Shark Tooth Hunting In Venice

The Gulf beaches in and around Venice, Florida, hold a bountiful cache of fossilized shark teeth. Ten million years ago, when Florida was submerged under water, the area was teeming with sharks. Over time, as the water receded giving way to land, the prehistoric sharks died - their skeletons disintegrated, but their fossilized teeth remained. The Venice coastal area, just south of Sarasota, sits on top of a fossil layer that runs 18-35 feet deep. With storms and waves, the fossils are slowly driven into the shallow waters and then up onto the beach.