Where to find shark teeth

Frequently asked questions

Where is the best place to find shark teeth?

The answer depends on what kind of collecting experience you want. Venice Beach and nearby Caspersen Beach in Florida are the easiest entry point: no tools are required, no permit is needed, and the surf continuously brings teeth up from offshore Miocene phosphate beds. The downside is that finds are mostly small carcharhind teeth under 2 centimetres. Calvert Cliffs in Maryland produces a wider range of species from the Miocene Chesapeake Group, including the occasional large tooth, but you earn them: the beach requires a 2-mile hike from the parking lot, and collecting from beach scree takes patience rather than luck. The Peace River system in Florida, between Fort Meade and Arcadia, is the most productive site for variety, yielding Miocene through Pleistocene teeth alongside megafauna bones, but it requires a freshwater collecting permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the ability to wade and screen river gravel in current.

How do I know if what I found is a shark tooth?

Shark teeth have a distinctive shape: triangular to wedge-shaped, with a smooth, dark enamel surface on the crown and a lighter, more textured root below. The enamel is dense and non-porous, which is what makes it survive fossilization so well. Larger teeth from species like Carcharodon or Otodus show fine serrations along the cutting edges, visible to the naked eye. The root is typically broader than the crown, bifurcated in many species, and has a distinctly different texture from the crown. To distinguish a tooth from bone: bone is porous and irregular, with visible cancellous structure inside any break. To distinguish from rock: rock has a uniform texture throughout and lacks a root structure. A fossil shark tooth is always denser and smoother on the crown than anything else you will pick up on the same beach.

Are megalodon teeth common at Venice Beach?

No, and it is worth being accurate about this before you go. Venice Beach produces abundant shark teeth, but the great majority are carcharhind teeth from species like Carcharhinus and Hemipristis, typically 1 to 2 centimetres long. These are the teeth most visitors find and take home. Megalodon (Otodus megalodon) teeth do occur in the offshore Miocene beds that feed the beach, and fragments wash up occasionally. Complete megalodon teeth over 3 inches are uncommon finds at Venice and are more often found at river or offshore dive sites where the Miocene beds are more directly exposed. If you visit Venice Beach expecting to find a 4-inch megalodon tooth in the surf, you are likely to be disappointed. If you visit expecting to fill a small bag with genuine fossil shark teeth from multiple species, you will almost certainly succeed.

What age are shark teeth fossils?

It depends entirely on the site. Venice Beach teeth erode from Miocene marine phosphate beds deposited roughly 5 to 23 million years ago. Calvert Cliffs teeth come from the Miocene Chesapeake Group, approximately 10 to 20 million years old. The Peace River in Florida yields material spanning the Miocene through the Pleistocene, with some teeth being only 10,000 to 2 million years old. Shark teeth survive this long because the enamel is made of fluorapatite, a highly durable mineral that resists dissolution and can persist in sediment for tens of millions of years. Over time the original enamel is typically replaced by minerals from the surrounding sediment, which is why fossil teeth are almost always darker than modern white teeth. The color varies by site and reflects the local mineral chemistry rather than the age of the tooth.

Can I keep shark teeth I find on the beach?

Yes, at most public beaches in the United States. Florida public beaches, the Maryland foreshore below Calvert Cliffs, and most US coastal public land allow recreational collection of fossil shark teeth for personal use. No permit is required at Venice Beach, Caspersen Beach, or Calvert Cliffs State Park. The rules change in a few specific situations. The Peace River requires a freshwater collecting permit from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission before you enter the water to screen gravel. On Florida state submerged lands, which includes many river and offshore areas, the rules for collecting vertebrate fossils are more restrictive and worth checking before you wade in. Federal land is governed by the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act, which permits casual surface collection of reasonable quantities of common invertebrate fossils but treats vertebrate fossils differently. Shark teeth, as vertebrate fossils, occupy a grey area on federal land: check the specific site's rules before collecting.