If you live in the greater Washington D.C./Baltimore area, why don't you visit one of the bimonthly meetings of the Maryland Geological Society, in Bowie, Maryland? You will be able to see lots of miocene and other fossils and learn from the many professional and amateur paleontologists who bring their latest finds. Or pay a visit to the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons which has an extensive collection of Calvert Cliffs fossils and organizes regular fossil collecting trips.
All fossils described on this website were found on Brownie's Beach itself or along the cliffs, just south of the beach. No digging was involved. Since we mainly use 1/4" screens, we have a bias against the smallest fossils, such as tiny shark teeth and dermal denticles. All the larger fossils, such as the vertebra and other bones were found lying on the beach. We have indeed seen people walk away with 3" teeth and even a complete dolphin skull, but that requires a lot of hard work, or a lot of luck.
You can find fossils along the entire Chesapeake Bay south of Brownie's Beach. But each beach represents a different slice through geological time, as the cliffs get younger as you go further south. These pages are strictly limited to fossils found at B.B. Most of these fossils will have washed out of the cliffs and bay bottom near B.B. but some of them may have traveled a considerable distance.
Brownie's Beach may also not be the best spot to look for shark teeth or any other kind of fossils, but it happens to be closest to our home in Baltimore.
About the pictures
Except for the outside photos, all pictures of fossils were "taken" with an ordinary flatbed scanner. Simply place your fossils on the glass plate, and cover them with a white piece of paper. Scan as small a region as possible and adjust the brightness to lighten up the fossils. I scan at 300dpi, 100%, compress to JPEG, and re-scale and crop the images as necessary. The size on the screen depends on the pixel size, or DPI, of your display, that is why I mention the real dimensions, and not the scale factors. That easy!The movies are made by gluing teeth to a cocktail pricker, mounted on a gadget and scanning again and again and again.... 16×