Expertise Needed - Shell Help (unusual location)

[davidjett]

Hi everyone, glad to have found this site! My boys and I stumbled upon it when attempting to identify a shell that was found one day last week while out exploring.

We believe the shell to be a conch shell, not sure of the exact variety though. The thing that is interesting, is that we found the shell embedded in the bank of a fresh water creek here where we live. We are about 110 miles away from the closest beach/ocean with no brackish waters anywhere close to where the shell was found. We live in the Columbia SC vicinity and, as far as I can tell and research, there should be no reason a saltwater shell would have been found exposed in the layers of sediment we are looking at.

Our assumptions are that either (A) the shell is a remnant left over when this area of land was underwater or (B) it is human discard either from current time or from a past time such as from a local Indian tribe.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. My wife and I home school our four boys so we try to make learning both entertaining and fun as well as educational and memorable, this has definitely peaked their curiosity.

Thanks in advance!

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