I got up bright and early (with my neighbor and my brother) Thursday morning to make my last pilgrimage to an Eocene locale in Monmouth County before heading back to school in Virginia.  I’ve been to the site maybe 6 times this summer, and every time the site produces an incredible amount of teeth and always a good amount of great quality.  Its going away present, though, was something I was not expecting in the least.

The original plan was to scou...

A nice blue tooth (not for your ear). Classic SC angustiden river tooth.

It was time to explore the river again, so I gave DW a cluck on his cell. No hesitation; mid-week fossilin was in order. We had to navigate the ever sifting sands, so this trip tuned into a reconnaissance toothin’ mission. Finally, after a while of searching, we found some tell-tale signs of a good hunting spot. We both signed-off for a few hours for an underwater toothfest. This was one of those days were the teeth were p...

Ahh the Cooper river... Its loaded with fossil teeth just waiting to be picked up by anyone with enough nerve to dive to the bottom. Today was megamouth's first river dive, and in addition to teeth, I was on a mission to bring him back alive. We all arrived at the boat landing ready to go, but unfortunately RivrDigr had to make a slight 60 mile detour because he forgot his son's gear. While he exceeded the speed limit, the rest of us (da fossz, t$, young digr, megamouth, and myself)&...

Tooth is still stuck in matrix and makes a nice display piece.

This is a very rare find from Lafarge. I’ve been hunting at Lafarge for six years and this is my first complete super hero specimen from the quarry. I counted thirteen cones on this tooth. The thirteenth cone is very tiny and hard to see from the photos. Not one single cone is damaged and the root is all there too.

A complete cow shark tooth picked off the Santee Limestone.

Today was the first day of a weekend in the lowcountry to rack some fossils. DW called me up on Thursday with bad news; he had been overcome by the flu. DW had to be sick to not fossil hunt; but I know he will be back.

This was a Rivrdigr Fest trip in the Edisto. The ditchweezil, dafossz, scuba paul, rivrdigr, and his boy all came out to do some diving. About the first three fans of moving sand I uncovered a cool looking arrowhead. My first one from the Edisto. It has been years since I last found one this nice. I was pretty much in gravy mode after that. Scu...

Potomac purse. Found a new spot.

On Tursday, the ditchweezil and I went to the river with rivrdigr, his kid, Da Fossz, and T$. After waiting for Da Fossz to arive after being late, we had to wait for rivrdigr for an hour and a half to go pick up his kid's gear because he forgot to load it in his truck.

We finnally got out on the river, and i was pumped.  I was so excited to do my firt actuall dive for fossils.  Me and the weezil went down at the same time and&...

It was a big day at the river last Thursday. It was Scuba Paul's last day in town and RivrDigrFest was still in full swing. We all converged on the Edisto for a hunt of epic proportions. In all, there were 7 of us hunting and we didn't put a dent in the fossils remaining just in the tiny area that we hunted. Everyone had a decent amount of shark teeth at the end of the day, but the nicest one I saw was Scuba Paul's 2 1/2 inch angustidens.

I myself wasn't especially e...

Last November I took some friends from the Smithsonian to a local limestone quarry to collect Middle Eocene Santee Limestone whale fossils. While there I found a turtle skull and gave it to them. It was in a section of the quarry where I had recently found a large, intact piece of leatherback turtle shell. They sent back photos of the prepared skull. At an impressive 18cm in length it could be from the same species as the shell I had found. It will be described as a new speci...

  I headed back to the Potomac on Sunday, and was shocked to discover that the shoreline was buried under a thick layer of aquatic grass.  Conditions there haven't been great lately, with most of the gravel buried under sand, and now I couldn't even get to the sand!  Plus, the smell of all that stuff composting in the sun is enough to turn your stomach. But of course, I wasn't about to turn back empty handed, so my crazy self headed north, trying to...

During one of my trips to South Dakota I had the pleasure of spending a few days collecting in the Badlands with the local Federal Paleontologist. We were walking together in a dry stream bed and saw the tip of a Titanothere mandible sticking out of the wall. Without a word she starts excavating it. I figured she wants it for herself so me and my volunteers start helping. We get it half way exposed and she says " This will make a fine addition to your museum. I wa...

RivrDigrFest '08 is upon us. Its that magical time of year when RivrDigr visits the SC lowcountry for some rest and relaxation. He brings his boat and invites some of us to go diving for megalodon teeth in Beaufort SC. T$, Scuba Paul, and myself met with RivrDigr at the appointed area, loaded up the gear, and sped off in search of prehistoric booty.

