dries85 Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 (edited) On 6/8 i did a few hours of sifting in 'the quarry with the Miocene hastalis teeth'. Conditions weren't great tho (except for the weather), most of the good spots had already been searched (by myself and others) or either covered in bulldozer tracks and too hard to dig. Too bad the excavation only moves a few meters per year, so i'll have to be patient i suppose.. or maybe take a pickaxe next time 🤔 Eventually i found myself a spot with some good gravel and the first tooth already showed up in my 19mm sifter.. The first nice hastalis with cool colors.. I found more hastalis, a great specimen of Isurus retroflexus and after about an hour of sifting the big one of today.. Then my good gravel layer suddenly disappeared. The next 2 hours i'd be searching for another good spot with moderate succes. i did find half a concretion with 'something' inside, a dolphin earbone and a part of what i think is a whale jaw bone.. After that it was time for a cool can of beer in the evening sun while going through my finds of the day, always a great moment.. And here they are cleaned up.. Mysterious concretion, crab maybe? Or do i see bone structure? Dolphin earbone And whale jaw bone.. Short hunt, short report 😉 thx for watching! Dries Oh i almost forgot the obligatory surface find on the way out.. Edited June 29 by dries85 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Even Posted June 30 Share Posted June 30 Ho, that€s nice ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
automech Posted July 1 Share Posted July 1 Wonderful report! As usual!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sebassie Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 Incredible finds and great reports, very inspiring. Already looking forward to the next reports. All the best from one your Northern neighbours 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted July 4 Author Share Posted July 4 On 7/1/2024 at 4:28 PM, automech said: Wonderful report! As usual!! Thanks for being my most trustworthy follower! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SPrice Posted July 5 Share Posted July 5 Really nice finds! Congrats! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted July 9 Author Share Posted July 9 On 6/11 i did some indoor fossil hunting. As i work in logistics support for furniture photoshoots and fairs for a Belgian design furniture company, we often rent nice locations to present the furniture in classy settings. This time a fancy villa in the Antwerp area with some cool stuff laying around. So after i've put the furniture on the right spot and while the photographer and stylists are doing their part of the job, i went on a treasure hunt around the house. First find was this puffer fish.. Followed by a recent sea turtle carapace.. This would be a coral i believe? Nautilus shell The first shark teeth 😁 Mustelus? jaw.. The first real fossil, a big ammonite.. And an unknown rib? bone.. To finish off with another shark jaw before my assistance was needed to put another cupboard in place, i think carcharhinus.. Driving home after work i 'coincidentally' passed a spot where i used to find my first shark teeth as a kid. What used to be a sandy plain 30 years ago is now mostly overgrown with high grass and shrubs. I managed to find these little pieces in some mole and rabbit holes.. These actually look like great quality apart from being broken. As a kid i only used to surface hunt in this spot, but i might need to come back and do some proper sifting here 😏 Back home i looked up some of my finds from that spot from back in the days. Nice to find them in 13 numbered little bags each representing another hunt. Here's the content of some of them, fun to see what i was already really excited about as a kid. Great memories tho.. Looking forward to some proper outdoor hunting again tho 😉 Dries 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted July 11 Author Share Posted July 11 On 6/15 i met up with David to do some sifting for shark teeth in some mainly Pliocene dredging piles in the Antwerp harbour area. I arrived half an hour earlier than David and just pulled this one out of the sifter when he arrived.. A small but shiny C. carcharias which would turn out the best find of the day.. The rest of the day finds didn't come up easily for both of us. Also the strong wind that blew the sand off our shovels and into our eyes faster than we could get it into the sifters wasn't exactly helping.. With both of us not finding anything good for the next hours, except for An unexpected horse tooth, David went home after 4 hours. I kept going for another hour and found some decent Isurus oxyrinchus teeth, but it wasn't enough to keep me going. When it started raining and my face was feeling completely sandblasted i also decided to take off. When i arrived at my van i saw 2 men standing next to it seeking cover for the rain which had turned into a veritable deluge by then. They turned out to be Russian sailors looking for the International Sailors Center, so i dropped them off. Eventually they turned out very kind guys and were even interested in what i was doing out there. Ended up getting payed for the ride and giving the Russians some shark teeth for their sailor's stories.. Here's what i kept for myself.. Non-shark teeth finds would be a whole lot of fish cleithra, some verts, small fish teeth, crab carapace stonecast, Raja sp. dermal spines and the 'out of place' horse tooth (although i suppose