Georgia: shark tooth (state fossil)
Georgia: shark tooth (state fossil)
Georgia's official state fossil is the generic "shark tooth." Sharks have skeletons composed of cartilage rather than bone, so usually the only fossilized remains they leave are their teeth. These teeth are produced and continually shed in a conveyor-belt fashion, and an individual shark may produce 10,000 teeth during its lifetime. Many types of sharks lived in prehistoric Georgia, ranging from small Cretaceous forms to large, fierce Miocene species. Sharks as a group appeared during the Ordovician, but the earliest teeth found in Georgia date from the Late Cretaceous, about 65 million years ago.
One of the largest sharks to have ever inhabited these coastal waters was C. megalodon (the genus is considered to have been Carcharodon by some researchers, and Carcharocles -- the same as the modern Great White -- by others). This extinct shark reached sizes of 40 - 100 feet, and with teeth the size of a man's hand, likely ate whatever it wanted! This species was first named by Louis Agassiz in 1843.
Most of the best shark teeth found in Georgia come from the Paleocene and Eocene sediments of the southern part of the state. At that time, southern Georgia was part of the continental shelf and covered by a shallow sea.
The shark tooth was named the Georgia state fossil in 1976.
For further information:
Fossil Inventory of SW Georgia