With so much treasure to be found right here in our backyard, why would you ever need to look any farther? Today, we are going to be talking about and celebrating the fossils and shark teeth you can find right here in the Lowcountry!

Welcome back to the blog adventurers! What amazing things have you been up to recently? Have you been exploring new corners of the Lowcountry? Looking on planning a trip down to the Lowcountry? South Carolina is waiting for you, full of amazing and beautiful things to find, and all of us at Coastal Expeditions can help discover the adventure you want! Is there a nature tour you’ve been looking for, a place for kayak rentals, paddleboard rentals, island tours, kid-friendly tours, or exploring near you right here in beautiful South Carolina that you’d like? We can help you with this and offer you even more! One of the best ways to keep up with everything we’re doing and offering is by following our social media pages and signing up for our email newsletter! You’ll be kept up to date with all of our seasonal and special tours, year-round tours, expeditions, kid-friendly tours and classes, and much more!

If you are already following us, you’ve read and seen a good amount of posts on today’s topic; fossils and shark teeth! We have tours dedicated to just that; learning how to find these natural treasures, and how to help you identify them! While you might start your adventures with us looking for shark teeth, it will become a day dedicated to so much more than that. We might find the bite plates of ancient rays, giant megalodon teeth, and the vertebrae of extinct species when we’re out and about on one of our many tours. We’ve even found a fossilized bison jaw before! It is always so much fun to see what we find when we focus on the shoreline, and our guides are there to identify your treasure when you join us on one of our shark teeth and fossil tours. Who knows what treasures you might find when you join in on the adventure?

Think you have the touch of an explorer within you? Are you excited and dedicated to finding new and exciting things the ocean is leaving behind with your loved ones while enjoying the beautiful Lowcountry scenery around you? We have the perfect tours ready and waiting for you!

Happening when the tide is ideal, this epic excursion will be everything you want and more. You’ll head out to an island located on the Wando River by sea kayak, all to identify and find prehistoric shark teeth, vertebrae, ray mandibles, and much more in this guided adventure. You’ll even see an amazing amount of wildlife in this salty tidal river while traveling to this fossil hot spot. Your guide will teach you the tricks of fossil hunting and identification and share information about our local shark species. The shark teeth you will be looking for and finding are over 10,000 years old, but sharks are still a vital part of the ecosystem around you every day!

Hop on board one of our coast guard-certified vessels that deports from Shem Creek dock and enjoy a relaxing beautiful naturalist-led excursion. Enjoy the stunning views and wildlife around you as you head towards Morris Island. Once you reach the island, you’ll depart directly to the beach and begin your hunt for shark teeth and fossils with a special Coastal Expeditions guide. Your guide will teach you how to spot fossils in the sand along with how to identify everything you might come across that day!

This exciting tour is dedicated to some of our youngest adventurers, and is a boat ecotour and island fossil hunt that will take place every Friday in May, so act fast to reserve your spot now! Parents will drop off their children at our Shem Creek flagship location for a very fun and exciting afternoon that will take them to a barrier island in Charleston Harbor. We will take a 30-minute boat trip out to Morris Island and back, but while on the island our young adventurers will have two hours to explore the island and look for shark teeth, fossils, and shells! An outdoor educator will be with your kids as they explore to help them identify the many fossils to be found on the beach and to talk about the local ecosystem around them. They can find shark teeth, megalodon teeth, fossilized vertebrae, ray plates, and more! This trip is a great way to explore Charleston’s beautiful barrier island and is like a mini Coastal Expeditions day camp.

While we will be happy to explore with you and find some exceptional treasures, you might want to know about some of the many fossils you might find when on an expedition with us or when you are out and about on your own adventures. Did you know that the state fossil of South Carolina is the Columbia Mammoth? Another popular fossil you might come across is the teeth of a megalodon, a huge ancestor of the sharks that swim and live close to our coasts today! You will also need to keep your eyes open for dinosaur fossils, too! Some late cretaceous dinosaur fossils have been found in Northeastern South Carolina, and many can be found in Cenozoic limestone, which is popular for the area. Some of the best places to look for fossils, outside of our expeditions, are along the beach at the South Edisto inlet and the Cooper River. The very first fossil discovered of the Colombian Mammoth, that of its teeth, was found in a swamp near Charleston, SC in 1725. You might also find the fossils of one of the largest flying birds known to man, the Pelagornis Sandersi. This large bird was from right here in South Carolina, during the Holocene Period, about 27 million years ago.

Outside of finding the stunningly huge megalodon teeth on our expeditions, you’ll also have the opportunity to find many others that come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors. South Carolina, to this day, is still very fossil-rich, and you have a wild amount of chances and opportunities to find some pretty incredible things. The ages of these teeth can range between 10,000 years old to 75 million years old. A great place to begin looking for shark teeth, if you’re not exploring with us at Coastal Expeditions, is to begin at a beach that is near dredging and beach nourishment causing fossil-rich sand and sediment from the ocean floor to get picked up and moved around, and will eventually wind up on the beach full of these ancient treasures. Make sure to check the beaches often for new shark teeth, but low tide is an exceptional time to go looking. Check in piles of shells or gravel, and once you begin finding shark teeth, chances are that you’ll continue to find more. Shark teeth and other shells will naturally group with items of similar size, helping you narrow your search. You will also want to help narrow down what your eyes are looking for. The shark teeth you will want to focus on will be black, which is caused by the phosphate found in the ocean floor. Folly Beach and Kiawah Island are excellent spots to go looking for your shark teeth, Morris Island being Folly’s gem of finding some incredible treasures. The Western tip of Beach Walker County Park is a great place to look on Kiawah, especially after a storm!

Have we planted the seed of excitement and adventure? Looking for fossils and shark teeth is the perfect kind of treasure hunt for anyone and everyone, you don’t even need a map! Come join us in finding incredible shark teeth and fossils that might not have been held or seen for thousands of years. While on your next treasure hunt, enjoy the amazing wildlife surrounding you and learn a little bit more about the history of the ecosystem that once supported mammoths and megalodons and is now supporting our everyday lives! Make sure to sign up for a slot soon for all of our fossil and shark teeth expeditions, they fill up fast and are a ton of fun! We cant wait to explore and treasure hunt with you soon!