this dredged up material can hold pretty much anything that ended up in the river) And some close-ups of this awesome GW.. Dries 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted July 19 Author Share Posted July 19 Had a rainy river shore hunt on 6/21, here's what i came across... First recognizable tooth was a worn Carcharhinus sp. Followed up by a small mammal tooth.. A sand tiger, Carcharias taurus i think, in great condition.. Isurus oxyrinchus with broken root.. And a nice 4cm Carcharodon hastalis.. A bigger one in less good shape.. More broken shark teeth.. A bunch of mammal teeth.. Isurus oxyrinchus and Isurus retroflexus with some serious 'biting damage'. I like this retroflexus.. Picked up a piece of whale tooth before finding this greenish hastalis.. By then it started raining even harder than it already had been doing so i started going back. Did come across this nice tiny hastalis.. And this cusp-less sand tiger.. Visibility became bad because of the raindrops on my glasses, which u don't happen to see on the pictures when i finished off my trip with more mammal teeth.. Here's the whole lot cleaned up.. Dries 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New Members OSKARfind Posted August 13 New Members Share Posted August 13 On 7/11/2024 at 10:23 PM, dries85 said: On 6/15 i met up with David to do some sifting for shark teeth in some mainly Pliocene dredging piles in the Antwerp harbour area. I arrived half an hour earlier than David and just pulled this one out of the sifter when he arrived.. A small but shiny C. carcharias which would turn out the best find of the day.. The rest of the day finds didn't come up easily for both of us. Also the strong wind that blew the sand off our shovels and into our eyes faster than we could get it into the sifters wasn't exactly helping.. With both of us not finding anything good for the next hours, except for An unexpected horse tooth, David went home after 4 hours. I kept going for another hour and found some decent Isurus oxyrinchus teeth, but it wasn't enough to keep me going. When it started raining and my face was feeling completely sandblasted i also decided to take off. When i arrived at my van i saw 2 men standing next to it seeking cover for the rain which had turned into a veritable deluge by then. They turned out to be Russian sailors looking for the International Sailors Center, so i dropped them off. Eventually they turned out very kind guys and were even interested in what i was doing out there. Ended up getting payed for the ride and giving the Russians some shark teeth for their sailor's stories.. Here's what i kept for myself.. Non-shark teeth finds would be a whole lot of fish cleithra, some verts, small fish teeth, crab carapace stonecast, Raja sp. dermal spines and the 'out of place' horse tooth (although i suppose this dredged up material can hold pretty much anything that ended up in the river) And some close-ups of this awesome GW.. Dries That's an awesome find would you mind telling me where you found it I would love to go searching there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shellseeker Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 On 7/19/2024 at 3:56 PM, dries85 said: Had a rainy river shore hunt on 6/21, here's what i came across... First recognizable tooth was a worn Carcharhinus sp. Missed this post on the 19th... Was on a plane to Connecticut on 7/20, went to a Museum on the 23rd and the closest I got to a fossil was looking thru glass plate. I always enjoy your posts due to the variety of colors and fauna you find, and I did see that blue GW... Nice !!!! What do you do with your finds? I used to select the best, put them on display and toss the rest into ziploc bags with dates/locations scribbled on the outside... after a while , I had lots of Ziploc bags overflowing every nook and cranny. It is a disease of successful fossil hunters... No space in the home. 1 The White Queen ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybot Posted August 14 Share Posted August 14 2 hours ago, Shellseeker said: What do you do with your finds? I used to select the best, put them on display and toss the rest into ziploc bags with dates/locations scribbled on the outside... after a while , I had lots of Ziploc bags overflowing every nook and cranny. It is a disease of successful fossil hunters... No space in the home. I've only been hunting for a year, but am starting to face this issue as well I decided to have a 'mammal verts' box, a turtle shell pieces bag, etc. Of course the best stuff gets displayed. -Jay “The earth doesn't need new continents, but new men.” ― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 On 8/13/2024 at 11:15 AM, OSKARfind said: That's an awesome find would you mind telling me where you found it I would love to go searching there Hi Oskar, I'm sorry, but honestly i'm not very keen on sharing 'my spots'. It took me a lot of time to find such spots, i've actually already walked more than 60km of river banks and drove hundreds of kilometers in the Antwerp harbour area searching for spots only occasionally coming across an interesting location. If you really want to find shark teeth just get out and find your own spot. There's plenty of information on the internet.. It's called 'fossil hunting', not 'fossil finding', that would just be too easy.. Good luck and happy hunting! 