Kansas

Smoky Hill Chalk badlands (Castle Rock, Kansas)

Permit required📚 Compiled from public sources

The Niobrara Formation Smoky Hill Chalk member exposed in the western Kansas badlands — the source of the most famous Late Cretaceous marine fossils in North America (Xiphactinus, mosasaurs, Squalicorax). Castle Rock is the iconic public landform; surrounding land is private and requires permission.

⚠ Partial inputs

today

Great

Creek site - best 1-2 days after rain. +20 event boost

Today at a glance

Updated 2026-07-21T08:54:03.101Z

Solid hunting day. Brisk E winds (15 mph) — expect chop.

Next 3 days: Tomorrow is the pick (100); today runs cooler at 80.

Best Window Today

Daylight hours

This site does not depend on a tidal low. Hunt during the coolest, brightest part of the day and use the wind and conditions notes below.

Hunt score

Great

Astronomical low

—

No tide window

Low-window wind

0 mph

Light — negligible effect

Tonight's moon

First quarter

49% illuminated

Sunrise 11:33 AM · Sunset 2:02 AM

Wind right now

15 mph from E

Gusts 28 mph

Wind direction matters — check site notes.

Past 7 days

Compare model output to your actual visits.

Next 7 days

Plan a trip →

🌤️ Weather & Wave Forecast

Impact on visibility and stir-up over the next 5 days.

Onshore Wind: Pushes water in (tide sits higher) and stirs up the bottom. Good for "new" teeth, bad for visibility.

Offshore Wind: Water blown out (tide sits lower). Maximum beach exposure for hunting the low tide line.

Why today scores 80

The Hunt Score blends tide range, lunar phase, daylight timing, recent stir, wind setup, and surf.

Best low

No tide-driven low

Wind deviation

Neutral beach by 0.0 ft

Explain this scoreShow breakdown ▾

💡

Analysis

Highly favorable. Worth the drive.

Inland creek baseline

60.0 / 82

Peak gust 14 mph — no storm boost, no calm penalty.

Event boostadded

+20

Manual + auto events.

Show the math

components: 60.0 = 60.0 + event boost +20 = 80.0 final = 80

What's NOT in this score

We are deliberate about which factors to include. These are not currently in the model:

Hunt pressure. A “hunts this week” chip is shown on each location page for transparency, but it does not change the score yet. We need more outcomes per site before a penalty would be statistically meaningful.
Wave period / swell direction. We use wave height only. Long-period groundswell sorts material differently than short wind chop, but Open-Meteo doesn't expose period reliably.
Barometric pressure trend. Falling pressure = approaching storm = building stir. Currently we wait for the wind to actually arrive.
Water temperature, clarity, salinity. Affects comfort but not (directly) what teeth wash up.
Weekday vs weekend. A 70 on Tuesday is often better in practice than a 70 on Saturday because of crowds, but we don't adjust for that.
Beach renourishment. Fresh sand buries everything. We capture this only when an admin logs a manual event — there's no auto-detection.

If you think we should add one of these, log a hunt with notes — every rated outcome helps us decide which signals actually predict tooth count.

Hunt Score

Sum of components + 20 event boost, clamped 0–100.

Score model 2026.04.29 · how this is calculated

Hunted here today?

Rate this hunt

We predicted 80. Tell us how it actually went — your rating calibrates the model.

model 2026.04.29

Sniffing for nor'easters in the forecast…

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Geology

FormationsSmoky Hill Chalk (Niobrara Formation)

EpochsCretaceous

Age~85-82 million years

Star speciesSqualicorax falcatus, Cretoxyrhina mantelli (Ginsu shark)

Technique

Visit Castle Rock as a public landform; for actual collecting, contact a Kansas paleontology club or one of the licensed Western Kansas guide outfits. The chalk weathers small teeth out of slumping faces.

Access

Castle Rock is on a public county road in Gove County. Surrounding chalk badlands are private ranchland — get explicit permission or go with a guide.

🗺 Open in Google Maps 🧭 Open in Apple Maps

Legality & ethics

Kansas allows surface collection on public land of common invertebrates and shark teeth, but private ranch access is gated. Vertebrate fossils on public land require BLM or state permits.

Hazards

Rattlesnakes
Heat (100°F+ in summer)
Remote — no cell signal, bring water

Insider tips

Pair with the Sternberg Museum (Hays, KS) — best Cretaceous Sea reference collection in the country
Spring rain freshly weathers teeth out of the chalk
Sturgis-style guided weekends from Hays will get you onto productive ranches

References & further reading