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Author Topic: Shoulda posted this in the Monsters Section - possible 35 foot shark  (Read 5897 times)

Fat Boy

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I found these on Saturday along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay.



One of my hobbies is that I'm an amateur paleontologist.  I probably do this about half as much as I fish.  I really enjoy finding the marine fossils, especially the sharks teeth.  It's kind of like fishing.

The three sharks teeth are Carcharodon chubutensis, an ancestor of the famous C. megalodon.  These are extinct sharks that prowled the Chesapeake Bay area during the early to mid Miocene era, about 15 to 18 million years ago.  The individuals that owned the smaller of the 3 teeth were about 18 to 25 feet in length and the larger tooth belonged to a shark that approached 35 feet long.  The other tooth is that of an extinct sperm whale.  During the middle Miocene, the Chesapeake was thought to be nursery waters for whales and porpoises.   Where you find concentrations of these Cetaceans, you'll find predators and scavengers like sharks and saltwater crocodiles.  Along the shores of the bay you'll find countless bone fragments of marine mammals like whales, manatees, and seals along with lots of different types of sharks teeth from that time period.  These fossils are buried in the layers of the Calvert Cliffs, often called Shuttocks Zones by the local paleontology enthusiasts.  Why so many sharks teeth?  Each shark loses thousands of teeth each year, multiply that times several millions of years that these sharks were in the area, multiplied again times the number of sharks in the region on the average estimaged in the low millions and that comes to…a heck of a lot of sharks teeth.  The above teeth are my best speciments of my finds from this past Saturday.

slipbob

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That's awesome FB.  The best stuff we ever found was a lot of old Indian arrowheads on the shore of a place called Whitney Point reservoir when they did their winter drawdown.  Looking for remains like that is a great companion activity to a day of fishing.

Jigwiggler

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Great find FB!  Allthough I don't actively hunt fossils anymore I am always looking while I am out hunting or fishing.
May your doorknobs smell of fish!!

Fat Boy

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Do I get to enter these in the MFF derby?   ;D

fastribs85

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sorry fb you dont have the card and you dont have a picture when you "caught" them
 ;)
naked women and beer we got it all in here

fozsey

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Very nice. Let me see you catch one of those on your 6' med walleye rod.  :D

I caught 2 clams once.  ;D

peple of the perch

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i saw those on tv (big discovery channle watcher) in i thought that those where worth alot at auctions

baginwal

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Hey Fat Boy,

Nice find!  The family and I also enjoy probing the shoreline of Lake Ontario (eastern basin) when we are not fishing.  The kids have found some neat fossils over the years, but nothing to compare to your shark teeth!


 



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