Fossil hunting as a hobby

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You might ask what a fossil is. Fossils are the mineralized remains of animals. These animals In most cases somehow became buried and overtime, as it decayed the tooth and bone substance, was replaced by minerals from the surrounding sediment. This replacement of substances typically hardens the merchandise and changes its color.

You might now ask, where can you find fossils? Well once the product is buried and becomes a fossil it needs to be uncovered. Various forces of nature like earthquakes, river erosion, and ocean regression can cause fossils to become vulnerable. Man can also play a role as well with items like open-pit mining, river dredging or even just digging a foundation for a house. Fossils can be found throughout the world some areas just have more than others. You can even find them on volcanic islands like Hawaii. Even though the islands are not too old in a geological time frame the ocean surrounding them is. There are some areas on the island where what once was the ocean floor is now exposed to the beach, and Pleistocene shark teeth, fish bones, mollusks and other fossils can be found.

I bet you now want to find some fossils. If you do I recommend starting with fossil shark teeth. Fossil shark teeth are one of if not the most abundant fossil that can be found. The cause of this is that sharks replace their teeth, again and again, allowing for one animal to drop thousands of teeth in a lifetime. Now multiply that by the number of sharks in the ocean times the number of years they have existed, and you get a good deal of them. Fossil shark teeth come in all shapes and sizes. From the colossal carcharocles megalodon shark teeth which can reach over seven inches into the very small teeth of the whale shark that may be only milometers. A vast majority of fossil shark teeth are seen along coastal regions and can extend for miles inland.

There are numerous methods deployed for collecting shark teeth. The most common would be surface collecting. Whether it be on a beach on the Chesapeake Bay, a creek in South Carolina or a phosphate mine in Florida there are tons of areas where you can just walk around and pick teeth up. You can also go to where the fossil-bearing formation is close to the surface and dig through the substance and sieve it. Then you have the folks who put on the scuba gear and brave the depths of rivers and the oceans to discover fossil shark tooth treasures.

Related hobbies: Insect collecting , Antiquing

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