Awesome Shark Footage

Construct a Simple Fossil Sifter - Popular Science Build It

This is a great idea for finding shark's teeth and fossils at the beach.  Will be building one for me and my grand-daughter to try out later this year and I'll report on  how it works.

Beach 2012

We spent a wonderful week at the beach with family and friends with the weather cooperating nicely. As I’ve said before in previous posts (see below), beachcombing is high on my list, because you see, I have this obsessed addiction with finding shark’s teeth. At the beginning of the week the tides were not providing the needed areas for finding these, but the best day eventually came towards the end of the week when my wife’s cousin and I came across a shark tooth honey hole.

We spent an hour or so combing this spot and then returned later in the afternoon. I ended up with a total of 27 teeth, mostly small ones from an area about 20 yards long by 6 feet wide. No matter how tiny they are though, and I have found some really small ones, they go in my collection.

Once you find such a spot you must spend time with it. Don’t just look once and then move on. I will spend hours in a good area because I know that for every tooth I find, there’s five I have not yet seen. Because with every swipe of the ocean the landscape of the surf changes revealing new objects that were once hidden from view. Wearing sunglasses helps knock off the glare from the sun on the surf, but you must also have the patience of a saint. Once you get the shape, coloration, etc. tattooed in your brain they will suddenly begin to appear. And once you find that first one, the fever sets in.

Suggested Reading:

Hunting Shark’s Teeth (2007)

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (2008)

Mermaid’s Purse(2010)

Beach Notebook  (2011)

Back To The Beach (2011)

Barn Swallow Nest (2011)