Aurora Fossil Museum Spoil Piles
Trucked-in spoil from the world-famous Lee Creek phosphate mine. A hill of Miocene & Pliocene treasure, free and open to the public - and it gets refreshed.
Event timeline
Aurora Fossil Festival — Spoil Pile Refresh (Memorial Day Weekend)
endedThe annual Aurora Fossil Festival (Aurora, NC) coincides with a fresh spoil-pile dump from the PCS Phosphate / Nutrien mine into the public collecting pit. This is the single best opportunity each year to hunt unsorted Pungo River Formation material with thousands of teeth, mako, meg, and Carcharocles fragments.
Bring a screen sifter, kneeling pad, spray bottle. Pick a fresh-dumped pile, scrape the top inch, sift, repeat.
Free. Bring tools. Museum across the street is excellent. No on-site restrooms.
Open public collecting on the spoil pile only. The mine itself is closed.
- Sun + dust
- Sharp shell hash - gloves recommended
- Dehydration #1 risk
- Call the museum to ask when the pile was last refreshed
- Mornings beat afternoons - cooler, lower sun angle
- Bring a magnifier for the 1-2mm gems
- The museum will help you ID anything
Shark teeth findable here
Trophy = headline find · Rare = real score · Uncommon = some trips · Common = most trips.
Also findable here
The beachcomber's bonus round — what else the geology gives up.
💬 Community Discussion
0 messagesPrivacy First: Discussions are stored locally on your device in this version.