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Hello all, It's been a long time since I've been on here, but my interest in collecting Ontario trilobites has been renewed over the past few years. One of my goals has been to find a trilobite piece on a job site. I was near Port Hope last week and went to check out a fill pile on my break when I flipped over a rock and found this little guy. Since it was in a fill pile I have no idea what formation it's from, or its age, and so I'm having a hard time id'ing this specimen. I would appreciate any help. Thanks. Location: Fill pile near Port Hope, Ontario Age:Unknown Formation: Unknown Size: approx 1cm x 1cm

I have some pictures of some things I found, however I’m unsure what I found, it seems oddly symmetrical to be nothing so I wanted a second opinion!

Hello everyone, I recently sifted through some more of my leftover Deep Spring Road matrix with a few more ordinary finds but this one really has me stumped. I found a very tiny brachiopod, the diameter of the shell is right around 0.5cm, maybe slightly more, while I have seen some like this the ornamentation of the shell threw me off a bit. For this size I expected it was probably something like Ambocoelia sp. maybe Emanuella sp., or something else similar, but neither of these have the fairly distinct growth lines around the shell seen in this specimen. The closest shell ornamentation I've seen to this is that of Athyris spiriferoides, which is also present at this site but I have never seen one be this small which left me unsure about the identity of the organism. Maybe @Tidgy's Dad might know more about this? I tried to take some pictures but at this scale it is quite difficult, here is the best I have so far: I will see if I can get better pictures tomorrow although I don't know if that will be possible with the equipment I currently have. Thank you for any help, it is very much appreciated.

I was finally able to bring my car down from Michigan to D.C. this winter which has really expanded the range of accessible localities (and also avoids the torturous process of renting cars) for me. I don't have many nice in situ pictures unfortunately, but here are some of the cleaned up finds from the trips so far this year! First we tried Matoaka Beach Cabins with some success, lots of little teeth with one great highlight (unsure on ID, let me know if that's clear from the picture). Also had good luck with a complete Ecphora and Moon Snail, as well as a decent sized chunk of sand dollar pieces cemented together and a Stewartia anodonta (?) with some of the first layer of shell material preserved.

Hi everyone, I have found a weird looking ring-shaped structure in middle Devonian to Late Devonian rocks. It is hard to describe it, but it looks a bit like a intersection of a tree (of course that isn't possible because threes weren't around in the devonian). It is 10 by 7 cm. It was found near Han-Sur-Lesse, Belgium.

Last week, when on an excursion to the Devonian, Cedar Valley Formation, of Iowa, I encountered this fossil. Thinking crinoid, I threw it in my bucket, so that I could examine it closer at home. Now, haven taken a closer look at it, I am unsure..... Crinoid? Cephalopod? Or something else. Your thoughts are very welcome!! Mike

I've been out quite a bit this season, but still haven't had my "wow" trip-maker yet. Due to various situations, most of my digging has been very local, with one away trip to Quebec. For local sites, I've been prospecting new spots and doing due diligence on old ones, too. Around me is Devonian, and more particularly the ugly portions of the Devonian of Ontario that are parsimonious, tough, sometimes lacking in bedding planes, occasionally blank or cherty, and generally displaying fossils as they might appear after being thoroughly whipped in a Ninja blender. But, hey, it's always fun to get out. New site #1: Amherstburg Fm material (L-M.Devonian) Not the best facies of the Amherstburg Fm, but certainly some stromatoporoid action for those who enjoy the lumpy-bumpy spreaders. It isn't the mid Devonian of my city without bumping into a rostroconch. I swear these things are stalking me. A chalk-cherty mass and a view of a very busy coral layer. Another coral layer Bryozoans galore, and some of these can spread quite an area. All bryozoans, but indicative of the diversity among them in this material. More coral horizons -- a colony and some solitary cups Giant colony Big stromato... and close-up:

I have decided to bring part of my collection to the office. So, my collegues from the sourcing team acquired two display cabinets standing in the open space area, accesible to all. People are enjoying it. You can also see small collection of lower Devonian vertebrates from Ukraine. This is my micro - and symbolic contribution reflecting current situation. Tomasz

The fossil bryozoa colony I found on April 6th turned out to be a pocket of individual colonies. I've posted about this find in the past month. Happy Collecting. Atactotoechus fruticosus Fossil Bryozoa Colony Moscow Formation, Middle Devonian (380 million years) New York State It's very difficult to find complete/near complete colonies of Devonian bryozoans that also look great in a display case. These Atactotoechus fruticosus bryozoan colonies are from a newly (4/2022) discovered pocket of around two dozen individual colonies. This Bryozoa colony was found on April 6th. 2022 in the Devonian shales of New York. Many hours of reassembling were needed to put these colonies back together after they were excavated from the shale outcrop.

