Woman discovers 12 million-year-old object while walking on the beach
- A woman accidentally unearthed a piece of ancient history
- While walking along the beach she noticed a big, black object
- It turned out to be a very rare fossil
Published on Dec 08, 2023 at 8:56 PM (UTC+4)
by Andie Reeves
Last updated on Dec 11, 2023 at 3:30 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Alessandro Renesis
A woman just unintentionally unearthed an ancient megalodon tooth.
While strolling along the beach, she stumbled on a large black object.
And it turned out to be millions of years old.
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Venice, Florida is known as the Shark Tooth Capital of the World.
It all started when Florida was submerged during the Cretaceous Period.
If you don’t remember this it’s because it happened 50 million years ago.
Today, fossils from animals that roamed the area millions of years ago lie buried underneath the waters surrounding the state.
And these fossils tend to wash up on the beaches, particularly the beaches of Venice.
The most popular type of fossils to wash up are sharks’ teeth.
So much so that going shark tooth spotting is a tourist attraction in these parts.
Shark teeth fossilize easily, plus they lose 10,000 of them a year, which is why there are so many to be found.
A local woman, Beth Orticelli, has made a hobby of finding these ancient teeth.
She has an impressive collection, which is displayed in piles on trays around her home.
While it’s common to find shark teeth, a megalodon tooth is really rare.
Which is why her recent discovery caused so much excitement.
Megalodons ruled the ocean 2.5 million years ago.
They weighed as much as 30 great white sharks and were 60 feet long.
Their mouths were absolutely massive, able to swallow two humans standing side by side in one go.
Luckily for us, they’re extinct, leaving just their gigantic fossils behind.
Orticelli and her husband were walking along Manasota Beach when they noticed an unusual shape in the sand.
She picked up what turned out to be a megalodon tooth which was as big as her palm.
She hasn’t had it valued but the tooth could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Most people would store something this valuable somewhere safe and out of the way.
But Orticelli likes to do things a little differently.
She’s made a large mosaic of shark teeth, with the megalodon tooth stuck proudly in the center.
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Andie is a content writer from South Africa with a background in broadcasting and journalism. Starting her career in the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire, Andie has a broad portfolio, covering everything from sustainability solutions to celebrity car collections. When not at her laptop Andie can be found sewing, recording her podcast, taking board games too seriously or road-tripping in her bright green Kia.
