It's no mystery how Sharktooth Hill got its name.
The rich fossil bed northeast of Bakersfield is justifiably famous among scientists and fossil hunters as a treasure trove of ancient shark teeth and other marine fossils dating back more than 15 million years to the middle Miocene Epoch.
Rob Ernst, the son of Bob Ernst, the legendary local fossil hunter who before his death in 2007 excavated close to 1 million fossils, has long held that Kern County's famed fossil bed is equal in significance to the La Brea Tar Pits in Southern California.
But strictly speaking, there's a difference between Sharktooth Hill and Ernst Quarries, which offers fossil hunters and members of the general public regular opportunities to dig.
"Currently Sharktooth Hill, the National Natural Landmark, is privately owned," Ernst said in a text.
People are not allowed to trespass there.
"The landmark sits on pastoral grazing land for free-range birthing cattle," Ernst said. "Fortunately, the Sharktooth Hill fossil formation hits most of the area's hills, at a certain elevation."
The Ernst Quarries are located on the north side of the Kern River, and for a fee, anyone can look for fossils there.
"We also work with local schools and universities to try to facilitate a more robust educational situation, although funding for school-related activities is just now beginning to materialize out from under COVID," Ernst said.
The actual Sharktooth Hill is adjacent and easily visible from the quarries. A guide at each dig will be happy to point it out, Ernst said.
Teeth of dragons
It was a warm August afternoon in 1853 — a decade before Col. Thomas Baker established a place known as "Baker's Field" — when geologist William P. Blake hiked across the dry, hilly terrain north of the Kern River in search of a potential railroad route.
He later reported that "a great number of shark's teeth of different sizes were found lying loose on the surface."
Without even having to turn a shovel, the young geologist had found handfuls of the ancient fossils strewn across the hills like common stones.
It was eight years before the start of the Civil War, yet here in this arid western frontier, Blake's discovery must have seemed impossible to some. Shark teeth in California's inland valley? He might as well have claimed he'd found the teeth of dragons.
Camels, gomphotheres and bear dogs, oh my!
According to Robert Yohe, professor of archaeology and anthropology at Cal State Bakersfield, the Round Mountain Silt Formation, and associated strata, popularly referred to as Sharktooth Hill, contains one of the most important bone beds of fossilized marine vertebrates dating to the middle Miocene in western North America.
"The bone bed or stratum itself is deceivingly narrow," Yohe said, "ranging in thickness from 6 to up to 20 inches in some areas, and the fossils found therein represent the bottom of the large inland sea that filled the southern part of the Central Valley.”
That embayment, known as the Temblor Sea, accumulated the carcasses of whales, early seals and sea lions, and the mako sharks and giant megalodons that fed upon them all those millions of years ago.
"But one of the facets of Sharktooth Hill that is always overlooked," he said, "is the fact that, although fewer in number, the remains of land mammals and birds have been recovered from these same bone beds as well, many dying near the shore or washing out to sea in the nascent Kern River."
These large mammals included early camels, horses, gomphotheres — an early type of mastodon-like elephant relative — and even a strange carnivore referred to as a "bear dog."
There's still a lot to learn about Sharktooth Hill and the buried treasures it kept mostly hidden for 15 million years.
To contact Ernst Quarries or book a dig, visit sharktoothhillproperty.com.