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Then there were three.   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A few years back I had taken a small group of experienced collectors into a local limestone quarry. The formation was Late Eocene and represented a shallow marine environment. It was a popular spot for collectors because of the frequently found archeocete material. I had personally found numerous bones and teeth over a period of several years hunting at this quarry. I had also found a few articulated skeletons. Most of the collectors that frequent the local quarries all talk about the Basilosaur...

One more for old time sake   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This summer, the kids and I were lucky enough to get the opportunity to hunt at a land site with a decent fossil bearing layer. We hunted there a lot, and I stocked up the posts while the hunting was good and this is the last post from that spot. In the summer, I tend to linger around the window when the sky gets dark. On this day, we had to turn on the lights at 3 in the afternoon. There was a thunderstorm of Neptunian proportions and at the same time, there was a fresh land site. The combinati...

Colorful megalodon teeth   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Land sites are great because its about the only way to get the really great colored shark teeth unless you have a deep pocket. I have been hunting fossils in South Carolina since I was a kid and I've always loved the colors on the teeth here. That's why anytime there is a decent place to hunt, I am there. During the summer, we were actively hunting this one pond on an almost daily basis. It was producing some wild looking megalodon teeth and some museum quality angustidens. This post was from on...

South Carolina Gold   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I pulled into the driveway with 2 hours of sunlight remaining on a gorgeous South Carolina fall afternoon. The temperature was in the mid 70’s with a nice breeze and not a single cloud in the sky. My first thought was to get out of my prison blues and into some fossil hunting fatigues. I gathered up my and tha weezling’s gear and we raced off to the new collecting site. Ever since the other day when we were out there and we both scored some good stuff, I’ve been dying to get back out and find so...

The Fossil Hunting Referendum   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Election day was nasty! The rain pounded all day and a cool breeze blew making any outside effort a miserable engagement. Any outside effort except for fossil hunting, that is. An eager weezling jumped at the opportunity to go out and perform our favorite civic duty - pick up teeth in the rain. Away we two went donning rain coats and rubber boots. We walked field after field, pond after pond relieving them of their fossiliferous material. Most of the fossils were broken until we came to our fina...

We're having a baby!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is the second, of three, new species of marine turtles I've discovered. It will be the holotype and is in the process of being published. It came from the local Chandler Bridge Formation which is Early Oligocene in age. When I first brought it home it was in a plaster jacket. I removed the plaster from the top of the jacket and let it dry for almost a month. Once the Chandler Bridge material is dry it can be easily removed with denatured alcohol, or acetone, and a fine brush. Mrs. Bum gets ...

Disappointing start at the quarry   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I went out to the quarry with thoughts of rics being spread out everywhere because of the recent rains, but I was wrong. I get to the old area and they had a machine putting fill down covering up a lot of the areas where most of the green cap piles use to be exposed. Most of the hunting area was cut short and only a small area was left to hunt. I heard a worker talking about a new side in the quarry and that people were finding a lot of nice teeth there. Not wanting to waste anymore time in the...

So Were the Plans of Mice and Men   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It has been a while since I gazed upon serrated enamel just waiting to be plucked out of its resting place. This weekend was sure to be grand; LaFarge and diggin’ with DW. And so were plans of mice and men. The weather was sunny, dry and warm; a typical October day in SC. I arrived at LaFarge around 7:30 to find that the primo green cap was being covered by topsoil. As I peered around the pit, I saw a new area of limestone/green cap mixture. However, there were about 30 people on it !! I stroll...

Rain Dancing for Fossils   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Another old post: In one week, my little neck of the woods received well over 6 inches of rain. It came on three different days from severe late summer thunderstorms. Each of the storms were two days apart and were accompanied by strong winds, lightning, power outages, downed trees, the whole works. Being the opportunistic hunter, I walked to my local neighborhood ditch to collect the goodies that surely awaited the lucky first patron. Each day was the same – abundant sunshine, heat, and humidit...

Finally landed!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		In the early 1980s suburban sprawl hit the lowcountry. It was then that people learned two things. 1. Life in the lowcountry was great. 2. There were a lot of fossils just beneath their feet. New drainage ditches, and ponds, appeared everywhere. And it seemed that everywhere you dug there were whales. The Ashley and Chandler Bridge formations have been mentioned numerous times in South Carolina trip reports. They date to the Early Oligocene (28-29.5 mya) and are marine sediments. The number of n...

Tough to get a tooth in edge-wise   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		With all the quality posts being added almost daily to this site, I feel like a slacker not having put up anything in almost two weeks. I'm still catching up old posts, so this one is from a pond that is full of water now. Houses are being built around it! Its sad to see a good fossil hunting place become suburban, but then again it is because of the houses that I was able to hunt there to begin with so I can't be too remorseful. One Saturday afternoon the weEzlinG and I were down in the aforeme...

Toothache   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is a tail of fossiling gone bad. It's said that each generation should benefit from the mistakes of the previous bunch of numbskulls. That's why it's important to come to this site and read about our "misadventures" so that you wont repeat our mistakes. So listen up class! A few years ago I decided to take a trip to one of the local creeks. There was a thick layer of Chandler Bridge formation that had already yielded three new species of Early Oligocene whales. The Chandler Bridg...

