Ivory Tusk Snail ...

Next time you’re scanning the shoreline, you might just spot one of the ocean’s most overlooked treasures: ivory tusk shells.

This week’s low midafternoon tides provided excellent beachcombing conditions around lunchtime. I found a variety of treasures, including pen shells, pear whelks, and hundreds of Atlantic cockles.

If you’ve walked the shoreline this week, you may have noticed something unusual happening at your feet, a patch of sand that seemed to tremble, shimmer, or even “come alive.” That moving ground ...

They didn’t look like much at first, just a scatter of white slivers along the tide line. They could’ve passed for fish bones ...