovel fulls, I pulled out a fossil - usually a mangled shark tooth, but interspersed about them were loads of bones and badly broken chunks of horse teeth. There were bones everywhere we dug. Both of us waited to see the tell tale root or line of serrations that would preclude a meglodon find, and it finally happened for h00v about an hour or two after we got there. He hit the root with his hand rake, but the damage was minimal. Once he unearthed the whole thing, he brought it down to show me. He said that the layer was better down there, and that I should come down if I wasn't finding anything. I kept digging where I was because I have a problem leaving a good rock layer for the unknown. 20 minutes later, though, he was still digging in the same spot so I decided to go see if he had found something else cool. He had only dug out an area 4 feet wide by 8 inches deep, but he had about 20 teeth. That was about what I was finding where I was, but on the way back I stuck my shovel into the ground for curiosity's sake. The layer was better down here. Large gravel chunks and bones were everywhere, and they were suspended in a yellowish orange clay. Immediately, I found several broken teeth, so I kept digging. For 10 minutes I worked my way through the layer towards the other end where I was digging before. It was like 75 feet away, though, so I didn't think I would actually be able to cover all the layer between where I was and where I started, but I would sure try! Then I saw the corner of a meg and some serrations. Adrenaline pumped through me as I moved away the overburden. Finally, I started working it with my trowel. Every piece of dirt that I cautiously removed exposed more tooth until finally, I saw the whole thing. I snapped a photo, removed the tooth, and started to move on. Just then, a guy and his two little girls showed up. I showed them the tooth and they were in awe. They wanted a big tooth, too, so they put their noses to the ground. Just 5 minutes after I found the megalodon tooth, I found another smaller chunk of mastodon tooth probably about the size of a plum. It got tagged by the bucket on the excavator and its in about 30 pieces. It just occured to me that many of the large bones out at this spot are part of an elephant. I should have picked them up when I was there! Oh well. Maybe they'll still be there next time I go out there. Anyway, dug another 2 feet, the whole time picking up basically complete teeth, and hit another meg. This one was big. I got all excited because double bagger days are rare. It was. Then, the guy and his two kids went home to get shovels so they could dig, too. I told h00v that I knew what I was gonna call this trip if I found another meg tooth. It couldn't happen, though, could it? 3 whole megs in one day digging? It did. When the guy and his daughters got back (20 minutes) I flipped out another whole one. Then, the big 3/4 you can see in the picture of all the teeth below. Then I stopped digging. It was enough. I told h00v to go dig there to see if there was another one. Megs are always together. Always. Wouldn't you know it, he pulled out another one? It, too, unfortunately had a chip, but its just way cool to harvest them in like that! Lemme tell ya, its been a fun past couple of days. The cleaning ritual, ceremonys of preservation, the sorting, the arranging, carrying around of the teeth in my pockets, ahh, its been like a festival! And it never gets old, either. prOpZ h00v!