Sweet victory! I score an awesome meg.   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A few days ago I decided to check out a spot DW had informed me about awhile back. I got to the spot and noticed a small trench had been dug out and a lot of the layer was just barely underwater. When I first started to dig I began to notice this was some really good layer and had that feeling I’m going to find something awesome here. It was that aquamarine colored clay rich with big rocks, whale bones, and pretty colored teeth. I brought my swifter and attempted to swift, but this kind of layer...

The Ego Grinder   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is another old post from a spot where I had some success fossil hunting, but not this time! The layer was very thin and all the rocks were black so all the teeth were black too. There was so much bone around that I really expected some big stuff. This is about 3 hours worth of digging in the bug infested, sweltering SC summer. I'm a guy who likes to come home with at least one thing for the collection every time I go hunting to feel successful, and today I did not feel successful. Everythin...

It really does grow in the wild!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A few weeks ago tha weezling and I got the itch to do some fossil hunting, but we were sick of going to the same old places. We yearned for fresh hunting grounds, but with no excavation anywhere we knew about, we decided to go on a hike through the woods to see if we could run across a neglected ditch or creek. Summerville is loaded with them, so the chances were good. Through the woods we hiked along the bottom of a dried creekbed. We found a few small teeth and one shamer of an angustidens too...

Another sweet tooth is murdered by the machines   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is a trip from about a week ago. I woke up really early to go hunt some teeth before going to school. I went back to the same spot that I’ve talked about in my previous post. The best thing I found today was probably the 2 inch meg pictured top left. I got a really good ground shot of it fully exposed.. pictured below. I found a mako that would have been killer if it wasn’t for the lousy machines breaking it into three pieces. It’s the mako top row right of the two megs. ...

Bummer!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Back when I used to have a good land spot to hunt fossil shark teeth, I was going there on a nearly daily basis. Now that all those locations are completed, I'm living in the past. This post is from a day when we arrived to fresh digging and no footprints. The kids and I dug until we were out of daylight in fantastic layer, but everything was thrashed! My best tooth was a 4 1/4 inch angustidens. Of course, the tip was missing and the root was badly pitted so all I could say was "Bummer!" when I ...

Day 2 Post Ernesto Fossil Hunting   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		After reading derik's forum post about the nearly religious dedication to the hunt he displayed, I became inspired. I can hardly wait to see the giant 6 inch monster megalodon he found. Anyway, I put on my weezil eyes and headed out to pick up the scraps that would undoubtedly be few in number. I unwittingly stumbled upon a pond just recently completed. Its edges were graded, so I couldn't dig. But I could walk. Almost immediately upon taking the field on the way to the pond, I was finding stuff...

The Bounty of the Rains   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This post was from a few months ago when rivrdigr and son came up to hunt in SC. The day they arrived, they met me and my two boys out at the last good pond I was digging. Rivrdigr didn't meet me until about 2/3 of the say through the hunt, but before he got there we were digging with absolutely no luck. Between the 3 of us, we had only found about 10 teeth in about 2 hours. But then an unexpected midday rain storm unloaded on us. The bottom of the massive pond was dry after we arrived, and by t...

The Toothing Gods do not smile upon me   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Today I was driving around trying to discover new spots. The spots that I did come across were already finished ponds that did have layer in them, but they had already been walked by someone else and I only found the little scraps that they left behind. Then I went back to another development that was finished, but one area had patches of layer spread out everywhere. This too had already been walked by several people, but the area was not entirely cleaned out. I found two reef sharks and a gia...

Digging for more shark teeth - I can never have enough   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Not an especially productive day digging, but I did come away with a thrashed Parotodus. I actually found it within about 5 minutes of arriving at the dig site. It kept me in the same spot the whole evening hoping for quality that never came....

First to hunt teeth after the deluge   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I'm really trying to catch up with my old posts. I have a pile of them, and my hunting isn't slowing down. This one is from way back in May, and there has been some amazing finds since them that I really need to get on the site! Anyway, the night before this hunt we had a thunderstorm unlike few other. Several inches of rain fell within an hour. There were power outages everywhere, downed trees, etc. It was a real mess unless you're a fossil hunter with a place to hunt. There had been digging, p...

Song of the Serrated Siren   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		There has been a recent onslaught of storms in the Lowcountry and the fossil bearing creeks beckoned me like the song of the serrated siren…..no carcharocles man can resist. I carried MiniFossZ and MicroFossz for some training as well. We were to meet up with DW and WeezLing after lunch so me and my group hit Orange creek and home creek first. I FossZ-sifted and bagged a decent angy, two horse teeth and some smaller teeth from these creeks. The yung-uns bagged a few teeth, then decided playing i...

The Weezling Scores Big!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is another post from a while back - Tha weEzlinG and I went out to the pond again today. We missed a big rain the other day because I had to work, so today was an effort to pick up the scraps. We were armed with shovels because there was a small section of layer that we could dig. We walked around but there were footprints everywhere so we went over to the wall section to apply our spading technology. I went to work right away while my son decided to look around for a better spot. About 20 ...

