Aurora Time!

March 10th was my day into the mine at Aurora and expectations were running high. I was at the parking lot by 6:45 AM and caught up with the other BRF’rs along with the many other faces that seem to get more familiar as each year goes by. The collecting area is huge and TM, JP and myself went about 2 hills in before we spread out and really started to search. Realizing that the many mud puddles were full of water the previous week, I focused my efforts along their edge and was quickly rewarded with a nice 2" mako. There were plenty of smaller teeth including a couple of nice Hemi’s but after an hour I figured it was time to cover as much ground as I could. I spent the rest of the day walking the hills picking up a decent 2 1/4 mako and a somewhat complete squalodon incisor but the large megs were not to be had. The unusual find of the day was a small porpoise looking tooth that was later ID’d as a sirenian incisor. Even without a large meg I still had a bag-full of nice teeth and headed back towards the ramp at around 2:30. As the other collectors came in I felt like I was at the weigh-in station of a Billfish tournement - trophies were everywhere. There were the three likely associated megs all dug from within 3 feet of each other and a killer seal canine (megs and canine pictured on Elasmo). A 50 pound block of matrix carried out by one determined collector that contained a small whale skull and vertebrae - the cool thing was that both earbones were exposed and perfectly articulated and then there were DW’s teeth - what an atmosphere! Thanks to PCS and all the volunteers for another great season of collecting. The area includes a ton of unweathered material and with any good amount of rain there will be many great finds to be had throughout the remainder of the season. Good luck everyone!!