Last Saturday (9/7/2024), just before we celebrated the 29th anniversary of The Lost World: Jurassic Park (novel), I went on my first ever fossil hunt!

I didn’t actually plan for all of this to happen around the same time, and I suppose the two events are not actually that related considering the types of fossils I was able to find (more on that later), but it does kinda feel like the weekend had a bit of a theme.

In any case, if we remember all the way back to this most recent #JurassicJune, I reviewed a book called Remnants of Ancient Life for #DinosaurDay 2024. In this post I mentioned that many of the discoveries and much of the science talked about within the book were taking place “in my backyard” so to speak, and naturally I was pretty pumped about it all and curious, what if any little field trips I could make.

After a little googling, I found out that you can actually book a little expedition with a guide and fellow fossil hunters over along the Calvert Cliffs at Cove Point. I use the term expedition loosely, it was really just a little stroll along the beach near a lighthouse, but there were really fossils there, and I came home with a sandwich bag full of them.

RoAL describes the cliffs as: ” . . . a cross section of the Miocene sediments that slid into the bay. As sea levels fell, waves, tides, and storms exposed the sediments at the western edge of the Chesapeake Bay. Along a 24-mile-long portion of the coast of Maryland, this exposure takes the form of a cliff as much as a hundred feet high.”

What this means, is that you won’t find any dinosaur fossils on the beach. Our guide explained — much to the chagrin of a six-year-old on the tour (and myself if I’m honest) — that the Miocene Era was a period between 23 and 5 million years ago and that the sediments we would encounter were specifically dated around 6 million years ago. Since dinosaurs “ruled the earth” between 243 – 66 million years ago, they would be much deeper in the rock.

In any case, there would still be lots of interesting things to find, like sea creatures. Lots of sea creatures.

Mostly, I found stingray teeth. But with the help of the guide, I brought home some teeth from lemon sharks, hammerhead sharks, gray sharks, sand tiger sharks, and a big snaggletooth shark. Also, some prehistoric coral.

A pretty good haul all things considered (and it being my first time out), but it quickly became apparent that the prize we were all seeking was the elusive Megalodon tooth. At least two people in the group found one. Some others found ancient crocodile teeth, and even some ancient dolphin teeth.

Fun fact: Some sharks lose up to 35,000 teeth in their lifetime.

So that’s probably why there are so many fossils of them.

Would I Fossil Hunt Again?

Absolutely! It ended up being a really fun time, and while I know I won’t make any earth shattering discoveries (although some years see up to four new species discovered along the cliffs), I’m still proud of my little bag of stingray teeth, and I’ve learned a whole lot in the process of finding them.

That’s all I have for this week! Has anyone else been fossil hunting before? Any cool finds? Leave your thoughts in the comments! Also, here’s a pic of the Cove Point Lighthouse. I think you can stay there which is kinda neat.