The trophy unearthed   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Another post from a few months ago: The kids and I have been hunting this pond almost daily now. It is close to being done and we don’t want to miss out on anything. So many great shark teeth have been turning up for lots of people! Today when we arrived, we immediately realized that the digging had switched areas. Instead of the area with the black teeth, digging had continued in an area with red, orange, yellow, and white teeth. It wasn’t long until our shovels revealed their first fruits. We ...

Where are the whole megs???   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I went out to the pond before sun down to do some digging. Today, I was having no trouble finding teeth, but none of them were super heros.. just a bunch of shamers! I’m going out of town again for a few days. Hopefully, there will still be some areas left to dig because I noticed most of the diggable areas in the pond were quickly depleting. ...

Down the street for some teeth   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It rained pretty hard yesterday for a few minutes so tha weEzlinG and I decided to take a few hours out of our busy schedules to walk down to the ditch near my house. Its a 10 minute walk for some great colored fossils. I had these ultrasonic mosquito repellant keychain things that we took with us to keep the bugs off of us. By the time we got to the ditch, we recognized that he had lost his somewhere in transit. We decided he should keep close, but we could still hunt. Someone had beaten us to ...

First on a new spot in an old site   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The kids and I were the first to arrive at new digging on the pond tonite. Within 45 seconds of arrival, I found the big shamer 5 inch megalodon nearly completely exposed. The area was large, but we could tell by the rough angle of the edge that this was the end of the digging. Sad, but this hunt was to be in a really good spot. Heavy black lag suspended in white sand on top of a thin layer of deep green chandler bridge. So many bones! We only had 3 hours and I dug almost the entire time. Tha we...

A pile of mediocrity   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		We had some decent rainfall and the kids and I walked the piles that almost completely surround the ever-expanding Brandyne pond. Of course, we were like third in line so the big stuff was already gone. Such is life for those who don't eat, sleep, breathe, and live fossil hunting. I guess if I put it that way, we should have found more....

Fossil Hunting the Way I Like It   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I just had to put up a post with a nice tooth today. A tiny little development with two tiny little ponds went in about 4 miles from my house. There was hardly any hawthorne formation to speak of, but the Chandler Bridge was very nice. I got an angustidens with crazy good color, and it is an absolute gem. There were a whole bunch of nice little ones, and a retroflexus, but they never stood a chance. Today I brought home one for the top shelf....

Getting schooled by the kidz   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Today I decided to head out to the pond for a good dig. Some other guy was already there getting down and dirty digging with his boy. I start digging away and dig hard I did. Then DW and his boys arrive to hunt some teeth. I’m still not finding much and that little kid pulls out what looked to be a whole 4 inch plus meg, what luck. Then the weEzlinG pulls out a whole meg also. I’ll be back to try again. I really want to find a meg....

In debt to (fossil) society   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I've been fossil hunting so much lately that I don't have time to post everything immediately like I used to. I've ALWAYS believed hunt shark teeth when conditions are ideal. I've been doing it! The Springfield Triumvirate of Ponds has been legendary recently. Lately, I only have time to wash everything, place it in its own pile in my fossil room, and then leave my little slice paradise and then work until 2 or 3 in the morning. Then I get up and go to work and try to fit it all in again the nex...

There must be bad days to make the good days sweeter   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It was a tough day digging down through a foot and a half of overburden to reach the barely 1 inch thick layer at the bottom of the new pond. Seldom do I dig so hard for so little, but it is days like this that make me appreciate the days where I bring home a really nice tooth. On a related note, it was nice to see t$ found a megalodon finally. da f0ssZ and I were getting sick of bearing the onus of supplying this site with SC megalodons. t's luck is usually better when I deliver e-jabs at his d...

A mighty artifact has been lost   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Remember last week when I said that I got the phone number of the guy who could get me permission to hunt out at the new place? Well I called him and he said it was all good for me to go. I met up with him at the pond at quitting time and he pointed out where they had dug that day. I offered a paleo-gratuity for his kindness (the teeth missing from the last big pond post where i found the nice grey-blue megalodon), and then the kids and I were on our way. It was another area laden with rocks and...

Call Him Butter   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The day started off with car problems and my overdrive light kept coming on, but finally it went away and it was a smooth ride on to the quarry. I took my little brother with me and he tore it up. He likes to come and find the teeth, but doesn’t care about keeping them, so he doesn’t mind giving his nice finds to me. We were walking along one side with a bunch of green cap and he picks once at a pile and out comes an almost perfect cow shark tooth. The area hasn’t changed much since the last tim...

Call Him Butter   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It was time for my quarterly quarry trip to Lafarge. The coveted auriculatus has eluded me on my prior trips, but I knew it was a matter of time before one would cross my path. My son and I arrived on time for once and headed to some washouts at the bottom of the quarry. We hunted the area for a little while before heading up the quarry to some green cap. On our way up we ran into Da f0ssz,it seemed like every time I ran into DW or DF at Lafarge they would find something killer within minutes. T...

Call Him Butter   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Sweltering heat, no breeze, bugs….I’d say perfect weather to score some quarry fossils. The nice folks at LaFarge had a hunt today, and I met up with RivDigr to try our luck there. After searching some older spots, I met up with RD. If you recall some previous posts, this cat has brought me nothing but good luck. He hit pay-dirt first with his first whole ric. But Digr-luck was with me. About 5 minutes later I found a killer posterior and then an exposed ric. Digr took the snapshot (since as usu...

