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December 3, 2008

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Shark Teeth

A Yankee's Foss...

A Yankee's Fossil Hunting Experience in South Carolina

9/7/2005 12:44:11 PM

legacyForum

725 posts

A Yankee's Fossil Hunting Experience in South Carolina

Arrived at Eagle creek site. The Ladson road site didn't look very accessable so I went the neighborhood site upstream. I parked the car cna quickly checked the site. There were a few evidences of recent digging so I went back to the car to get my stuff. I felt stinging on my legs and thought, "Ditchweezil" didn't have any info on the web-site about fire ants, maybe they just leave that out for unsuspecting Yankee fossil hunters!

I start a few small excavations looking for the layer. It all seemed like fill to me. I went to one area where a large slump had recently occurred. There was a pile of washed stuff including gravel and a 1" blade only shark tooth! I dug some on my own, but although I found some neat fossil pieces there were no more shark teeth and literally every shovel full came up with recent fill evidence, including concrete block, broken glass, and tuttle eggs! I decided I didn't want to dig anymore and cause further slumping of the ditch sides. There was evidence of recent machinery, either weed-cutting or back-hoe. Besides, I had several more run ins with fire ants.

I proceeded to the Dorchester Creek site (Dorchester road). It was too deep (3-4 feet) to work now (11:00 am). Up stream at the YMCA, it was shallower, but I wanted to try down further so I decided to drive around and look for fresh ditches. At one construction site I found "the layer" in one spot but did not see any teeth exposed and didn't want to ruin the smooth sides of their ditch.

I got lunch at the Chinese buffet, just $4.75, at the Bi-Lo shopping center. I was a few couples and families in their Sunday best after church, and me, the fossil hunter, with stained T-shirt, saggy shorts, bright red water shoes, and mud up to the knees, although I did have the pressence of mind to leave my pith helmet in the car!

I started with my sieve, shovel, and fiberglass prod at the Dorchester Creek by Dorchester road (now past 2:00 pm). The water was 1-1.5 feet. I tried the prod and everything was too hard to penetrate. I got several shovels of "placer deposits" of gravel and such into the sieve. Eureka, I had found my first shark tooth tip! I worked the area upstream about 2/3 of the way to the YMCA site, then back. Here is the summary of what I collected there:

32 small shark teeth various species.
20 bits and pieces of shark teeth.
12 clam molds.
1 piece of coral.
1 deer tooth?
1 vertebrae
several bits that might be shark teeth, but are certainly good enough to give out to my fourth grade daughter's class if they want me to give a short talk about rocks and fossils.
1 (this was the find of the day) 1 1/8" tooth (great white?) with chip at tip and the corners of the root knocked off.