Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Fossils

A while back I posted about a place my son dubbed "Shark Tooth Island".  It's an area along the Rappahannock River where people said you could find shark teeth.  Always up for an adventure, we went to check it out.  We were surprised to find that within the sandy cliff walls of the beach were hundreds of scallop shells.  One particular area of the beach had them tumbling out of the walls, onto the beach and even layering the water. 


Chesapecten Jeffersonius VA state fossil
Scallop shells and barnacles were everywhere and we filled our buckets with the Pliocene treasures- treasures that could be 5.3-2.6 million years old. 
Imagine, these scallops lived during the time of the Wooly Mammoth, the Saber Tooth Tiger and the Megalodon Shark.

I am anxious to go back and spend a day rooting around there.  Wouldn't it be grand to find a Megalodon tooth?!

Read about the shark teeth we did find here

5 comments:

  1. oh that is so cool .. i used to love collecting shells .. haven't been to the beach in forever .. need to rectify that ... blogfest anyone?

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  2. My brother and I used to find the scallop shell fossils in some clay banks along the Piankatank River too. We thought we were the only ones in the world to ever find such marvelous things!

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  3. A friend of mine says he did find a megaladon tooth along the Piankatank. I've never seen it, but he swears he found one.

    My grandmother used to take us shark tooth hunting along the Piankatank in Cobbs Creek. we always came back with handfuls of them.

    Great pictures!

    Wait. Who said Blog Fest? I'm ready.

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  4. I read something about a spot near the Norris Bridge on the Irvington/White Stone side that has yielded quite a few shark teeth in general and apparently a Megalodon tooth or two.

    I'm ready for Blog Fest. In fact, I'm beyond ready.

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