A BRF Kid's Day   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I caught wind that XiphoDan and his daughter where heading down to SC to celebrate the completion of the move. Evidently, after moving boxes X-Dan thought he would relax by performing backbreaking fossilin’. Sweeet. Well, I had promised the FossZ-Boyz a fossil hunting trip, so we packed up Saturday morning for the Lowcountry. DW and the WeeZeling were also there and the first unofficial BRFC kids day was on. We sifted some at an old ditch and dug some, with the best tooth being a nice rear from ...

A BRF Kid's Day   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The blur of the past 6 weeks, induced by picking up all my worldly possessions and moving them 500 miles, finally cleared enough for me to start thinking about fossiling again. Moving is such an all engrossing, stressful event that there’s little time to even think about collecting never mind actually getting out and doing it. I wanted to take Juli out with me on the first trip but I wanted to be sure she’d find teeth. I had joked with TM before coming down to NC that my kids wouldn’t have to og...

A BRF Kid's Day   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Xiphodan, having just moved into the regional neighborhood, felt as though he needed to do some hunting. We met up at my house, and after showing him and his daughter what we were looking for, we set out to a couple local ditches. First we went to the big ditch. Its a good spot, but it really needs to pour down rain for it to produce and with the level of scum in the ditch, it was quickly evident that there had not been any rain there in a while. We still managed a few teeth, including my best o...

Busted... Almost!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is another post that happened a while ago, but it was an awesome day that I won't forget. We arrived at the pond (RIP) to see a huge area of new excavation. Even better, the heavy machinery had left the bulk of the layer in place while removing all the overburden. Literally, all we had to do was poke a screwdriver in to flip out the rocks and separate them from the soft white sand. But of course, we were armed with shovels. And the best part was we were in the middle of the pond! We could d...

Cleaning up the Fossil Table   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Aren't holidays great? I get time to collect when collecting is good, and in cases like today, I get to clean teeth that have been piling up for a while waiting for my digital photo attention. This was not an exceptionally productive day out at the pond, though the big chunk of megalodon did raise the excitement of everyone out hunting that day....

RIP Old New Pond   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Well, the pond I've been scoring so hard at lately is finished. Luckily I hunted it almost every day it was huntable so I have a whole bunch of pictures to put up. I'm going to try to get them all up over the next couple of weeks so be prepared for a blur of fossil madness! This was a post from months ago - one Saturday afternoon, da f0ssZ and mini f0ssZ came down to hunt with tha weEzlinG and myself. It was a dry, hot afternoon and we were basically hunting a vertical wall that had just been du...

6/24/2006 Fossil Hunting trip to Dorchester County, SC   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This is another old post, but I found a pretty nice mako. Anytime I find a nice one to go into the collection, I count the day as a success....

I could have had a V8   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Not much to report today. The digging was ok, but my boys and I just ran out of light before we ran out of layer. Too bad all the teeth were broken. The big megalodon was a shame. I dug it out carefully only to find it broken. Its all part of the game....

A walk through the neighborhood   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Not far from my house, about a 10 minute walk, is a decent little ditch. Sometimes after a rain, I go there when I just want some exercise or some teeth. It rained a lot, so I walked and I scored. Not a huge quantity of teeth by any means, but you can't beat the quality....

Beekleman's first BRFC post   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Here are several photos of my findings from a location in Summerville. Every bucket of gravel contained at least one Angustidens tooth. Man are they a common site in Summerville. You can see the largest of Snaggletooth sharks tooth was .75". Found many Mako teeth too. The Isurus Desori (Mako) in the close up shot has great colors, it is my favorite but the Angustidens tooth next to the quarter was the best tooth, only one serration missing but otherwise perfect. Also found man...

Rain... Fossil Hunting... You know the drill   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Here's another old post. I'm like 3 rains behind now. So much good fossil hunting, so little time to write about fossil hunting. Given the option, I'm sure everyone as die hard as myself would make the same decision. Anyway, sometime in April, a good rain out at the pond washed out quite a few teeth on the fields of flattened layer. I was the first to hit it so I pulled out a bunch of teeth. By far the coolest fossil was the pathologic angustidens tooth. Man, its killer. Twisted, mangled, deform...

My little brother finds a meg...   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		These two trips are actually from a few weeks ago. I go out to the newly dug trenches DW had told me about. I get down and start digging, but that nasty muck made it no fun digging for teeth, so I spent the rest of the day digging in the piles. I took my little brother with me and he found a nice 4+inch meg. I was almost sure I was going to get one too with all the meg fragments I was finding, but none turned up. When we were leaving a t-storm was starting to cover the area and I ended up d...

My Pre-Florida fossil hunting bounty   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Remember a few weeks ago when I went to Florida? Well, just before I left, hunting was incredible here. At the pond where I've been killing lately, the layer has been spread into fields. We had an incredible thunderstorm that dumped inches of rain in less than an hour, so of course I was on the pond with tha boy asap. t$ was also on the prowl, but he tired of picking up teeth long before we even got there. Since he already made his post, I know what he scored now so I feel even luckier that his ...

