Wahah Wah Wahahah!  Is it a chain saw?  No.  It's motocross bikes.  They were our companions most of the time we were there.  We were fossil hunting in a recreational area, used extensively by mountain bikers, motocross, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and of course, fossil hunters.  The sad part of the story, is that this wonderful recreational asset may soon be off-limits, due to development.  Eventually, people with more money than they know what to do with, will bull-doze the area and cover the fossils with concrete and sod.

Click the picture (left) to see an enlarged view, and an explanation of the three arrows.

We were able to take advantage of the work of others, who had recently dug into the fossil layer (shown in the photo to the right).  Some of those cubic yards of earth were moved by us, but we primarily sifted through the freshly dug spoil of others.  They often are looking only for the BIG teeth and discard some nice teeth.  We were keeping almost every tooth, no matter what condition.  John uses the broken teeth as "give-aways" in fossil presentations that he does at schools and hospital pediatric wards.  Only maybe 1 in every 20 teeth is in nice condition.  I give him all the broken teeth I find, in exchange for the nicer teeth that he finds.  So we make a pretty good team.  This trip I came home with about a dozen nice teeth and he ended up with a couple hundred, ranging from partial teeth to nearly perfect.

This was most of our haul for the weekend (pictured left, on a cooler, with a quarter for perspective - click the picture to enlarge).  We were happy with it, especially since we're still pretty new at hunting in this area.  What was great though, was not just that we found quite a few teeth.  The colors were AMAZING, including amber and burgundy, with speckles and streaks of black, cream, gray and more.  In addition, several of the teeth were translucent (held up to the light, you could see the light pass through the tooth).

Also, I had brought with me some very dark (almost black) teeth from Florida that I was able to trade with other fossil hunters for some of the local teeth.  I was very happy to pick up about a dozen more nice Isurus planus teeth (not in picture).  All in all, we came away from the trip pleased with what we found, having made some new friends and feeling the soreness of a good workout.

Some of the teeth in this photo are now listed "for sale" at this web site (click here).