Gettin’ My Fossil Mack in the Outback

It was once again time for the bi-annual road trip to hunt at the PCS phosphate mine in Aurora NC. Or is it semi-annual?? Hmmmmmmmm.

You ponder that, my fossil friends, while I explain how I got my fossil mack going in the mine. This trip was sans DW and RivrDigr who earned a first weekend hunt and were rewarded with a fruitful bounty of fossils. BlackWaterDiver, who notablely is a fellow Gamecock, was to meet us at the pit for a BRFC tri-fecta. T$ and I decided to ride up to PCS together to save a buck or two and make the road trip complete. We arrived early evening to our hotel and were able to relax with some, er, beverages, and plan our hunt. Since there had been little rain, we decided to walk the pit to find lesser hit areas. T$ had not found any chubs yet at PCS; I told him to have some swagger out there and it will fall in place. After the pre-hunt briefing we headed into the mine. Whoa !!! The collecting area was extensive. T$, BWD, and myself headed towards some lesser collected area in the pit and began to pick up some nice fossils. T$ scored his first chub early as rain clouds approached. Luckily, no thunder/lightening so we all hunted avec l’eau. We then spread out for about the next three hours to find our spots as the rain fell. I stumbled across some nice Yorktown and hunted carefully for about an hour there. On the last small hill I spotted a large curved tooth on a pedestal….a beautiful Parotodus tooth! Oh man, talk about gravy mode. I met up with the BRFC gang for a drool-fest. Back to hunting…..about 10 minutes later I bagged a smaller Parotodus, but still mostly complete. What a day. I ended up heading back to the bus and collecting on the way. Lots of makos, tigers, hemis, but also two large well preserved porpoise teeth. T$ showed off his three chubs; evidence he had his fossil mack on today as well.

This hunt was made possible by the Aurora Fossil Museum; so thanks again. Please stop by there for a pleasant and educational museum trip!!