Think outside the pit

Well, this saturday was supposed to be my turn to collect fossils at the PCS mine in Aurora, NC. With the news that collecting would again be limited to the same hunted out spots as the past few seasons, da f0ssZ and I decided the drive wasn't worth it so we stayed home and hunted shark teeth here instead. We really didn't want to cancel our trip, but we joined the Friends of the Museum group to get into the pit, as did many others. Rather than just quietly accept it, I wrote an email to the Aurora Fossil Museum voicing my concerns about collecting as well as showing my support. Maybe if enough collectors do something similar, something can be changed. I strongly encourage anyone who wants to hunt the pit ever again to send a email of support voicing your concerns to the museum ASAP.

I shall now step off my soap box and get back to what I came here to do - talk about teeth and the unbelievable hunt I had on Saturday. df and I were off to a new spot, but since it was kindof far down the road, we had to stop at all the other possibilities on the way. We hit the Golf Course first and 10 minutes after starting our exploration, we came across a pond in its infancy. Steep vertical edges and deep gaping holes in the bottom marl full of muddy ground water. Even better, it was untouched by other fossilers. 10 minutes after I started digging, I had a 5 1/2" megalodon tooth that appeared to be in good condition. Then the foreman of the job site showed up and checked to see what we were doing and ask me to move my truck. He totally didn't care that we were digging here, and he even told us where the next ones would be :-) :-) :-) I showed him what I found and he wished us luck as he went on about his business. I got back from moving my truck and stuck my shovel in where I left off digging. There was ANOTHER complete ~5" tooth right next to the first one!! I couldn't believe my luck. I reached the end of the layer and I moved down the bank and started digging again. A 4" tooth fell out of the wall where I put my shovel in. I stopped and called my wife to share the good fortune. We decided to sample the layer at the back of the pond. It was df's turn to rip, now. He flipped out a nice 5 incher, followed by other large fragments. The shame of the day was the enormous root from a former 6"+ tooth. He spent much of the day in a single hole that was loaded with teeth. A little while later, I found a 4" peeler, then another 5 inch tooth with some root damage. Those were the last of the complete megs for the day. No matter, because minutes after I moved down the bank from df, I scored a killer 2 1/2" Mako. We dug it until it was done, then we moved on down the road to check out another potential spot. It was a giant pit, nearly 30 feet deep with no layer in sight. We poked around a bit, but finally continued onto our final destination. It was the pond that I expected so much from. We finally made it there, but unfortunately, the layer was too far below the water level to hunt! No matter, we were exhausted. It was off to Taco Bell in celebration of a day that truly turned out to be all it should have been.