VENICE, Florida (11 Nov 2004) -- Rick and Heidi George like to mix fossil hunting with scuba diving at Venice Beach. This happy hunting ground for fossilized shark teeth has become more productive following the recent hurricanes, which excavated more of the prehistoric treasures. On a recent Saturday, the Cape Coral couple inflated their small boat at the municipal beach, strapped on scuba gear and made their way out to a spot they call the "bone yard" in 30 feet of water about a mile off the beach. By lunchtime, the Georges returned to the beach with a black beauty: a 3-inch long tooth, millions of years old, from the giant white shark Carcharodon megalodon. This extinct shark, some 45 feet long, is known by shark-tooth enthusiasts as megalodon, or simply "Meg." Heidi George also found fossilized bones of a large mammal, probably that of a dugong or manatee. "It's literally a graveyard of nothing but bones and teeth," Rick George said of their diving spot. The Georges dive for fossils at Venice most weekends during the warm, calm months, usually May through November. In the past, the couple have brought up mammoth teeth, stingray barbs and fossilized deer antlers. They display these treasures from the past at home, along with hundreds of shark teeth. Divers need not stray far from shore to find fossils along the beaches of southern Sarasota County. On the same morning in late October, Russell Stegemann of Sarasota found several shark teeth by simply snorkeling parallel to the beach about 10 feet from shore. Just before noon, he emerged from the surf, pulled back his swim mask and smiled as he held up a megalodon tooth. "Beginner's luck, I guess," Stegemann said as he showed off his find. "This is the third one I've found here." Venice Beach is such a popular shark tooth hunting spot that the sign marking the beach uses the likeness of a fossilized shark tooth to form the "V" in Venice, and the town holds a Shark's Tooth Festival in April devoted to the pursuit of teeth from ocean predators of the distant past. Children who visit the Venice Area Chamber of Commerce are given a small bag of shark teeth. During our late October visit, a boy waiting with his parents for a table at a Venice restaurant found fossilized shark teeth in the restaurant's shell-rock parking lot. Why so many shark teeth? | | Sharks have lived on earth for about 400 million years. A shark sheds and replaces tens of thousands of teeth during its lifetime. A shark might produce 20,000 teeth through 25 years, said Gordon Hubbell of Gainesville, a veterinarian who has collected fossilized shark teeth for 30 years. A young shark might shed its entire front row of teeth every two weeks, Hubbell said. Venice is a shark-tooth hot spot because the coastline is being eroded there and the Gulf of Mexico has supported sharks for many millions of years, said Bob Hueter, director of the National Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. Ancient rivers also emptied into the waters around Venice, as the fossil-rich Peace River does today at Charlotte Harbor, Hueter said. Shark teeth can be found in many other places in Florida. Fernandina Beach and St. Augustine Beach are considered good places, as is the mouth of the St. Johns River at Jacksonville, especially after a recent inlet dredging. Amateur paleontologists find shark teeth in Florida's inland rivers, telling of the times when the state was covered by ocean. (The first fossil records of land animals in Florida date back 28 million years, according to Robin Brown's book Florida Fossils.) Mark Renz of Lehigh Acres, a fossil-hunting guide and author, said he has found so many fossilized shark teeth along Florida's beaches and in rivers that he can usually identify the species of shark by glancing at the tooth. "I wouldn't recognize a shark out in the Gulf unless it smiled at me and I saw the teeth," Renz said. Hubbell said people love hunting for shark teeth because they can pick up a piece of history and take it home. "There's a never-ending supply," Hubbell said. "It's a thrill to pick up a 10-million-year-old tooth. SOURCE - Palm Beach Post |
