The Fossils of Scotts Valley Traditional Cache
peigimccann: Will replace with an Earth cache
The Fossils of Scotts Valley
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Park on the wide downhill side of Bean Creek Road.
No need to dig in the fossil bank for the cache, in fact it is now forbidden to do so.
Watch children carefully around the drop-off to the creek, fast cars on road and collapsing sand cliffs.
Santa Cruz County is a popular destination to sharks’ tooth hunters throughout Northern California, and Bean Creek Road is a great place to see a portion of the fossil rich Santa Margarita Fossil Formation.
According to Frank Perry (Fossils of Santa Cruz County), “Many times during past geologic ages, what is now Santa Cruz County was partially or completely covered by the sea. Thousands of feet of maine sediments were deposited on the ocean floor. Included in this sand, gravel, and mud were animal remains such a shells, teeth, and bones, and plant remains such as leaves and wood. Eventually the sediments hardened into rock and were uplifted to form parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ancient plant and animal remains became fossils."
The fossils found in Scotts Valley are from the late Miocene and early Pliocene epochs, ten to twelve million years ago. Sharks teeth and marine mammal and bird remains may be found in the lower looser part of Santa Margarita Sandstone while invertebrates such as sand dollars may be found in the upper calcarious deposit.. The other layer found in and around Scotts Valley is the Monterey Shale which contains the impressions of clams, fish, leaves, and microfossils. Some of the teeth found are those of the white shark, Carcharodon megalogon, and can be up to six inches long.
The road cut across the road from the cache is a sandy layer capped by the layer of extinct sand dollars, Astrodapsis spatiosus. These were deposited very near shore in shallow waters.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Onex va onax.
Treasures
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