Posting an old trip - to test the new server   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Well, the site is up on the new server and things seem to be running pretty normally. This is the first post I tried to make since the switch - its a test run, really. If it doesn't work out, no harm done. If it does, I'll make a post with some GOOD stuff. These teeth were from a day out at the new pond when I arrived to some fresh digging. Not much good layer was exposed but I made the best of it. The most interesting find was the big megalodon - twice! I found the big, darker chunk first. Then...

Another makeup post - from a good day at the pond   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I rolled on the new pond after a day of very active digging. The heavy equipment just scratched the surface of the layer in a very large area. Far to much for me to dig in a measly two hours. So I went into earth moving mode and started peeling back the layer. 45 minutes and only a few broken teeth later, I stood up to take a breather. I couldn't believe that I hadn't found anything good in an area as big as I had already dug. I walked about 5 feet from where I was so I could scope the layer the...

Website inspiration   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I went out 2th hunting today with my boys to the new pond. We arrived to find new digging and two people already digging on it. I knew who they were, and I figured they would be there, being dedicated hunters like myself. There was decent layer everywhere, but it was bereft of layer. Except in one place. Lets just say its one of the best teeth I've ever seen someone find. Hopefully, they'll send me a picture so I can share it with the community. Anyway, it inspired me to make a post. This one is...

I’m a digging maniac..   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		For the past week I’ve been digging at the pond just about everyday for a few hours at a time. I still haven’t found a whole large complete meg from the pond and I’m hoping to get at least one before the pond is finished. I did dig out one nice angy I considered collection worthy that is posted below. I’ll be back soon to pillage the walls of the pond for that nice big meg. ...

The Angustidens Hole   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		About 6 weeks ago, My kids and I went out to the new pond after I got home from work. Da f0ssZ and I had just hunted the whole weekend without finding any superheroes. But still, tha boy and i went out to try our hand. First order of business, devastate the 8 foot vertical wall above where DF extracted the shamer megalodons during our weekend hunt. I started it out, but unexpectedly, he took the mighty tool and started wailing when my strength started to wane. I had a proud moment as he brought ...

The Omega-Rack   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I went out to the new pond expecting little. t$ told me that digging would resume Friday, but that he was going that evening and would be sure to excavate everything. So I didn't think anything would be left for me to find, at least easily. I looked down into the Cletus pond and saw nothing that looked new. My information was faulty! No new digging. So I walked across the field on the off chance that digging had occured there. To my glee, I ran into a trench that had been dug around the entire c...

The pond gets stingy   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A pile of teeth gets cleaned off my tooth table! One evening about a month ago, I went out to the new pond. There was new layer all over the place and I basically dug until I couldn't see anymore. There really wasn't too much happening on that day. I chalked it up to a day for physical fitness!...

it’s nice to be first for once   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The day before we just received large amounts of rain from thunderstorms that produced tornadoes in some areas around the state. You know what that means when there is a lot of rain there is A LOT of teeth to be found. I woke up at 6:00 AM because I wanted to be first to collect at the new pit. In the end it was worth it and the teeth were laying out everywhere and most were on pedestals. I found a lot of shamer megs, but I did manage to find a few nice angys though....

Gnats, Sun and Teeth   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I was sitting in the office at lunch last Wednesday wondering what do this weekend. Last weekend was camping, and the weekend before that Easter egg hunts and yard work. Hey, I know, fossil hunting. I called up DW to see what was up. A new spot to hunt, and diggin for Megs no less. DW informed me that the wife was on a relaxing vacation, so what great chance to bring MiniFossZ for his first diggin trip with the WeeZels. And you know….when the cat is out of town, the mice will get down. We hea...

More Megalodon Hunting   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Ever since my first time in the new pit, I knew I was destined to dig within its filthy contours until the bitter end. Today I had an easy time convincing all my kids and even one of their friends that we needed to be there. A new pit is a big deal in my house. It means my wife gets to have a quiet evening at home several times a week. Yah, its tough to talk her into it but somehow I manage to pull it off. We got out there and saw that two backhoes were digging on the hole during the day, so the...

Ransacked!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I went up to the quarry this weekend to do a little Eocene collecting. I woke up early and arrived early to be sure to explore the good deposits before the other hardcores hunted them all out. I was in but I wasn't first by a long shot. There were footprints all over the material. Up and down every ravine and all over every hill I looked at. Within 10 minutes I decided this was futile and headed for old stuff. Better there than nowhere. I know people always say footprints don't matter, but I dis...

Ransacked!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I woke up at 6:00 AM this morning and had thoughts of big rics being laid out everywhere throughout the pit because of the past rains, but I was wrong the teeth were far and in between and I was told the place hardly received any rain by one of the guys there. I took one of my brothers out and it was his first time hunting shark teeth. We ended up getting to the pit about 30 mins late because I had to wait on my brother to get to the house. We kept running into ditchweezil a lot throughout th...

A promising new Summerville spot   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I was just sitting there minding my business, being a productive member of society. I was doing my job like everyone else. Then the phone rang. It was a voice I new. He only calls with good news. "They busted a new hole in the ground over here. Looks promising." From that point on, I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't write a lick of code with thoughts of an open pit. I quickly wrapped up what I was working on and scooped up tha weEzlinG for a much needed break. We arrived onsite a mere 9 minutes ...