We arrived at the dive spot - the same one we ...

A relatively large Oligocene Paratodus. Nice!!

I hit the Edisto with T$ and DW for a two day blackwater fossil dive. We hit some newly exposed gravel beds and racked up pretty good. I found a lot frags (common with the reformulated layers), but managed some keepers. My best tooth is a 2" mottled angy; it looks somewhat like a land tooth.

A few months ago I was collecting with a good friend and she found a large fossil crab in a large limestone boulder. After we excavated it I noticed part of a large claw about a foot away from the first crab. We excavated a second crab and I took both to my lad for preparation. They were both Marietta palmeri specimens. These are the largest crabs from the Eocene of South Carolina. From the largest claws I've collected I believe the carapace of this species could rea...

On this day I took my brother along and we met up with Da Fossz to go diving in the river. I found another sweet little parotodus and massive amounts of teeth! My brother found the super hero of the day though.

I hadn't been down to the Potomac for a while, so I headed out early Saturday Morning for Purse.  I didn't find anything truly spectacular, but I did get a nice variety of teeth, including 2 near-perfect but small Otodus teeth, a pristine Striatolamia, and a tiny Croc tooth that has the sharpest point of any croc tooth that I've found.  The largest teeth in the photo below measure just over 1-1/2 inch.

Now I have three...but two of the three are dinged up a bit.  This one has one serrartion missing but the rest is real nice...would have been sweet!  One nice poroise tooth, some good snaggletooth teeth, and an angel shark tooth round out a decent trip.

Good hunting.   Chris

This is my biggest Mako from the Calvert Cliffs of Maryland.

I just finished up reading the heated forum of the Calvert Cliffs Great White. This is the only tooth that seems to be even a possibility in my collection. This so happens to also be the very first meg/white tooth I ever found. It came from the northern most tip/oldest. The tooth obviously appears to be a lower Anterior position.

It doesnt appear to have a bourlette

The root although damaged doesnt appear to ever have been much of a root. Especial...

Remember when you were a kid and grandpa and grandma would hide the eggs on easter sunday? I guess all that practice payed off if your a tooth hunter. Sometimes you just have to be creative on where you search....and how

It all started when I met a guy named Jim down in Aurora last trip. He lives in MD and said he wanted to do some tooth hunting. We met up in the Chesapeake beach area around 11:00am and drove to an undisclosed ...

I was able to return to my new spot this week for just a short while.  Did some more digging and sifting, and in the process got a wicked vertical cut right up the tip of one of my fingers from a sharp shell fragment - I need to use my rubber gloves but keep forgetting to throw them in the car.  If anyone knows of some awesome bandaid products let me know.  I always carry a couple of bandaids with the antibiotic stuff already ...

Its funny how things happen.  I had been several times down to the bay and the megs always seemed to be hiding from my watchful eyes.  Now I have found three megs on two trips to the bay!! 

This was a very average hunt until I found the first meg.  A decent 2 1/8" with a good root, sharpe serrations and a very wide bourlette for its size.  It was out in the open...easy pickins. ...

I had wisdom teeth surgery a few weeks ago which stopped me from doing any dives in the river in order to prevent infections. After waiting for my mouth to heal over I was ready to go!

I had wisdom teeth surgery a few weeks ago which stopped me from doing any dives in the river in order to prevent infections. After waiting for my mouth to heal over I was ready to go!

Mother Nature has worked hard to provide me with fossil shark teeth to find and a place to find them. The least I can do is be considerate and go pick them up.

          What better why to spend Fathers day than to hunt fossils! Some thing has been telling me to hunt the Potomac and I'm glad I listened to that little voice in my head....it usually jusy gets me in trouble. 

            The day started out slow but as ...

Had a good hunt.  Any time you can get two pretty rare teeth on one trip you have just got to be happy. 

Its been a while since I have found a whole meg on the bay...its 2.5" even and in relatively good shape.  I love megs.  The cow symphyseal has two chipped serrations...but its got a whole root and so very rare I was still pumped.  Its only my second one ever so that was cool.  I also...

  The beach had been pretty well picked over by the time I got there Wednesday afternoon, and although I had scored a sweet Mako, the Megs were nowhere to be seen.  I decided to head back in, and call it a day, happy with the nicest Mako that I've found in a while, plus two lowers.  I love the curved laterals, and this one was in great condition and good sized at 1-5/8ths.  <...