Among our bragging rights here in Raleigh, we like to remind folks that when the going gets hot, it\u2019s a quick trip out to the beach for some relief. And if you\u2019ve taken a stroll along a North Carolina shore, you may have uncovered another one of our treasures among the shells: shark teeth. From itty-bitty serrated triangles to ancient megalodon chompers as big as your head, it\u2019s not uncommon to find fossilized shark teeth tucked among the sand and shells.<\/p>\n \u201cFossil shark teeth can be found on many beaches around the world, but our state is a particular hotspot,\u201d says Dr. Christian Kammerer<\/strong><\/a>, research curator of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. We talked to him to find out why \u2014 and how to find them.<\/p>\n This is because of a mix of geography and geology \u2014 basically, rocks of the right age are exposed coastally below the waterline. Erosion, for example by wave action, pulls fossils out of these rocks and then they are redeposited on the shore. There are particularly extensive sub-aqueous outcrops of fossil-bearing sediment containing marine fossils from the Cenozoic Era, the age of mammals, off portions of the Carolina coast, so we get lots of shark teeth on the beaches.<\/p>\n For more information about our upcoming activities, conservation news and ground-breaking research, follow @NaturalSciences on Instagram<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86606,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/86604"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/86604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Shark](\"https:\/\/naturalsciences.org\/calendar\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/shark_Joshua_Steadman.jpg\")
Shark in the water. Photo: Joshua Steadman.<\/span><\/p>\nWhy do North Carolina shores have more shark teeth than others?<\/h4>\n
Read the full article on Walter Magazine<\/a><\/h4>\n
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