Hunt Healthy   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I've adopted a healthier attitude towards fossil hunting, lately. I've finally stopped being disappointed when I come back from a fossil hunt empty handed. For the longest time, I'd be bummed when I didn't score a nice tooth. All that has changed, now. Doctors say you've got to stay active to stay healthy so I've started looking at digging as a more fun alternative to the treadmill. I mean, who in their right mind wouldn't prefer stomping though a squalid cesspool looking for pointy rocks instea...

Appearances can be deceiving...   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I’ve gone to three different places in the past 2 weeks. I just didn’t really have the time to make the posts until now. The first place I hit up was a spot I haven’t been to in months. I found a descent amount of teeth, but no complete whole white megs turned up. The place has changed greatly since the last time I’ve been there and the way it looks it’s going to be gone real soon, sign tears. The second place I went to was an old ditch. I had to dig about 2 to 3 feet down to reach the layer ...

Last call at the Junkyard   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		In October of last year I bought my first 4x4, a 2000 Ranger. What a piece of garbage! Weeks after I brought it home, I began noticing a high pitched sound eminating from the transmission. Not good. Second, everytime I pushed the gas pedal from a stop, I could feel and hear a knock. GMan even came up to hunt and was hesitant to tell me what a lemon it was. On top of that, I found out when I bought new mud tires for it that it needed new ball joints. JEEZ! This truck was bad news all around. I wa...

Another fossil spot bites the dust   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The last day we had heavy rain, I actually went to two places. The first spot, well, that was my last post. The second spot was an old favorite. It was a ditch near where I used to work, and even though I never really found anything killer there, it was always a fun hunt. The layer there was loaded with shark teeth, even though they are normally thrashed. To my absolute horror, I saw that nearly all of the ditch was completely covered over with dirt and filled in with pipes. After getting out of...

Raiding the local ditches   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Still cleaning off my fossil table, this is the most recent of my finds. A few weeks back, we had a really good amount of rainfall, and after my recent reconnaisance, I knew where to go. I moved to the heart of fossil glory land land year, and now no less than 5 ditches are within walking distance. I made a beeline for the best one and I was rewarded with a few puny teeth in the first 5 minutes of hunting. The ditch is about 100 yards long but is stocked with gravel the entire length. I moved sl...

Still cleaning off the fossil table   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		My fossil prep table is covered with little baggies of teeth, all kept separate in the interest of accuracy. Each will be a post when I have time to do it. With yesterday's and today's baggies cleaned, I now have enough open space to put some NEW baggies of shark teeth! These are from a hunt I went late last year to an old pit. Everytime I go to that place, I see the potential for some massive angustidens with the piles and piles of chandler bridge. But I've never found anything worthwhile there...

Auriculatus Bonanza   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		5:00 am this morning I wake up, fully aware that my alarm is set for one hour so I could go up to Lafarge. My semiconscious, lazy self convinces me to turn off the alarm, sleep in, and investigate spots closer to home. I listened, and I fell back to sleep. 6:36 am my wife is whispering "You're going to be late for toothing". She finally wakes me up and I threw on some clothes and headed out the door. I arrived a little late to the dig, but only like 10 or 15 minutes. Armed with my ipod and luc...

Auriculatus Bonanza   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Time for the first fossilin’ trip of the new year, and with some hard rains over the last few weeks, prime pickens were on order. Today was the LaFarge hunt, with rivrdiggr, his son, and a fellow collecting buddy from Florida joining me and DW. With temps in the 60s and clouds, the collecting conditions were simply ideal. As I approached the pit, I saw new material all over the place. I jumped out of my truck and hunted with fury. After a few minutes, as it became more light, I noticed the so...

Fossils falling from the skies   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The lowcountry received a nice dose of rain this week, and the result was some good erosion in one of my favorite ditches. Its always a fun place to hunt because I always come home with something. Today was no exception. Besides for having one of those days where I got a bunch of teeth, I also had one of those days where I came away with some really nice onces. The best find of the day was just lying in the middle of the creek under a few inches of water in full view. Not really much eventful ha...

A Double Shot   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It has been about six weeks since my last fossilin’ trip, so a two day adventure was in order. Although November-December is a quiet fossilin’ time, the Christmas break provides a collecting opportunity. I called up DW to meet up for day two collecting, and since Mini-Fossz joined me, DW confirmed his collecting child, the WeeZling, would join us. On day one, MfZ and I tried our luck at Indian artifact collecting on the shores of Lake Marion in Santee in the morning. We hit the first spot an...

Post Procrastination, part 2   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		To continue with my procrastination posts of December 2005, here is one from about 4 weeks ago. I went back to an old ditch that I've been hunting over the years, and I dug for about 4 hours to find these teeth. It was actually a pretty decent dig, though this ditch is especially difficult to dig because the fossils are suspended in a heavy clay that really sticks to my shovel. Every few minutes, I had to scrape the mud off the shovel with the bottom of my boot so I could actually dig. Then the ...

