DIGS O' THE DAY (2011-08-09): DOWN AT THE BOAT RAMP: A TOOTHY TALE (rough draft)
lordmarcovan
Posts: 43,530 ✭✭✭✭✭
Spent fifteen minutes down at the boat ramp that's a few hundred yards away from my house. I'd gotten off work early 'cause of an abscessed tooth (gonna have all my uppers yanked outta my skull this week and will be wearing a denture before the month is out, it seems- I go to the oral surgeon tomorrow).
The pain was giving me a brief break, so I parked down at the boat ramp to finish listening to an interesting public radio program. I rolled down the window of the truck so I could hear the radio and walked around, looking for fossil shark teeth. I found three small ones. I seldom visit this spot without finding at least one little shark tooth. My daughter found her first shark tooth here, and it was a big four-incher! Beginner's luck.
I followed a line of ants to a smallish, sardine-sized dead fish on the ground. The ants were crawling all over it.
Then my eye traveled just to the left of the fish- maybe eight or ten inches above- and hey, presto!
A MEGALODON tooth! A nearly intact four-incher! Despite my daughter's find, this doesn't happen too often. As you've probably heard me mention before, these are the teeth of a species of giant white shark that have been extinct for more than a million years. Think of 'em as Jaws' bigger, meaner great-grandpa, who ate whales for lunch, and you've got it about right. Megs are elusive and prized finds.
I'll flesh out the story a bit later, but right now I've got a date with some painkillers and my bed.
I'll leave you with the picture, though.
Here 'tis, dirt and all- not even washed off.
The pain was giving me a brief break, so I parked down at the boat ramp to finish listening to an interesting public radio program. I rolled down the window of the truck so I could hear the radio and walked around, looking for fossil shark teeth. I found three small ones. I seldom visit this spot without finding at least one little shark tooth. My daughter found her first shark tooth here, and it was a big four-incher! Beginner's luck.
I followed a line of ants to a smallish, sardine-sized dead fish on the ground. The ants were crawling all over it.
Then my eye traveled just to the left of the fish- maybe eight or ten inches above- and hey, presto!
A MEGALODON tooth! A nearly intact four-incher! Despite my daughter's find, this doesn't happen too often. As you've probably heard me mention before, these are the teeth of a species of giant white shark that have been extinct for more than a million years. Think of 'em as Jaws' bigger, meaner great-grandpa, who ate whales for lunch, and you've got it about right. Megs are elusive and prized finds.
I'll flesh out the story a bit later, but right now I've got a date with some painkillers and my bed.
I'll leave you with the picture, though.
Here 'tis, dirt and all- not even washed off. 
0
Comments
This is the third or fourth partial Meg to be found there, in not a very large area. It's some very concentrated fossil pay dirt.
I suppose one could take a heavy steel rake and comb the surface, but the ground is very hard packed when dry, and it's much harder for me to spot the teeth in plowed-up sand. I make all of my finds from the surface, or- as was the case here- partially exposed.
sizes. Do they have small and large teeth at the same time? Nah, stupid thought. Many
different sharks and great finds. We have those here in the desert. Like needles on a
cactus, extremely plentiful. But I've not seen those big ones here yet.
bob
Hoarding silver and collecting history
Very nice. You certainly seem to have a knack for finding the coolest stuff, Lord M. And sorry about your teeth. Hope things work out ok.
"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."
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