Care & Catalog

[NovaTooth72]

Just started collecting a few months ago and have a few questions...

 

Best care / cleaning practices for shark teeth?

 

Cataloging dos and don't?

 

Other fossils to look for beach combing in the Carolinas?

[Fossildude19]

Usually cleaning in fresh water, with a soapy soft brush is good enough for cleaning teeth.

Make sure you keep fossils found in the same area in the same container. It is easy to mix up small fossils when they are not individually labeled.

 

They should be labeled with Genus, species (where known) and location found - State, county, and area.  If not labeled, they should be at least catalogued somewhere.

 

Start doing this BEFORE your collection grows. It is an easy thing to put of til later, and then you run into memory issues, and they lose any scientific or collector significance.

[FossilDAWG]

Most critical is to keep locality data closely associated with the specimens.  If you have that, the genus/species identification can be done later, even a long time later.  For shark teeth, one "trick" I like is to buy some Riker mounts, keep everything from a locality together in one or more boxes, and label the back.  I also print out the locality data with a label maker and put that on the glass front.  Don't mix localities in one Riker mount, or if you do then make sure the localities are clearly marked on the back and maybe the front.  An advantage of Riker mounts is that they are an attractive display that lets you see the specimens, especially smaller specimens such as shark teeth.  Other ways to house specimens with the locality data are possible, of course.

 

Don