Guru
July 26th, 2008, 02:27 PM
http://www.rankinledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/D8/20080726/NEWS/807260311
When John Sullivan bought a chunk of property near Florence, he never expected to discover it was home to hundreds of shark teeth.
Sullivan, the county's tax assessor, bought the property off Cleary Road in 1999. The property has a creek - nicknamed in the neighborhood "Devil's Back Bone" - cutting through oak and beech trees. After buying it, neighbors told him about shark teeth in the creek. Sure enough, when he checked it out, he found them.
"I've found them from two to three inches long to as small as a finger nail," he said. "It has been fascinating."
Since then, he's visited occasionally. He and his neighbors also allow geologists from several Louisiana universities, who instruct biology high school teachers on fossils pulled from the creek.
The teeth are from sharks estimated to be about 30 million years old, said George Phillips, paleontology curator for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.
When John Sullivan bought a chunk of property near Florence, he never expected to discover it was home to hundreds of shark teeth.
Sullivan, the county's tax assessor, bought the property off Cleary Road in 1999. The property has a creek - nicknamed in the neighborhood "Devil's Back Bone" - cutting through oak and beech trees. After buying it, neighbors told him about shark teeth in the creek. Sure enough, when he checked it out, he found them.
"I've found them from two to three inches long to as small as a finger nail," he said. "It has been fascinating."
Since then, he's visited occasionally. He and his neighbors also allow geologists from several Louisiana universities, who instruct biology high school teachers on fossils pulled from the creek.
The teeth are from sharks estimated to be about 30 million years old, said George Phillips, paleontology curator for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.