Bringing Georgia's Natural History to Georgians
  • Natural History & Geology
    • Podcast; The Tivola Whale
    • Coastal Plain Correlation Chart
    • GA Paleo Research by Paul F. Huddlestun PhD >
      • Late Eocene & Older... Coastal Plain Stratigraphy
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      • Coastal Plain Core Logs by Paul F. Huddlestun
    • Presentation; Oaky Woods Stratigraphy
    • Physiographic Map of Georgia
    • Fossils of Oaky Woods
    • Collections & Stewardship of Georgia’s Fossils
    • I, Periarchus (A Fossil's Tale)
    • Georgia's Amateurs >
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      • Cam Muskelly, Duluth, GA
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        • Kyle Keller Returns, Still Rocking!
      • Hank Josey, Dublin
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    • Public Fossil Locations >
      • South Houston County Fossils
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  • Education Material
    • My Field Kit; What You Need In The Field
    • Meet Crassostrea gigantissima, Georgia's Historic Giant Oyster
    • Georgiacetus Presentation; A Whale for Georgia
    • The Natural History & Fossils Record of Houston County, GA
    • Evolution in Georgia's Fossil Record
    • Georgia's State Fossil; Shark Teeth
    • Georgia's Paleontology For Georgia's Classrooms
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    • An Introduction To Fossils; Presentation
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  • Meteorites
    • Did I Find A Meteorite?
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  • 1: Georgia's Oldest Fossils; Archaeocyathids, At 513 Million Years Old
  • 2: Trilobites; 500 Million Years Ago
    • 2A; Murray County Stromatolites
    • 2B; A Trilobite Nest in Georgia
  • 3: Geologic Time
  • 4: Our Oldest Vertebrate?
  • 5: Georgia Before the Dinosaurs
    • 5A; Georgia’s Pennsylvanian Plant Fossils
    • 5B: Carpentertypus durhami, Georgia’s Giant Insect, 315 Million Years Ago
  • 6: 200 Million Years Ago
    • 6A: Birth of the Atlantic Ocean
  • 7: Cretaceous Georgia, Dinosaurs & more
    • 7A: Georgias Pterosaur
    • 7C: Coelecanths
    • 7B: So Many Sharks
    • 7D: Xiphactinus vetus
    • 7E: Side-necked turtles
    • 7F: Marine Reptiles
    • 7G: Dinosaurs in Georgia
    • 7I; The Blufftown Formation
    • 7L: Bill Montante's Mega "Gator" Tooth Discovery
    • 7K: The Pio Nono Formation
    • 7J: The Eutaw Formation
    • 7H: Deinosuchus schwimmeri in Recognition of Dr. David Schwimmer
  • 8: Suwannee Current, Gulf Trough, & Bridgeboro Limestone
  • 9: The Clayton Formation Report; By Hank Josey
    • 9A: The Georgia Turtle
  • 10: The Eocene; Georgia's Oldest Mammals
    • 10A: The Origins of Whales
  • 11: A Whale For Georgia
  • 12: Basilosaurids; The First Modern Whales
    • 12A: Basilosaurus cetoides
    • 12B: Basilotritus
    • 12C: Cynthiacetus (Revised)
    • 12D: Chrysocetus
    • 12E: The Redmond Mandible of Albany Ga
    • 12F; Houston County, GA Basilosaurus to the Smithsonian
  • 13: Ziggy and The Museum of Arts & Sciences, Macon, GA
  • 14: Late Eocene
    • 14A: Eocene Fossils & Stratigraphy
    • 14B; Fossils, Impacts, & Tektites Dating the Clinchfield Formation
    • 14C: The Tivola Limestone
    • 14D: Twiggs Clay Vertebrates
    • 14F; Sandersville Limestone, By Hank Josey
    • 14E: Ocmulgee Formation Vertebrates
    • 14I: Dating Late Eocene Sediments
    • 14J: Georgia's Tektites; Georgiaites
    • 14K; Shell Bluff; Georgia's Most Historic Paleontology Site
    • 14L; Taylors Bluff, Paleo Paddling the Ocmulgee River
    • 14M; Eocene Terrestrial Mammals From Gordon, GA
    • 14N: Fossil Ridge, A Stratigraphic Study in Oaky Woods Wildlife Management Area
    • 14O; Georgia's First Entelodont
    • 14P: Historic Rich Hill
    • 14Q; Bibb County's Christy Hill, Clinchfield Formation Hilltop
  • 15: Early Oligocene
    • 15A: The Marianna Limestone
    • 15B; The Glendon Limestone
    • 15C: Undiffereniated Oligocene Residuum
    • 15D; Brissus bridgeboroensis; A New Echinoid Species From Georgia’s Bridgeboro Limestone
    • 15E: The Curious Steinkern Sea Biscuits of Red Dog Farm Road
    • 15F: Early Oligocene Gordian Knot
  • 16: Bonaire GA Entelodont
  • 17: The Whale Eating Shark
  • 18: Miocene Epoch; 23.3 to 5.3 Million Years Ago
    • 18A; Miocene Terrestrial Vertebrates
    • 18B; Paul Fell, Rockhouse Cave
    • 18C: The Marks Head Formation
    • 18D: Miocene Terrestrial Vertebrates of the Marks Head Formation
    • 18E: The Statenville Formation
    • 18F: South Georgia’s Dugong Metaxytherium calvertense
  • 19: Pliocene Epoch; 5.3 to 2.5 Million years Ago
    • 19A: Two Small Primitive Horses from Taylor County Advance the Science of Georgia Geology
  • 20: The Ice Ages; Pleistocene & Holocene Epochs
    • 20A; Clark Quarry's Mammoths & Bison
    • 20B: Pleistocene Vertebrate List
    • 20C: Georgia’s Eolian Dunes
    • 20D: Georgia’s Carolina Bays
    • 20E: Late Pleistocene Significant Events
    • 20F: Southeastern Thermal Enclave
    • 20G; Diamond Back Terrapins
    • 20H; A Kaolin Mine Beaver Dam
    • 20I; Pleistocene Vertebrate Fossils On Georgia’s Piedmont
    • 20J; Watkins Quarry Pleistocene Vertebrates, Glynn County, GA
  • *NEW* 20K: Pleistocene Vertebrates from Coastal Georgia
  • 21: Humans in Georgia
  • 22: Geology of the Coastal Plain, 1911
    • 22A: 1911 Cretaceous Fossil Locations
    • 22B: 1911 Eocene Fossil Locations
  • 23: Coastal GA Locations (1957)
  • 24: Needed; The Georgia Geologic Survey
  • Building This Site
    • Origins Of This Site
    • Contributing Artists
    • Black & White Sketches
7B: So Many Sharks
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​Dr. Schwimmer also participated in a research project which excavated along Hannahatchee Creek’s Blufftown Formation for 77 million year old fossils. When these animals lived this would have been a coastal, near shore environment with the Chattahoochee River emptying into the sea just to the north. Their excavations produced more than a thousand shark’s teeth, turtle shells, bony fish remains, Deinosuchus remains, marine (salt water) reptiles and individual dinosaur fossils.

