Over half the state of Georgia is covered by sedimentary deposits from a coastline that has changed over millions of years. What is now land and coastal river was more than once the ocean, full of prehistoric sharks, whales and fish far beyond our imagination, and more than once it was land, walked upon by prehistoric mammals, many that have been extinct for thousands of years.

Underneath the depths of the Savannah River is an ancient layer of earth. Some has crept to the surface of the river’s floor by years of the scouring tides, and some has been deposited on the surrounding coastal islands as spoil from the dredging, or the deepening of a river floor to allow the passage of gigantic sea vessels such as the cargo ships traveling to and from the Port of Savannah.

My portal into this world started with an aged, childhood fascination of finding just one shark tooth on the beach. In 2005, during another empty search on Tybee Island, a little girl approached me, eager to help. Immediately eyeing a small tooth, she drew a big circle around it in the sand and demanded, “ok, now find it.”

Only a few years later, I was sifting through the dredge spoils and even ventured to the river’s floor, searching for the legendary, giant shark tooth of the extinct Megalodon. With the assistance of my mother, an anthropologist, I realized that not only was I finding the “meg” tooth that I sought for, but I was also stumbling across the remains of prehistoric creatures, some that I never knew existed.

To this day, I’m intrigued by the symmetry between the fossil, something so ancient, and the human form, something so alive. Parallel, a work in progress, is an exploration of this lure.