2022 Fossil Collecting Season Our season started out great with a warm 63 degree day here in New York State. We often don't dig on our first collecting trip of the season Its more of a surface collecting trip just to scout out the area and see what winter has exposed for us. I had my geology hammer of course but no mini sledge, chisels, or pry bars. One of my favorite things to find in early spring are colonies of Bryozoa (Atactotoechus frutiosus). You have to collect every little piece of the colony and reassemble them back it home. This will take anywhere from an hour to many hours over days and in this case over a week so far. You never know how they will look until you start matching up the pieces and hope that you got them all. I picked up around 255 pieces from a colony that I found on this day and thought I got most if not all of the colony. It was a slow start reassembling it then I found my rhythm. It started to become clear after a week of working on it that I was missing a bunch of pieces. Yesterday 4/24/2022 we went back to the site, dug in the shale were we found the colony, and found a bunch of the missing pieces. This time I did have the proper tools to complete the job We also found a large and well preserved Orthospirifer marcyi with attached Pleurodictyum coral and other Devonian brachs, trilobites, corals, a graptolite (modern Sea Fan for comparison in the pic), and of course Bryozoa colonies. The pics of the Bryozoa colony are - pieces from the first day, after a week of puzzling them back together, and yesterdays recovery of the rest of the colony (white tray). Happy Collecting

Recently I went to an abandoned quarry in Resteigne, Belgium. I've found some brachiopod fossils and corals. Sorry for the bad picture quality. Thanks to @Manticocerasman for suggesting the location. some brachiopods corals and other stuff

I pulled this out of the Mahantango Formation of Pennsylvania a couple weeks ago. It's middle Devonain. TI though as I pulled it out of the scree that it was more of the myriad corals, but looking at it more closely it is most certainly not (although there are a couple Rugosa tucked in there), the structure is all wrong. I was told by one sponge enthusiast that it is definitely sponge. some kind of sponge. I'm a taxonomist at heart, and it drives me nuts if I can't at least narrow something down to a family. The literature on porifera is woefully scant, especially on this coast. Looking at the steinkerns in the holes, it looks like a network of narrow tubes rather than the pores of one big sponge wall. Could this be Amphiporidae? Anyone have any good references?

I've been looking at these for sometime and am stumped as to what they may be. Found in Lansing NY. First up, photo's labeled #1 and #2 (hourglass shapes). I believe the matrix to be Tully Limestone. I have the scale written on one photo as 1.5 cm x 7 cm. They are of similar size. I wondered if they could be orthocone or crinoid but am unable to find any information or photos to compare them to as they are weathered. Both have the same somewhat zig zagging cross hatching patterns. Lastly, (#3) Believed to also be in Tully Limestone. I found what appears to be some type of a shell (2 cm x 3 cm) but it's shape doesn't resemble any of the gastropods, brachiopods, or bivalves in my area and I can't see any hinge. It appears that the outer shell has worn off and I think I'm looking at the internal mold? I don't want to try and prep it to reveal what may be hiding without any clue as to what it is. Thank you in advance

Went on a little "Easter Egg Hunt" with my folks, found some excellent fossils. day was hot but I enjoyed it. I have provided my best ID, but please feel free to correct if you can identify it further! it helps with my labeling system for sure. this lizard was good luck right next to where my mom was standing i noticed this beauty sticking out of the rock further excavation revealed this possible horn coral? eldredgeops rana heads trilobite glabellar fold ( possibly Odontocephalus?) Dipleura rib impression (Very exciting to have found 3 species in one trip!) amonoid Cephalopod Agoniatites vaxunemi (note the preservation of the sutre lines). and here is a conularid i found as well Possible pelecypod? brachiopods and lastly a couple of crinoid buttons dug out of the rock

So I took my folks out to West VA to see the Lost river site, had a splendid time of it just picking through the shale, but I found some absolutely mysterious specimens that I could use some help in identifying. This one I had thought was a colonial organism, but it doesnt match the bryzoan or corals ive seen in the area This one I believe is a brachiopod of some sort, any idea the Genus? I picked up this rock and noticed that there was a glabella furrow of a trilobite species in it. I dont know what species it is, all I know is that its Not an Eldredgeops. lastly a gentleman said that this looked like a sand dollar, however I am not certain its not just a formation. oh and theres this thing, I think its the tippy tip of a cephalopod. but a crinoid stem is just as likely. let me know if theres anything to look out for.