By far, the most common shark’s tooth belonged to an extinct species of goblin shark, a group of slow swimming sharks with a long snout extending well past its jaws. In modern species the jaws can shoot forward, for most of the length of this snout, when biting. We assume this applies to Cretaceous animals as well.

Artist Hasani Jones has reconstructed the coastal goblin shark Scapanorhynchus texanus for us here as part of the 2011 Georgia Southwestern State University Visual Arts Department Illustration Project.  

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Modern goblin sharks, a separate but closely related species, are typically about ten feet long and hunt in deep water coastlines. The shallow water species which swam Georgia went extinct with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago but its deep water cousin survived. 

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***

Note (15/July/2020);
So after detailed observations in micropaleontology, over years, Schwimmer learned that some of the fossils originally attributed to the Blufftown Formation actually came from the overlying Cusseta Sand or the mixed bed between the two.

11/June/2020 Note from Schwimmer: "...many of the fossils I attributed to the Blufftown back in the 80's and early 90's, actually come from the base of the overlying Cusseta Fm. Took me a lot of observation and some microfossil work to figure that the productive bed was actually the basal Cusseta with reworked Blufftown material." (Personal Communication)

(See Section 7I of this website for details.)
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​Several of the other shark finds are noteworthy. One such animal is 
Borodinopristis schwimmeri, a new species discovered and described directly from Georgia’s Hannahatchee Creek sediments by Gerard C. Case of New Jersey and named for Dr. Schwimmer in honor of his work in this field. Little is yet know about the species except for the teeth of both its snout saw (properly called a rostrum) and the teeth of its mouth. The rostrum teeth are particularly interesting as they are tiny, only about a tenth of an inch long, and barbed. 
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Modern sawfish use their toothed saw to stun or wound prey fish, their small mouths are underneath their head. Sawfish tend to stay close to the bottom; if a prey fish comes near they’ll strike it with their rostrum, or saw, stunning the fish just long enough to swallow it. As far as it is currently known, this new species is restricted to Mississippi, North Carolina & Georgia. (10)
       
A wealth of sharks inhabited these waters and the evidence of their presence with some idea of their populations can be seen in the fossil record they left behind. Here is a list of shark fossils the team recovered near Hannahatchee Creek from a single area. 

Scientific Name                    Common Name       Find
Hybodus (species?)                   Hump Tooth             Tooth & claspers
Lissodus babulskii                     Thresher family       5 teeth
Squalicorax kaupi                      Crow Shark              100+ teeth
Pseudocorax affinis                   Crow Shark               2 teeth
Squatina (species?)                    Angel Shark              2 teeth
Ginglymostoma globidens       Nurse Shark             5 Teeth
Scapanorhynchus texanus       Goblin Shark            1,000 + teeth
Synodontaspis holmdelensis    Ragged Tooth          2 teeth
Cretolamna appendiculata       Mackerel Shark       7 teeth
Cretodus borodini                       Mackerel Shark       3 teeth 
Ischyrhiza mira                           Sawfish                     Oral & saw teeth
Ptychotrygon vermiculata        Sawfish                     Oral & saw teeth
Brachyrhizodus romer               Cow Nosed Ray       Chevrons  
Pseudohypolophus                      Ray (Species?)         Chevrons
Rhombodus laevis                        Guitarfish family     6 teeth
​
Borodinopristis schwimmeri     Sawfish                      Rostral Tooth                         

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References:
Schwimmer participated with research team fossil excavations into the uppermost beds of the Blufftown Formation along Hannahatchee Creek in 1988. A wealth of Cretaceous material was recovered from a 2 meter thick zone including well over 1000 shark’s teeth, bony fish remains, reptile bones and teeth, abundant turtle fossils and less common fragments from crocodiles, mosasaurs, ornithischian and saurischian dinosaurs.

Borodinopristis schwimmeri, sawfish named for David Schwimmer:
Borodinopristis schwimmeri, A New Ganopristine Sawfish From the Upper Blufftown Formation (Campanian) of the Upper Cretaceous of Georgia. Gerard R. Case, Bulletin, New Jersey Academy of Science, Vol. 32, No.1, pp25-33, Spring 1987. 

Late Cretaceous Fish From The Blufftown Formation (Campanian) in Western Georgia. Gerard R. Case and David R. Schwimmer. Journal of Paleontology Vol.62 No. 2, 1988 The Paleontological Society