Hunting for Eocene Shark Teeth at the Cement Quarry in Harleyville SC

We were lucky enough to have the opportunity to hunt for fossils at the Cement Quarry in Harleyville South Carolina. This location is prime fossil hunting territory for the giant shark teeth of Carcharocles auriculatus, the evolutionary great-grandfather of Megalodon. There are also lots of other kinds of shark teeth and archaeocete whale fossils to be found there, all more than 30 million years old. The fossils get exposed during the limestone mining process.

If you watch the video, it has two parts, the first is surface collecting where I walk around the available areas and pick up fossils. I got a nice Carcharias koerti, eocene sand shark tooth, and several bummer auriculatus. Those things are so tough to find in one piece!

The second part is a super rare opportunity to dig in lag deposit in the contact zone between the harleyville formation and the santee limestone. The thing that makes it so rare is that an excavator broke up the hard lag into small chunks which were easy to separate with a shovel, rock hammer, screwdriver, crowbar or whatever. fossil hunting veteran da fossz scored an archaeocete canine. the weezling scored a pretty nice isurus praecursor, the eocene mako ancestor of the larger hastalis, and others in the mako shark evolutionary line.

Thank you to the Cement for allowing access to property and their bounty of fossil bearing material. In this time when so few mines offer access to the public, it is refreshing to see this kind of cooperation with the amateur community. Thanks also to supervisors for volunteering their time to make this hunt possible. I appreciate it and so does my son.