A small Canterbury beach community an hour north of Christchurch sitting on the Pliocene Greta Siltstone — one of the Southern Hemisphere's best beach localities for shark teeth, including Carcharodon megalodon. A New Zealand Geopreservation Inventory site.
Solid hunting day. Moderate N winds (6 mph); seas 3 ft+ — murky and choppy.
Next 3 days: Tomorrow is the pick (82); today runs cooler at 60.
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.
Impact on visibility and stir-up over the next 5 days.
Cliff sites score from a baseline plus recent storm stir, daylight low tide timing, wind exposure, and seasonal events (only when storms are actually shedding cliff material).
Solid. Reliable productivity expected.
We are deliberate about which factors to include. These are not currently in the model:
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.
Walk south from the Motunau Beach settlement at low tide. Search the wave-cut platform and concretion-bearing layers for teeth weathering free. Concretions sometimes contain articulated fish.
Public beach access from Motunau Beach village. Casual surface collecting is tolerated for personal interest but Department of Conservation rules apply to scientifically significant material.
New Zealand's Protected Objects Act 1975 governs fossils. Personal-interest surface collecting on the foreshore is generally OK; export and significant specimens are regulated.
Trophy = headline find · Rare = real score · Uncommon = some trips · Common = most trips.
The beachcomber's bonus round — what else the geology gives up.
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