On Tuesday this week, myself and some of my family spontaneously decided to get out and drive to some interesting places in New York state to enjoy the day. We visited some beautiful locations like these two waterfalls: On our journey, we ended up around Gilboa, which is the location where one of the earliest known fossil forests was discovered with amazing plant and animal life, some of these fossils are exhibited outside near the town hall. This, being one of the many locations I had wanted to visit for years, was an opportunity I could not pass up, so while driving through the town we stopped by to take a look at these amazing pieces of history and get a few pictures: These are just some of the fossils displayed there, I have also really wanted to get to fossil hunt for some of the plant remains from this formation in Schohaire creek nearby, but unfortunately due to the very spontaneous nature of all of this I was not ready with the locations I had noted down where we could have done so and I did not get to collect anything from there on that day. We did, however, still have a little bit of time before it would get dark and I made the suggestion that we go collect some fossils at another, familiar location as it isn't often that I get to be around these places. So that is what we did, setting out for a quick hunt in the lower Devonian Kalkberg formation at a site only around 30 minutes away. Overall we probably got to hunt for around an hour, but it was a surprisingly productive time. Last time I visited here, I wasn't able to find that many of certain organisms I was interested in like the beautiful Leptaena sp. but this time, we found an abundance of these fossils, along with many other nice specimens. Here are some of my favorite finds from the trip: A few of those Leptaena sp. I wanted to get This one was my favorite, not the most complete but quite large and has very nice surface detail. A small but detailed spiriferid with some nice bryozoa: The largest spiriferid I've found here, needs some prep but a very nice fossil still: This one was a big surprise for me, I kept it because of the nice spiriferid on there but upon getting home I noticed a shiny dark patch below, turns out it was a Linguliform brachiopod, something I had never seen from the formation before. It's not complete, I wish we had noticed while we were there and potentially found the other side, but this is still a find I am very excited about. This also made me wonder something, most brachiopods preserve with a matte, sometimes slightly shiny texture to their shell, while all of the Linguliforms I have seen have a very glossy surface to them. Is this difference caused by differing shell composition? It is quite interesting and something that seems to occur throughout geological time, in many formations with varying preservation. @Tidgy's Dad maybe you know something about this? Some pretty nice orthids: This one was quite big, and appears pretty complete, I would like to get it prepped some day, I think it may turn out quite nice: Another strophomenid similar to Leptaena but with much shallower rippling along its surface, I was wondering if this may be another genus, looking in my field guide I see that Strophonella and Rystistrophia both also have concentric wrinkles, although I am not sure which if any of them this one may be: A coral? not really sure what this branching fossil is, but it seems quite interesting, not anything I've seen here before. A pair of nice solitary rugose corals: This one doesn't show up too well on camera but it's a pretty large platyceratid gastropod, I have a few from this location but this one has some very interesting wrinkles to the shell, quite different from all my other ones. This is another large fossil, I think it may be a gastropod also? it has a similar dark shell to most of the gastropods I've found here, plus it seems like it may be curving in a helical pattern out of the matrix slightly, but I may be wrong. And to finish, here are some nice hashplates I collected from the site: Thanks for looking!

Yesterday I was finally able to take another trip to DSR, ending my nearly 5 months of fossil cabin fever. While it wasn't as ground-breaking as my last trip, where my father and I found an 8 inch Dipleura and a complete Crinoid, this trip was still really fun. We checked out some different areas than usual and it definitely paid off. Starting off with some of the oddities: A gastropod I've never seen or heard of before today, Promatis (patulis?) This is the second largest bivalve I've found at DSR I didn't notice these brachiopods until after I cleaned the specimen off, I assume they were attached on the inside of the shell? This was pretty weird, my best guess is that it's a branch of sorts. The brachiopod ontop of it is really cool A pretty cool association between a Paleozygopleura (delphicola?) (hamiltoniae?) and a Greenops pygidium my dad found. The Paleozygopleura needed some glue which I will need to clean up. Onto the trilobites now: A really nice cephalon my dad found Dipleura tail, probably not related to the cephalon Some Dipluera segments and pygidium Our first complete Eldredgeops from DSR, my father spotted it in some loose shale while he was digging an area Headless Eldredgeops, probably would've been complete but the head is lost in another piece of shale at the site. My dad pointed this beautiful tail-less Eldredgeops out when he was clearing out some shale. I should've recorded myself pulling it out of the shale but it's not a big deal. The eyes on this guy are absolutely incredible! The only significant Greenops specimen we came across, unfortunately it is headless. I'll keep updating this thread while I go through more of the material we brought home. I fell asleep for 15 hours after the 4 hour drive home, so I didn't have much time today.

Hello everyone, I am new to the forum, and new to fossil hunting, and I was wondering about what the process of fossil hunting is supposed to look like. A couple days back, I went to fossil hunt at the Deep Springs Road side. There was a fossil that looked like club moss which went into the rock wall near the top of a ledge. Because I wanted the whole fossil intact, I attempted to excavate the fossil out of the wall by levering up the shale above the fossil using my rock hammer. I figured that this would be okay, but I was still left wondering whether excavation of fossils out from the rock wall was allowed or not. Is it frowned upon to excavate fossils from the rock formation? Should I only be splitting rocks that have already fallen from the wall, or is it fine to dig out of the formation? Here is a picture of the club moss looking fossil, if anyone more knowledgeable wants to identify it for me: