Sharks Fossils

Most sharks teeth are at least ten thousand years old – it takes at least this long for the tooth to fully fossilise.
They are found worldwide, from a wide variety of shark species. A large number come from Morocco, including the famous Otodus teeth.

I mention teeth over other fossils, as sharks don’t have bones! 

This means its very rare for shark fossils to be found, other than teeth. However, there are still some almost full shark fossils found, rarely, including skin and cartilage.

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Information about Fossilised Sharks Teeth

Sharks teeth are a common and very well known fossil – we all know of sharks, and this helps us relate to the fossil – having a modern day connection can make things much more easy to relate to.

It can be somewhat difficult to identify whether a sharks tooth is actually fossilised or not – generally speaking, the paler the tooth is, the less likely it is to be fossilised. If the tooth is found miles from an ocean, it is likely the tooth is a true fossil, of course – the land was probably below sea level thousands or millions of years in the past.

Along beaches and sea side areas, this is a different matter – sharks shed their teeth fairly often, and although we do not get many sharks in British oceans, they can be carried a long way as they are lightweight.

Identifying the species of shark from the tooth is possible, but it can be very difficult without a lot of experience, or an idea of the age of the rocks or sediment in which the tooth was found.

The most common fossilised sharks teeth are from around 66 million years ago, although some are much, much older – up to around 450 million years ago.

 

There are a few excellent locales for fossilised sharks teeth in the UK if you’d like to try and collect your own – and please, if you’re travelling from Leicester, let me come? 🙂

A good place to start is the UKFossils guide on sharks teeth, but there are several locales I think deserve a special mention for being excellent – even one which may yield the rare carcharocles megalodon!

 

There are a few other shark tooth collecting localities worldwide that I feel deserve a special mention too, although actually going to any of these sites will be unlikely for anyone but the most serious of collectors:

  • West Java, Indonesia – various locales for the collection of Otodus megalodon sharks teeth.
  • North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, USA – various locales for the collection of Otodus megalodon sharks teeth.
  • Cadzand, Netherlands – various beaches with many species of sharks teeth.
  • Morrocan phosphate deposits – Ouled Abdoun, Ganntour, Meskala, and Bou-Craa – the Moroccan phosphate beds are probably the worlds most productive shark fossil site, churning out hundreds of thousands of otodus, squalicorax, mako, and other sharks teeth per year. The majority of the sharks teeth sold online are from one of these locales.