Sharktooth Hill............A Paleontologist Delight

SharkTooth Hill

Take a paleontologist dig with me at Sharktooth Hill, I promise a day filled with discovery and excitement. A day you won’t soon forget. So get your shovel, sunscreen, and enthusiasm because its time to go.

SharkTooth Hill is located in Bakersfield, California and encompasses more than 110 square miles, near the bluffs in Kern County. Exposed in these hills is a bone bed that formed the most fossil-rich Miocene epoch (tens of million of years) of marine bone bed in the world.

The plants and animals of the Miocene period were fairly modern mammals and birds that were well established. During this time period, most of Kern County was an ocean bay. These fossils occurred because the modern Kern River carried sediments of plants and animals remains into the bay where these materials sank and later fossilized.

Geologic events pushed up the sediments and they eroded to from the rolling hills that include SharkTooth Hill. Exposed in these hills is the bone bed that formed from those fossil rich sediments.

In 1853, geologist William P. Blake found several ancient shark teeth strewn like common stones atop a dry hill and made a stunning discovery; a treasure trove of fossils, including the skeletons of whales, sea turtles and long extinct sea lions. This site became known as SharkTooth Hill.

Today, this fossil area is famous to paleontologists worldwide because it represents what plants and animals lived in this area millions of years ago but also how they lived.

Fossils that have been recovered from the bone bed include:

Dozen of species of sharks

Rays and skates

Whales

Turtles

Sea lions

‘bony’ fish

Land animals such as camels, horses and extinct ‘bear dog’

Plants

Why is this area called Sharktooth Hill? Some say its because the shape of the mountains image a sharks tooth while other say its because of the fossils of sharks that are found in this area. Whatever the reason this area has the largest selection of sharks teeth in the world.

Most of these fossils are on display at the Buena Vista Museum of National History in Bakersfield. Their most prized specimen is a nearly complete, articulated skeleton of Allodesmus, a Miocene ancestor of a modern sea lion and the only one of its kind in the world. The museum is the largest private collection of Sharktooth Hill Miocene fossils in the world.

Today the land is owned by Mary Ernst and her former husband, bone hunter Bob Ernst, oil companies and other private land owners. Some of the area is still opened to the public where the fossil layer is still exposed but these areas are shrinking fast.

The area that was closed to the public was recently opened for a three day event after being closed to the public for three years. It gave people a chance to explore the ancient hunting grounds and dig to unearth that special fossil.

I have never been to this site but would love too. Along with my daughter, I have always been fascinated by fossils and bones. Can you imagine finding a shark tooth of a Greyhound bus-sized shark, or a bone of a whale, the poor victims of this shark? It would be awe-inspiring.

Maybe, someday soon, I will be able to venture to this site and find bones or shark teeth for myself or maybe even a rare fossil.

I hope you have enjoyed this hub and can someday see this speculator site for yourself.