Purse State Park is a former

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

located on the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

Charles County Charles County is a county in Southern Maryland. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 166,617. The county seat is La Plata, Maryland, La Plata. The county was named for Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore, Charle ...

that has been subsumed into the Nanjemoy Wildlife Management Area. As the Purse Area, the former park is known for fossil hunting on the beaches of Wades Bay at the southern end of the Nanjemoy WMA. Fossil discoveries have included

shark teeth Sharks continually shed their teeth; some Carcharhiniformes shed approximately 35,000 teeth in a lifetime, replacing those that fall out. There are four basic types of shark teeth: dense flattened, needle-like, pointed lower with triangular upp ...

and

Cibicides ''Cibicides'' is a genus of cosmopolitan benthic foraminifera known from at least as far back as the Paleocene ( Loeblich & Tappan, 1988) that extends down to the present. The test, or shell, of Cibicides, which is commonly found attached, is ...

References

External links

Nanjemoy Wildlife Management Area
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Nanjemoy Wildlife Management Area Map
Maryland Department of Natural Resources {{authority control Parks in Charles County, Maryland State parks of Maryland