10 Best U.S. Shelling Beaches
Calvert Cliffs State Park
MD
Why Go: This peaceful beach on the Chesapeake Bay attracts avid fossil hunters and shell lovers from all over the East Coast—the soft, sandy cliffs between the bay and the woods occasionally calve like glaciers and deposit fresh Miocene-era shark teeth and snail fossils on the beach. You’ll find shells from more modern times too: the gentle waves of the Chesapeake Bay jostle oyster and clam shells up on the sand, as well as artifacts of human habitation (multicolored beach glass, burned shards of brick, even arrowheads). An easy two-mile hike on paths through woods and over wetlands keeps the beach blissfully lonesome.
What You’ll Find: Fossilized shark teeth; scallop, oyster, clam, and snail shells; beach glass; arrowheads; and quartz.
—Ann Shields
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