How I made a wooden shark tooth/fossil sifter!

[Fin Lover]

5 minutes ago, allmightydoggo said:

Hey! I Don’t speak much English but are sifters used for collecting different types of fossils or just specifically shark teeth?

You can use them for any kind of loose fossils that can be found in the creek or river where you are sifting, but they don't work well for really large/heavy fossils.

[allmightydoggo]

Thanks, I didn’t really expect a quick response but would it be alright to use for finding bivalves and gastropods? 

[Fin Lover]

If they are loose in the matrix you are sifting, then yes.  

 

I guess I should add to check first to make sure laws allow sifters wherever you are fossil hunting.  In one of the areas I hunt, they are not allowed.

 

Edited September 16 by Fin Lover

[allmightydoggo]

I have a few spots to check out that have specific fossils that were found there. I live in Northern California, so I’ll check about the laws to see if I can actually go there and use a sifter. One of the places I’m going to is a creek really close to where I’m at.

[allmightydoggo]

There’s actually ammonites and a few other fossils there. I’m hoping I’ll get lucky but I’m willing to spend hours there.

[Fin Lover]

 

23 minutes ago, allmightydoggo said:

There’s actually ammonites and a few other fossils there. I’m hoping I’ll get lucky but I’m willing to spend hours there.

Good luck!

[allmightydoggo]

Ello.

I actually went yesterday with some other of my friends, it wasn’t all that bad except the creek was all dried up nonetheless showing the creek on the app I use and google maps. It took about 15 minutes before we could actually find somewhere to park as there weren’t any public spots as all there were are private properties. We finally found a spot near 4:30 ish then we spent about two hours at the spot sifting through the sand that was there. Despite not finding fossils me and my friends found a lot of bullet casings and funny looking rocks. I’ll definitely look for a different creek that actually has running water instead of it being all dried up. I live in Northern California and there actually isn’t that much places to go to. Wt the supposed “creek” there were supposed to be Cretaceous aged fossils including bivalves and cephalopods. Despite not finding much it was still fun to go outside of the town with my mates.

 

[digit]

Sometimes it takes a few prospecting trips to find a productive spot. Bullet casings and trash are what we'll leave for future generations (assuming there are any) to understand the Holocene.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Allysaurus]

Would this be good to use for a sifter. Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but I have no knowledge or skills when it comes to DIY stuff. 🙂

 

 

[digit]

That's precisely what I use for my wooden framed sifters. Two foot on a side is a big too large for my purposes so I cut the 8 foot length into 5 pieces at 19" each (leaves a tiny bit leftover). I attach them in an a manner that overlaps each end like this:

Instead of nailing them together I use screws (2" drywall screws in my case). Putting in screws so close to the end of a piece of wood often splits it out so I pre-drill pilot holes slightly smaller than the diameter of the screw shank. This lessens the amount of wood the screw has to push out of the way and prevents splitting out. With the overlap from the adjacent boards the inside dimension becomes 18" which I find to be a good size for me. I built a large number of sifters for taking groups of friends fossil hunting so out of 4 boards 8 foot long I was able to cut a total of 20 pieces each 19" long which made 5 sifters when assembled.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Kohler Palaeontology]

I found this post very informative! I might have to try to make one next time I go shark tooth huntin'.

[digit]

That the main purpose for this forum--sharing information. Mostly, that is about fossils and fossil ID, but techniques and tools get shared as well.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken