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Fall Fossil Hunting for Shark Teeth at the mine in Aurora, NC

Oct 2nd was our slot for the former PCS mine in aurora, NC. The fall season was in the pit! It has been 5 looonnng years since we got a chance to go into the pit. Thanks PCS for allowing us in! Needless to say, the collecting area was much better than the NCPC spoils that have been exhausted over the years. Anyhow, we left Friday evening and arrived Sat. morning nice and tired for the days collecting ahead of us. Within the 1st 10 minutes of hunting I found some nice extant tiger teeth and some decent hastalis! I turned to Amy, holding up my finds, and said “this is the pit alright!� Unfortunately, I jinxed myself. After the initial finds, collecting became slow, with only tiny stuff to pick up. We slowly combed over the collecting area, and never did make it through the whole area since it’s so large. We picked up fossils here and there throughout the day. Overall, we did ok, even though no decent Megs or Chubs were found by us. I did end up with a squalodon molar with the root broken, some nice looking smaller makos, some nice extant tigers, and decent fish material. Then we left Sunday for the horrible looonnnggg and boring drive home.

Also, we ended up collecting 3 bags of material for our bone garden... Bone garden?? Let me explain… One time at Ditchweezil's house, I noticed the coolest thing. There wasn’t a vegetable garden or a rock garden in front of his house; there was a BONE garden. It was full of fossilized whale bone. Seeing this unusual garden that could only be appreciated by a fossil fanatic inspired me to make one of my own. We have a rather large rock garden, perhaps 40 x 15 feet, and another one perhaps 8 x 100 feet, and numerous other rock garden islands throughout our yard, and other big rock garden, about 40 x 20 behind our house. I estimate with all our Tertiary collecting, the rocks will slowly be covered by fossil bone. Anyhow, Paul graciously plucked us some bone garden material and Amy and I collected 3 large bags of broken whale verts, rib fragments, etc… All bone garden quality. Yup, the neighbors are looking strangely at us right now…

Fossils found from the trip

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Recommended Books and Fossils:

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Shark Tooth Hunting on the Carolina Coast
By: Ashley Oliphant, 2015
A guide on how to find and identify fossil shark teeth on the North and South Carolina beaches. It also has an easy to use section for shark teeth identification. If you want to find shark teeth in the Carolinas, read this book first!