Sharktooth Hill for the Holidays

[Latimeria]

I made reservations a month ago, but wasn't sure if I could swing it or not.  Before I knew it, I was two days away!  My wife even reminded me of it because I had a lot on my plate and it got lost in my brain.

First things first, my back and shoulder are still in bad shape, so I needed something to ease the impact of fossil hunting.  We did not pay for "premium" spots as they were an extra $20 a square foot to dig and I've been hunting this property since the 1990's and knew where to go.  The best way to maximize our time was to sift and I needed to build a sifter that would be easy on me. 

I looked up a few types and figured I would build a "rocking sifter".  I decided to wing it since I wanted to customize it for what I was going to be using it for.  I must say, it came out really sweet!  It is 4X tough too which I like for only being 3/4" wood except for the foot prop.

Framing.





Supports



Legs



Pinning on the mesh



Securing the mesh for the weight.



Rocker sifter completed!





Time to rise and shine!  We had to leave by 3:15 am to get there on time.  Kevin couldn't make it so it was just Eric and I.  Dr. Zaius (My truck) was packed and ready to go.  It's a long ass ride up there which takes about 4 hours and 15 minutes on average with NO traffic.
We got up there to ice puddles and freezing cold, but we were the first ones in line.

The Miocene Motherland!





Made some coffee while we waited for our host to show.





I really wanted to hunt the East Quarry as it is the best of the quarries on his land, but we were forced to hunt slow curve.  Only one person from Texas got to go over there.

Eric started test digs at a close spoil pile while I scouted the area.  He found 3 nice teeth while I was scouting, but I found a great spot and dug up 3 whale verts and a few teeth in only 5 minutes, so I found our spot!
Eric was amazed at the teeth that were around, but we trekked over to what would hopefully be the honey hole!



We stayed away from all the novices and kept to ourselves on the outskirts.  Robert even let me drive across to keep close to our truck to really get away from the group.



The lucky bastards who got to hunt the East Quarry!



We commenced digging and scoring tooth and bone one after another!





Teeth would pop out from the holes you dug.









Eric was crushing the bigger teeth while most of the ones I was finding were small to medium with a few larger ones in the mix.  I was finding a TON of shark and fish vertebrae though!  We stopped for lunch and I had to snap a killer pick of my sled on Sharktooth Hill.



While Eric was cooking up some field rations, I looked at a half-day's worth of teeth that I got.



I started looking around where the truck was parked and teeth kept jumping at us!  Just lying there minding there own business and we were collected as we cooked!  lol





Lunch is served! Mountainhouse  Pack foods! (Very tasty actually!)



We finished lunch and got back to digging.  It was cold as hell, but we kept going.  Eric found some MONSTER teeth!



It was time to go and we wanted to avoid LA at all costs so took the Cajon Pass.  Snow and Ice everywhere!  Scary road to share with truckers in those conditions.  The wind was also HOWLING!
We got back in about 5 hours and took a closer look at some of Eric's finds. He got some great quality teeth.



The Big one of the day.  Isurus hastalis, aka, the Broadtooth Mako (Great White Ancestor)



On the way home, my engine light came on and so I dropped the truck off the next day.  Catalytic Converter failed and just took much of my boat funds to fix.  In the meantime, I started cleaning my fossils.

I brought some extra chunks of matrix home and was rewarded with many more teeth than I realized!  I'll post up more as I clean them up and prep them, but here is some of the booty that I brought home.

Round 1



Some more rare notables..

Cow Shark



Snaggletooth Shark



Round 2

Lots more teeth and bone material.



Round 3

Rib and vertebrae material as well as epiphysis, bullae, and terrestrial mammal bone.



I have more to go over, but this is a start.  I'll post as I go so you get to see some of the cool stuff.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

[skrilla]

Cool stuff fellas. 

[faster u fool]

cheese and rice,  you guys loaded up

[Eric H]

that is beyond cool. Looks like a ton of fun.

Stupid question :

so for those teeth to be there, at one point that area was all ocean?

[Latimeria]

that is beyond cool. Looks like a ton of fun.

Stupid question :

so for those teeth to be there, at one point that area was all ocean?

Yep. It was known as the Temblor Sea.

[Latimeria]

For those of you that would like to give it a shot, here is the info:

www.sharktoothhillproperty.com

[Tim524]

Cool stuff, looks like you found some nice necklace material 

[LONGCAST JOE]

At first glance before reading I was thinking you were building an overkill of a sand crab trap,lol. But real cool finds, short of a prized Megladon specimen.
So you do your clean & prep without using any acids or chems?
I live close to the Topanga Quarries Amphitheater site that I've collected a wide variety of Miocene Era invertebrate specimens from. (shhhh- the closure is just based on public safety & liability concerns, It's not really about specimen protection)
JOE