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 On 8/14/2024 at 3:36 AM, Shellseeker said: Missed this post on the 19th... Was on a plane to Connecticut on 7/20, went to a Museum on the 23rd and the closest I got to a fossil was looking thru glass plate. I always enjoy your posts due to the variety of colors and fauna you find, and I did see that blue GW... Nice !!!! What do you do with your finds? I used to select the best, put them on display and toss the rest into ziploc bags with dates/locations scribbled on the outside... after a while , I had lots of Ziploc bags overflowing every nook and cranny. It is a disease of successful fossil hunters... No space in the home. Too bad u haven't been able to get out hunting a lot, hope that will change soon enough for you and thx for enjoying my hunts. I have been out hunting quite a lot these days as it's summer holiday over here. Didn't only search for shark teeth in the Antwerp area, also went to Cap-Blanc-Nez in France for a few days and visited some Cretaceous quarries in the east of Belgium with the BVP (Belgian Association for Paleontology). Just lacking the time to post, i might just do a post with my best finds from the last month, to catch up.. In the mean time shark teeth and other fossils are stacking up in boxes, zip-bags and cases in and under the cupboards. As we're still renovating the house, the room where the fossils will go isn't available yet (and not a priority according to my girlfriend and daughter). Looking forward to the moment i'll be able to display the nicest fossils tho, not only the stuff i've shown here the last year, but also the boxes of fossils, shells and rocks i collected as a kid (which are still in boxes in the garden shed, hope at least some have survived the humid atmosphere there over the years). I do have the habit of cleaning up and sorting out my fossils right after hunting, so they're all in boxes by location with the good stuff separated. And even the display cabinets are waiting in the garage, so i'm trying to look for a balance in between hunting and finishing the house... In the meanwhile 'Happy Hunting'! Dries 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted August 17 Author Share Posted August 17 (edited) Okay, so i'll try to do an overview of my summer fossil hunts so far. I did quite some shark tooth hunting in the Antwerp area this summer. Starting with the 23th of June. I met up early in the morning with David in one of the known clay quarries for some shark tooth hunting. A bit too early for me honestly as i had been DJ-ing at a friend's party the night before. A bit hung-over i started sifting with my 0,5cm mesh in the puddles. Did some nice finds, mostly Hastalis teeth and a partial Meg, but the overall quality wasn't great. When David had to leave at 12, my head and stomach told me it was time for a walk instead of the heavy shoveling and standing bent over my sifter. While inspecting some parts of the quarry i hadn't investigated before, mainly piles of mixed up material, and drinking a lot of water all of a sudden this thing caught my eye.. Honestly i couldn't believe my eyes, a partial woolly mammoth molar, Mammuthus primigenius, just lying there in between some recent and fossil material. And i was actually just looking for shark teeth. This must be my best find so far.. I inspected the area closer for more Parts of mammoth, but i only found some decent Hastalis teeth.. Then it was time to head home, carefully holding my treasure with both hands and kinda euphoric.. Here's the shark teeth cleaned up.. Some crab carapaces.. Various ray remains and an unknown piece of Pleistocene mammal tooth enamel. And of course the find of the day/week/month/year/lifetime... Okay, that's already a lot of content to start an overview with, might need to make it multiple posts... Edited August 17 by dries85 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gizmo Posted August 17 Share Posted August 17 Great finds, congrats! 1 November, 2016 April, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shellseeker Posted August 17 Share Posted August 17 1 hour ago, dries85 said: Various ray remains and an unknown piece of Pleistocene mammal tooth enamel You have some fantastic finds, especially in shark teeth ... and a Woolly Mammoth tooth is one of those "prizes" that we all seek and few find. On those partial mammoth teeth, the upper left reminds me of Mastodon.... I see that were a few in Romania and Greece some 1-2 Mya... and on the right, that soft lower edge of the enamel is present in predator molars , usually wolves.. I always like speculating ... Keep up the good hunting.. Got a text yesterday from a friend who misses hunting almost as much as I. The Peace River is 6-7 feet higher than maximum hunting depths. He has a 14 foot Jon boat with an aircraft engine hooked up to a mudskipper prop... and he plans on taking it up a Peace River tributary creek at 7 am . At least I'll get a great boat ride thru the backwoods and might even find a fossil or two.... 1 The White Queen ".... in her youth she could believe "six impossible things before breakfast" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybot Posted August 18 Share Posted August 18 On 8/17/2024 at 11:31 AM, dries85 said: It's called 'fossil hunting', not 'fossil finding', that would just be too easy.. Bingo! That's what I always say 1 -Jay “The earth doesn't need new continents, but new men.” ― Jules Verne, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Mud Posted August 19 Share Posted August 19 (edited) On 8/18/2024 at 6:40 AM, dries85 said: Okay, so i'll try to do an overview of my summer fossil hunts so far. I did quite some shark