Long Time, No Dig   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		After yesterday's dive, I knew today would be a digging day. I don't know any new spots to dig, so I hit about the only spot I could think of to find a megalodon tooth. My heart wasn't in it until about an hour in when I finally started finding teeth. I was giddy with fossil glee when I unearthed a half a megalodon tooth. The best find of the day was a pretty Isurus desori. I'm always happy with the hunt when I have at least one nice one to take home....

Ditched   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		This morning’s LaFarge hunt began at sunrise, and pleasant fall weather was the order of the day. I met up with Rivrdigr in the pit at about 7:30AM. This was his first trip to LaFarge, so I thought I would show him some fosspitality. We quickly gathered our backpacks and shovels and headed back into the mine. There was limited collecting on the older overburden spoils, but with recent rains I thought there may be some rics rinsed out. We both hunted between the tall grasses and spoil flats, but ...

Ditched   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		With winter soon approaching I decided to make a weekend dive trip to SC. The plan was to dive the Cooper & Edisto. But with all the rain the week before the plan changed. DW informed me about a chance to hunt some eocene fossils at Lafarge with him and da fOssZ, how could I pass that up. So I met up with da fOssZ Saturday morning at Lafarge. With this being my first time at Lafarge, da fOssZ gave me a quick run down of the layout and formations to look for. I was hoping for some beginners luck ...

Ditched   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		With all the rain we had the last few weeks, I knew that there was a chance for something at Lafarge. We hunted on the old, overgrown hills, but the rainfall from the tropical storm was easily enough to uproot some weeds and cause some nice erosion. It was nice to finally meet rivrdigr, who had great timing on this trip. da f0ssZ also came down, and as normal, easily outracked me. Its all good - I've resigned myself to taking a backseat to the quarry king. He scored a superhero, and I was lucky ...

Not the Haul I Expected   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I had 45 minutes this evening to kill so I found a ditch. I went to the spot where tha duDe scored a spear a few months ago. The later at this place is just tumbling into the ditch as it erodes, but the dry spell we had allowed weeds to spring up in the bottom of the ditch all over the place, killing the erosion. I found a few teeth, definitely not bad for 45 minutes, but visions of megalodons danced in my head. I should have relied upon my weezil sense and went with more realistic expectations....

A Fossil Hunt 10 Years in the Making   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The rainy onslaught against South Carolina has continued. Today, my hunt was to a spot I have been fantasizing about for at least 10 years, probably longer. I noticed these big piles next to a ditch years ago, and I often wished that I had been more into collecting fossils and less into chicks when I was younger so I could have collected the ditch when they dug it. Oh well. Those piles contained remnants of glories past, and I wanted a shot. Well, they finally dozed the piles, and I was on them ...

March of the Punies   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Tropical Storm Tammy paid South Carolina a visit this week, and we got more rain that at any time in the past two months at least. I hadn't taken tha weEzlinG out tooth hunting for a while, so we went after I picked him up from school. Indiana told me about a new spot a few days ago, and I wanted to check it out, especially after a good rain. We drove right up to the spot and we found puny little teeth as soon as we opened up the door. The hunt continued for about 2 hours, and we picked up a ton...

If you play with snakes...   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		After two weeks solid of working 10 hours minumum a day and I was ready for a few hours to myself without so much as a thought of work. I drove up the road to one of the ditches close to my house. da f0ssZ and I went there a couple months ago and I found a nice angustidens and a deer tooth. I hoped for a repeat performance today. With shovel, sifter, and The Haunted screaming in my mp3 player, I attacked the layer laden ditch. It was nearly dry, so I could dig in the very bottom in a few areas, ...

The Sweet Tintinabulation of the Victory Bell   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The fossil hunting plans for today were set for two weeks, though we didn't know if we were diving or digging. I got ahold of tha duDe and he was in for some time away from work, too. The river was undivable, but we had a land spot to hunt so teeth would be found. It was so hot and humid out that none of us thought we would would last longer than 3 or 4 hours. We hit the first ditch and mere moments after we arrived, I spied a complete megalodon tooth lying on the bottom of the ditch in full vie...

The Sweet Tintinabulation of the Victory Bell   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		The Sweet Tintinabulation of the Victory Bell

The Sweet Tintinabulation of the Victory Bell   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		With the summer waning, I got to thinking last week that I should plan a dive trip. I called up DW for a trip and he gladly obliged. More rains hit around my house and a few miles away in the Low Country, so we decided another land hunt was in order. DW knew that an old hunting ditch had been cleaned out. With recent rains, this spot had potential. I arrived at DW’s house around 9AM and saw a newer improved weez truck. However, the profile in the driver’s seat was less portly than the DWs. It lo...

A Carolina Gamecock Goes Orange (for fossils)   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Today, DW and myself had our first dive trip planned of this season. Even though the rains had been heavy, we were eager to get out and score some teeth. The day started out rough with some hitch issues on the new and improved POS. After some work, we loaded up and were on our way. The river was quite high and the current ripping. When we arrived at the dive spot, DW and I looked at each other, shook our heads and decided we did not want to be a permanent part of the river’s history. So we pull...

Back to a old spot   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I decided to go back to the same ditch from where I found my 5 1/2 inch meg a few months ago. Most of the layer was under water in the ditch, but I managed to score a descent 4 inch meg from the small area of layer that was still above the water. I’m going to try to get in a few more toothing trips this week before college starts. Hopefully I'll find some more goodies. ...

