The Treasures of the Temblor Sea

[Latimeria]

The plans at the holidays were to get out with Kevin and Eric to the Miocene mother land and hunt for Megalodons.  Kevin couldn't make it so just Eric and I went.  I scheduled another trip to get us all out there and even got Chris  (Bitter Native) out who I've been promising for what seems to be almost a decade.

We got the site and Chris took a pic next to the iconic Meeting spot.



I was so stoked to finally hunt the East Quarry, but for a pretty lame reason, we didn't go over there and went back to the slow curve quarry which is the hardest hit quarry on the property.
We all found where we wanted to hunt and got to work.  Christ and I did a lot of sifting while Kevin and Eric pounded the long bar into the bone bed looking for the big one.
I fished shaking out a load of dirt to realize I gave this lizard a 10.0 quake who somehow made it in my sifter as I was loading it with matrix.  He was ok after a while, but pretty shaken up.



Here was our plot of land we worked.  I tried some prospecting, but found nothing in my test pans, so kept moving before ending back where I started.
Looking over to the East Quarry where we should be hunting.



We also got to park right next to where we were working, so that meant tunes and cold beverages while we slaved away! 





Perfect whale vertebrae working out of the wall.



I couldn't help but keep looking back at the east quarry, where I wanted to be...



It wasn't just fossils and lizards that were popping up in our screens.



I was finding teeth, but it was overall slow all day.  We were picking at some nice stuff here and there before I finally got what I was looking for!  (Albeit, just a small corner of one). 



My 5th Megalodon!  I have 3 complete ones and two corners from here now.



Chris found some complete whale verts and was stoked!



After 8 hours of sifting and slamming sledge hammers, we were done.  Time to celebrate!



It was one of my tougher trips for shark teeth than I can ever remember, but I'm happy with my haul.  Everyone did really well and loved the adventure out to the Miocene Motherland!

A long distance cheers to Kevin for making it after getting back from PV after a 10 day cow tuna trip.  He arrived back home at midnight and jumped in the truck to fossil hunt only 2 hours later!  That's dedication!









The next day I started cleaning off my treasure and wanted to see if I had anything special in the mix.
I had about 150 teeth, but only a tenth of that were of anything respectable.



Plenty of rib bones showing the marks of predation.  The sharks left their marks on a lot of bone up there!



One of a bunch of nice vertebrae!



I was cleaning up a concretion I took home to find a COMPLETE whale vertebrae with processes and all! (Wings of the back bones)
It's going to take a lot of work, but it will look awesome when I'm done.



You always look closer to the matrix that falls off larger bone pieces as there are always hidden treasures.  Here you see the root of a tooth still stuck in the matrix.



I even sifted the matrix coming off that vertebrae and found a bunch more teeth!



Well, I'll repost more when I get them cleaned off, but thanks for reading.  Fossil hunting is pretty much a neck and neck tie with fishing for me, so I love the opportunities to go!

[sasquatch]

Looks like a fun but hard working way to spend the day.

[raychavez91]

That is just so interesting. But does sound back breaking. Would definitely be a cool experience to do.

[Tim524]

Nice adventure Cool how you found marks from teeth on bone

[WheresMyBeer]

Great stuff as always Tom. Really cool.

Wow! Chris sighting ... what's that guy been up to? He hasn't posted up in a long time!