A Few Savannah River Finds

[JimInAugusta]

Here are a few odds and ends that need identifying if you please. I found them while kayaking the mouth of the Savannah river near Tybee Island, GA USA.

Hope to talk about the photos in the morning,

Jim

[Northern Sharks]

Jim: Nice finds. The largest tooth in the first picture is a Lemon shark (Negaprion brevirostris or possibly N. eurybathrodon). The others are from the requiem shark group (carchariniformes). This group of sharks include bulls, duskys, blacktips etc. and the teeth are all similar looking. The smallest tooth in that pic is a lower, the other 3 are uppers. The photo of the single tooth is a Hemipristis serra (snaggletooth shark) upper jaw tooth. Can't help you with the others, but they look good.

[Xiphactinus]

Jim -

I think the jaw might be peccary .... I'll leave the teeth to those more expert there!

[JimInAugusta]

I thought it might be a piggy. It stumped all my surgeon friends but then they work on people not critters. Thanks for the info on the jaw and teeth. The area I hunt consists of dredge from the river. It is pretty hit or miss but a spaghetti colander dragged through the sand helps sieve up cool little stuff that is just under the surface.

I use a kayak to get across to the SC side of the Savannah river from the GA side. It isn't the safest place to hunt for fossils because the tanker wakes are sometimes violent and simply getting there requires crossing an active shipping channel with strong tides, reflected waves and wakes.

Jim

[Harry Pristis]

Welcome to the forum, Jim!

I want to opine for the record that there is no fossil worth losing your life.

The jaw may be from Platygonus sp., a Pleistocene peccary. If the bone is not well-mineralized, it could also be from a hog, Sus scrofa -- hunters are prone to toss butchered carcasses into a river.

Try the match test. If you scorch a spot on the bone with a match, and nasty fumes (burning collagen) are produced, the bone is not mineralized and may not be a fossil. If it produces no unpleasant fumes, it is mineralized and is more likely to be a fossil.

The last image above appears to be a vertebral centrum from a boney fish.

Do you find old bottles on these gravel bars, Jim?

------Harry Pristis

[Gatorman]

Welcome to the forum Jim, hope you enjoy yourself. I concur with Harry it looks like pig to me hard to say if its fossil or not try the test Harry mentioned.

[JimInAugusta]

One scorch test later on the jaw and it smells a bit and did leave a scorch mark. I thinks its old in a human sense but not a geologic sense. The teeth have a nice mother of pearl color to them. It will be fun to show people and chat about.

Here is my horror story from kayaking for fossils in the shipping channel at the mouth of the Savannah. I like to rough water sea kayak so going out in a hurricane with an onshore wind and playing in weird reflected, conflicted waves and tides is fun to me. I always assess before going out, wear a Kevlar/carbon fiber helmet and a good PFD. Having said that Darwin always likes to look over your shoulder and see what he can mess up. I was sitting screening sand with my colander for a few hours and looking at my finds when I decided it was time to go. Tankers had been passing all day and I saw yet another, The New York Express, approaching. The tide had come in and all the other tankers had been lightly loaded. This one was low in the water indicating a heavy load. I had already gotten into my kayak and was about ten yards from shore when something told me to look behind me. I craned over for a look left and saw a set of twelve to fifteen waves sneaking up on me at about a 30 degree angle from the bank. It was the wake of the tanker. Most tanker wakes break on the shore creating about two foot waves. This set was building fast and peaked at six to ten feet. I turned hard and had just enough time to paddle over them. The waves were so steep that I could easily see through their tops. It was fun in a sense but only because I had enough time to react and get out of Dodge before getting smashed. I watched from a safe distance as the waves took car size chunks out of the sandy bank and collapses all that material where I had been sitting just a minute earlier. If I hadn't decided to leave I would have lost all my gear, boat and likely my life. I now only go out there with a buddy and act like a nervous prey item while walking the bank. When tankers approach my friends and I scramble up cuts in the bank and wait out any possible carnage. Some time I will try to record and post a movie on You Tube to show the amazing power and of these wakes.

Jim

[Gatorman]

Wow Jim that sounds like a lot of fun

[Mike Owens]

Welcome aboard, Jim. Glad you decided to take a friend with you. I've done my share of solo hunting. I also came to the conclusion it's not a very smart thing to do. We would like you to stay for awhile, so keep up the "buddy system" hunting. Nice teeth. :shades: -- Mike

[Uncle Siphuncle]

Jim

I too enjoy a little adventure in collecting. Sort of makes you feel like you earned your finds. On some trips I like company, on others it is more feasible, fast paced, and flexible to run alone. Being a family guy I have honed my self preservation instincts in recent years. I'm a pretty good judge of what I can get away with and what I can't in the outdoors but there are always surprises. Animals, falls, nasty cuts resulting in infections, sprains, boat trouble, unexpected weather etc have all entered the picture for me at one time or another. Sounds like your die hard nature is much like mine so just remember this: if the conditions are too unsafe for YOU, 99% of the other collectors are probably indoors too.