Bakersfield fossils 2.

We went back to the amazingly fossiliferous temblor formation near Bakersfield at the sharktooth hill. Amazingly we found 47 shark teeth last time and 47 shark teeth again! The picture to the left shows the 16 teeth we found the first day. These teeth include shortfin mako( isrus desori), the bigtooth mako ( isrus hastalis), the tiger shark (galeocerdo aduncus), and much more! So the first day went well.

The next two photos are of the second days finds, the second day was much better, coming in with a total of 22 teeth. We went to a different part of the sharktooth hill, and this much larger area withheld much more shark teeth than the first area.

Nice tiger shark tooth (galeocerdo aduncus) from the second day.

Nice indian ocea n shark (hemipristis serra) tooth from the second day. What's really cool is that these teeth are rare and I found one two trips in a row!

MGS Gallery: Recent Finds

Here's an extremely short post, but it's all worth it, this site has some amazing fossils on it! I suggest checking out the video on the 2010 gallery, it's pretty cool. MGS Gallery: Recent Finds.

Shark teeth in the margarita formation.

The beautiful fossiliferous sand dunes of of the Margarita formation in Scott's Valley California. Not only are they beautiful, but they are famous for their shark teeth and other vertebrate remains. This is a nice picture of the scenery from a little site I know. From here I have recovered 19 fossil teeth, ranging from Carcharocles Megalodon to semicossyphus (sheapshead fish) teeth, not including the sea cow bones and many other bone fragments recovered, Below is a picture of the hole I always dig at.

Below is what you might find in one hour of sifting. Preservation in the Margarita formation is fairly poor, so the teeth might look water worn or can be fragmentary.

Bakersfeild fossils.

We stopped by Bakersfield a couple weeks ago and searched for shark teeth. We found a total of over 47 fossilized teeth, pretty phenomenal considering we found every one of our shark teeth from just searching over the ground on one single hill! To the left is a picture of a shark tooth we found sticking out of the hill side. What a wonderful surprise, it turned out to be a "hooked-tooth mako", or isrus plana. This was the biggest shark tooth I found, measuring at a little more than 31/2 inches! actually quite big! Well we'll get this straight, these fossils actually aren't from the purisima formation, it is actually from the Mountain Silt Member of the Temblor Formation near Bakersfield California. But the people who know the location of the "sharktooth hill" site aren't very fond of telling it's location.

And here is a picture of just one of three drawers full of cataloged shark teeth!

Here I will list the names of, and how many of that kind I found: Myliobatis (bat ray)=13. Carcharhinus sp. (grey shark)=9. Hemipristis serra (Indian ocean shark)=1. Isrus Hastalis (big-tooth mako)=1. Isrus Plana (Hooked-tooth mako)=1,(tooth in pictures above). Galeocerdo Aduncus (tiger shark)=3. Squalus Occidentalis (dogfish shark)=2. Galeorhinus sp. (soupfin shark)=7. Isrus Desori (shortfin mako)=2. Squalodon errabunus (porpise)=3. And 2 unidentified teeth of some sort.