Long before the ancient pyramids and before man first walked the lands of the Southeast, woolly mammoths, eastern bison and even a few dinosaurs roamed the land where Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell and other Georgia cities are today. Michael Buchanan, local amateur fossil hunter, filmmaker and beekeeper, is excited by that. He says that 5000-year-old spear points were found when the land was cleared for North Point Mall in the early 1990s. Spear points were also found when work began on the McGinness Ferry Road/Ga. 400 interchange improvement project.
Michael notes that fossils can be found in every state and that the best places to hunt for dinosaur fossils are Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska and the Dakotas. Erosion takes place over millions of years and reveals old river bottoms where ancient creatures went to drink. Michael has found parts of dinosaurs and hundreds of bone fragments which he tries to piece together.
Georgia is fossil country to a lesser degree. It was once inhabited by animals such as mastodons, woolly mammoths, camels, bison, tapirs, dinosaurs and giant ground sloths up to 20 feet tall which were first described in 1797 by Thomas Jefferson. During the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago), the climate was tropical and there were no glaciers at the north and south poles. Consequently, the sea level was very high and covered half of the state. Many vertebrate and invertebrate fossils were left behind including mollusk shells, shark’s teeth and some dinosaur bones.
Shark’s teeth are particularly plentiful, because a shark can grow and lose 30,000 or more teeth during its approximately 20 – 30 year lifespan. It is not surprising that the official Georgia state fossil, adopted in 1976, is the giant megalodon shark tooth. The megalodon is the largest shark to ever have lived. They measured from 30 up to 70 feet…
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