tooth hunting in the Antwerp area this summer. Starting with the 23th of June. I met up early in the morning with David in one of the known clay quarries for some shark tooth hunting. A bit too early for me honestly as i had been DJ-ing at a friend's party the night before. A bit hung-over i started sifting with my 0,5cm mesh in the puddles. Did some nice finds, mostly Hastalis teeth and a partial Meg, but the overall quality wasn't great. When David had to leave at 12, my head and stomach told me it was time for a walk instead of the heavy shoveling and standing bent over my sifter. While inspecting some parts of the quarry i hadn't investigated before, mainly piles of mixed up material, and drinking a lot of water all of a sudden this thing caught my eye.. Honestly i couldn't believe my eyes, a partial woolly mammoth molar, Mammuthus primigenius, just lying there in between some recent and fossil material. And i was actually just looking for shark teeth. This must be my best find so far.. I inspected the area closer for more Parts of mammoth, but i only found some decent Hastalis teeth.. Then it was time to head home, carefully holding my treasure with both hands and kinda euphoric.. Here's the shark teeth cleaned up.. Some crab carapaces.. Various ray remains and an unknown piece of Pleistocene mammal tooth enamel. And of course the find of the day/week/month/year/lifetime... Okay, that's already a lot of content to start an overview with, might need to make it multiple posts... That’s one way to cure a hangover! my eyes would have popped out at that!!! Edited August 20 by Doctor Mud 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
automech Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 Bravo on the mammoth tooth, Dries! Bravo! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Mud Posted August 20 Share Posted August 20 Your post reminded of this meme I tweaked a while back. Sometimes we want to stay in bed, but when the fossils are calling….., it’s a different story! Never know what is waiting! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted Tuesday at 09:29 PM Author Share Posted Tuesday at 09:29 PM So i failed in doing a short overview, anyway here's a report from my river shore hunting trip to the river shores on the 1st of July.. In the evening after work the tide was about right for a quick river shore hunt. Starting out with this cusp-less sand tiger.. A not so bad hastalis.. Worn oxyrinchus.. The best quality tooth of the day, i'm thinking Isurolamna here.. Broken shark tooth.. Another not so bad hastalis.. And another one.. A bovine horn-skull fragment.. And an exceptionally large Myliobatis sp. tooth plate.. My favorite find of the day, a huge and pointy retroflexus with some root damage.. To close off with this Anthropocene Browning M2 bullet.. And then the sun went out.. here's my finds cleaned up.. Dries 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dries85 Posted Tuesday at 10:51 PM Author Share Posted Tuesday at 10:51 PM On the 4th of july i headed back to a spot in the Antwerp area i've mentioned before. As a kid i used to surface hunt this spot quite often with varying results. Lots of bits and pieces, but also my first 4cm hastalis teeth. No surface hunting this time, but some proper 0.5cm sifting, funny it never crossed my mind before.. What 20 years ago used to be a sandy plain was now a natural grassland with the occasional small tree or shrubs. I pulled out some sods and i started sifting what was right beneath, i suspect mainly Pliocene material with reworked older stuff. The typical Antwerp Mixed Neogene sands i suppose, not sure where this particular sands are coming from tho.. This Isurus retroflexus turned up in the first sifter.. Not a bad way to start out, the quality of this tooth makes me suspect it has been dug out and deposited here by bulldozers, rather than being the usual dredged up material worn by passing through kilometers of pipelines.. There seem to be irregular layers of mainly fossil shell debris pretty close under the surface, with the occasional shark teeth in between. Here's what i've collected after an hour of sifting.. I kept on sifting for about 6 hours and it was not the size, but the variety and above all the quality of some these teeth that surprised me.. Here's the scenery and a nice Isurus oxyrinchus in the sifter.. Oh wait, i think that's 2 times oxyrinchus, but different positions.. I had a great day reminiscing and finding some great teeth and did a pretty good job at repairing the landscape afterward.. Here's what i found, the smaller teeth: Notorynchus uppers, Carcharias gustrowensis and taurus, Galeocerdo aduncus, Carcharhinus priscus, Lamna nasus and some others i'm not sure of.. The 'bigger' teeth: Isurus oxyrinchus and retroflexus, Araloselachus vorax and some hastalis of barely 2cm.. A good amount of partial Notorynchus lowers.. And more bits and pieces.. Some interesting non-shark teeth finds: Raja sp. dermal denticles, Aetobatus and Myliobatis tooth plates, fish and dolphins teeth, fish vert.. And this seal tooth i'm very pleased with.. Definitely won't be the last time i visit this spot, Grtz! Dries 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
automech Posted Wednesday at 02:06 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 02:06 PM Great report Dries! I'll have to consider looking at the grassy/grown over areas along the Bay and Potomac River. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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