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Fossilized Shark Teeth on the Internet |
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Some teeth are inherently more susceptible to external influences than other teeth. The skin of the human hand has a host of chemicals that can contaminate a fossil during handling. Even "clean" hands have a surface layer of salts, water, oils and acids which will, in the long term, degrade the composition of the tooth and in the short term, it's appearance. Many "estate" teeth show this degradation as the top and the thickest part of the root will have a darker color than the rest of the root. This is primarily due to the deposition of skin oils in handling.
If possible, the tooth should only be handled on the enameled part of the tooth. [Even this can cause long term problems as the contaminates can penetrate the tooth through the cracks in the enamel.] Handling the fossil in this manner will minimize the impact of skin contaminates on the more porous parts of the fossil. You might even want to consider using thin gloves when handling your high grade specimens. This might sound ridiculous but you might feel differently if you owned a tooth worth several thousand dollars. We recommend that the tooth be handled (especially by children) while seated on a large sofa in a room with a carpeted floor. The tip, serrations, enamel and root "ears" of any tooth can easily be broken by dropping on a hard surface.
Display your shark teeth is a low humidity room (not the bathroom or over the kitchen sink) out of direct sunlight.
With a few common sense practices and proper care, your fossils will be around to astound and amaze your descendants for another 14 million years.
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