Fossil Hunting in Maryland

As long as I can remember I have wanted to head to Calvert Cliffs to look for fossils. Well it took 44 yrs to finally do it. We started in April of this year & can't help from returning over & over again. Every trip we find something new to ponder as well as pick from the thousands of Miocene Age sharks teeth we come home with in varying shapes & sizes. As the most inexperienced form of wanna-be paleontologists we have a collection of fossils we love to view & show off to friends & family. When our friends see what we have found they too want us to show them the beaches of Calvert Cliffs to look for more 23-6 million yr old fossils. Everyone we have taken has come home with a handful of teeth to call their own & a smile on their face.

Who knew beach combing could be so fruitful on the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay? Just today a new book arrived on fossils so that we can catalogue are findings or just plain know what we have come home with. The books also helps us know what to look for & how to help find new types of fossils.

The weather for the last 3 months has been so wet that the cliffs have been collapsing brings down more interesting forms of the past. We have found shells completely intact from give or take 20 million yrs ago, unbelievably amazing. We will photograph some of our finds for the blog, so look forward to seeing what the cliffs provide for our hunting pleasure.

Being approximately 30 miles south of Annapolis it is a very easy day trip with an delicious seafood lunch tossed in for sustenance. We prefer to get up very early to head down to Calvert County, there seems to be less amature hunters out that early. When we run into the more experienced collectors we love to ask advice on how to come home with the big haul. We are so impressed at what they have in their pockets as they are leaving while we are arriving on the small parking lot. These collectors love to show off their finds of the day; all you have to do is ask them what they found that day.

For Mother's Day my hunting companion & myself got wadders to get into the colder late winter/early springtime waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The hunting grounds are quite hot this time of year & definately more crouded. Go very early & midweek if possible and take your children, age 4 & older seems to work best for their interest & attention span are just getting primed to understand the wonders of fossils.