About 5 years ago I had the opportunity to assist a UT paleontologist whose team was looking for dinosaur fossils in southwest Texas. I actually found three separate bones on one of the outings and it was awesome. Although they were not scientifically significant fossils, they caused me to contemplate my small place in the universe. I was holding 75M year old fossils of an exotic real-world creature. My human primate hands had uncovered fossils that were being seen by human eyes for the first time. The following thought might seem naive to some, but as I was examining these bones out in the field, I was thinking: “Dinosaurs are real. It’s not simply a story.”
This inspiring scientifically rigorous TED talk by Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara brought back my memories and my intense feelings from that week out in the field.
I started collecting fossil shark teeth. They are about 12-15 million years old.
At first I only found small ones but then I learned where the big ones lay. Beneath the tallest cliffs, layers of clay and seashells are swished and swashed back and forth by the waves and form channels of ancient treasures. Only a few feet of shoreline in the world are like the ones I have discovered. I now have a 3.5 inch megalodon not to mention thousands of smaller lemon shark, tiger shark and snaggletooth shark fossil teeth.