The Weezling's time in the sun   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A rain so ferocious fell today that my inner toother was awakened to a late evening romp in the fields of mud. Tha weEzlinG, always down to pick up some teeth, was excited as soon as the first drops fell. We headed out about an hour before dark and were greeted to new digging at our latest spot of choice. For the first time in a long time, we were the first ones at a freshly dug site right after a heavy rain, and the rewards were great. Both of us found megalodon teeth exposed - a rarity with th...

Some fossils to feed the need   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		After more abuse from the man, I finally had a break to hunt some teeth. Of course, no hunt would be complete without his Weezilness. It was the Lafarge hunt today, so I decided to give that a shot first. There had been some heavy rain the night before, so I thought my ric drought would end. To quote Mini-f0ssZ, “SIKE”. I did hunt the piles pretty hard, but there was not much pickins’. I ended up with a nice mako. After that, I headed down to DWs new crib. His fossil wares were proudly displayed...

Some fossils to feed the need   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I have been jonesin' like nothing else to go fossil hunting. I had big deadlines at work, then vacation, then catch up at work. By the weekend, I was so ready for da f0ssZ to mach 10 it down to my new crib for some down and dirty shark tooth hunting. We couldn't dive, so the new boat is still not broken in. I took df down to the pond I racked so hard at last time I went, but it was completed and full of water so we settled for a nearby ditch. At 95 degrees F and 95% humidity we were sapped withi...

Stumbling onto a Gold Mine   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		It rained all day here and I was itching to get back out to the spot where I found the nice shark teeth last week to do some more hunting. Soon after I arrived, I ran into the worst posibble thing - footprints. I had been scooped. I made my way back to my truck, only to find the person in charge of the site I was collecting. He was really nice, but he told me I couldn't collect there anymore. I hated to hear that, but I have to respect the landowner's wishes. I left, never to return. On the way ...

The Drenching   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I was sitting at home working on a fine saturday afternoon, much like every other saturday of recent when a storm rolled in that was so heavy that I snapped back into my senses, and at that moment my thoughts became lucid and I immediately turned off my laptop and changed into my pit gear. I was going out in the middle of the storm to brave the torrents in the name of teeth. When I arrived at the spot, I was the only one there so I began hunting with a vengence in hopes of finding a killer befor...

Back to some serious fossil hunting   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Everything is winding down from the big move, so it was time for some real fossil hunting today. t$ gave me the heads up on his new spot and even though I waited to see if he could go, the call never came so I gave myself the green light to go hunt. It was only a mile and a half from my new crib - man I'm loving the proximity to the keen fossil hunting grounds. Anyway, the layer was ripe for the picking and I had all afternoon to pick. It was nice to be hunting for megalodon teeth again. For a w...

t$ is back!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Yes, I’am still alive and back into fossil action. I’ve been busy hanging out with friends and family lately, so I haven’t been out toothing much. Well, today I happen to stumble upon a great spot with some killer layer, one of the best I’ve seen in awhile. Found a shamer 5 ½ inch meg, its cracked along the back side pretty bad not sure if I want to keep it yet. I don’t have a picture of the back side. I’m still prepping the tooth and cleaning it up. I’ll post one when I finish it. ...

Exploring the Hood   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Well, the move is over and it was time to get out and explore the new neighborhood fossil style. At the back of my new digs I saw a big creek, and it was first on my list of spots to explore. It was complete backfilled and the bottom was mucked up so I didn't find anything in the big creek, but I did end up coming across a small feeder creek that was loaded with layer. I dug a little, but the ground was so hard that I quickly gave up and began shoveling up rocks from the bottom to see if there w...

The Law of Averages   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Need I say anything? This was a case of “not my day” in the cement quarry. I saw a few nice ‘rics, but no droolers. ...

The Law of Averages   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		I thought I was going to miss the Lafarge hunt today because its getting so close to the big move date. Still, I broke away from my box packing duties to feed the compulsion. The hunting area was a little bigger this time, so my quantity was up from previous visits. Surprisingly, I never ran into anyone I knew on the hunt. Anyway, I don't have much time to type a great story, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves....

Cleaning up and moving out   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		Life has been busy lately. We're moving in less than two weeks, so everything has been a blur. I've fallen way behind on my posts, so today I buckled down to take the pictures of some stuff I found a few weeks ago when I went hunting to this pit with Indiana. He didn't know what age the material was before I got there, so my task was to figure out what formation was there and settle the argument as to which of the carcharocles species they were finding out there - auriculatus or angustidens. I w...

The day of the fluke   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		With the apparent lack of any worthwhile place to dig, I visited a spot that I haven't hunted in well over 3 years. I quit hunting it because there has just always been someplace better! Its an old, overgrown ditch with relatively nothing in the way of complete fossils. I mean seriously, I have never found a complete shark tooth over an inch and a half in length at this spot. Well, I figured that no one else gave this spot a second thought either, so in 3 years of hurricanes, tropical storms, th...

To the Eocene!   Dorchester County, South Carolina, USA
		A good rainfall this week made for a decent producer at the quarterly open dig at Lafarge. Still on the old piles, but once in a while a nice tooth pops out in the washouts. ...

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