We headed south to Washington, DC for April vacation and after exhausting ourselves touring museums for three days, we decided to enjoy some outdoor time fossil hunting. Our first stop was Purse State Park along the Potomac River in Maryland. We had the shoreline to ourselves. Even though it was cool and rainy, we were rewarded with a great many fossilized shark teeth and ray dental plates.
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| It's a short stroll through the woods down to the shore |
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| The shoreline at Purse State Park |
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| Shark teeth and ray dental plates |
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| Sand tiger shark teeth (Carcharias hopei) and (Striatolamia striata) |
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| Internal mold of a turritella snail (Turritella sp.) |
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| Eagle ray dental plates (Myliobatis sp.) |
These fossils hail from the Paleocene epoch, 66.5 to 55.8 million years ago. Learn more about this epoch and its fascinating fauna at the Smithsonian website:
http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/htmlversion/paleocene1.html
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