Search the Community

My first post was so popular that I decided to do a second. I went to the same place, and found more many rich and colorful fossils, and got enough material to write to you about it. For those who missed my first post, you will find it HERE As you will see in this article, I combine my two passions, collecting fossils and color photography. I love color, creating black and white photographs of fossils is good for scientific research, when you are a paleontologist and want to record the small details for science and posterity. But for people who are just starting to explore the world of fossils, we need something more inspiring, because to be fair, fossil photos are generally drab, and generally unappealing to the general public. Not that fossil collectors don't take great photos, I see fantastic photos all the time on TFF, but usually in a different context. I'm just trying to be a little different and take a picture of the fossils as I see them, in their natural environment. Maybe this will inspire the next generation of fossils collectors. This site is part of the Lorraine group (Chambly sub-formation). It contains the most recent sedimentary rock in the region, a series of clay and limestone schists that are redder towards the top. It's made up of clay schists, a sedimentary rocks of dynamic origin, formed by the splitting of existing rocks and calcareous schists, a sedimentary rocks formed by the accumulation of animal or plant matter in bodies of water. This region also bears the marks of the Quaternary geological era. Immediately after the last ice age, the whole St. Lawrence Valley and its waterways became a vast inland sea (the Champlain Sea) that stretched as far as today's Lake Champlain. The site is not as gorgeous or rich in fossils as the other sites we see in this forum, but it is rich in brachiopods, crinoids, bryozoans, and a few gastropods. Sorry @Kane no trilobites. Here are some photos to give you an idea of the site, it's a small beach where the fossils are underwater, so I'm literarily fishing for fossils. The formation is made up of many colorful stairs and steps leading to the water's edge. Like a time machine, each step takes you back a thousand years, where you can discover at each staircase the remains of a thriving fauna, long extinct. Don't expect to see anything bigger than a few inches, this is the Late Ordovician historically rock formation in the Richelieu River Valley in the St. Lawrence Lowlands rests on sedimentary rocks. which are some 450 million years old and formed during the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. I was able to photograph this hash plate full of sowerbyella at that special moment, when the water was receding after a previous wave. This is not a painting, just a photograph of what typical Ordovician fauna might have looked like 500 million years ago, almost as if we were there. I try to keep my hand dry and out of the freezing water, picking up the fossils between two waves, leaving the fossils out of the water. It was difficult to photograph the fossils underwater, because of the waves I took the photo at a time when the water was calmer and just before a wave came crashing on it. A lonely sowerbyella taking her beauty bath I found bi_valve playing hide and seek, with the bubbles A lot of times I hear that fossil and water aren't a good mix, but in my case it's a perfect match. The water acts as a sort of magical act, bringing these 450 million year old fossils back to life, infusing them with vibrant colors and hiding the passage of time. These normally terness fossils have a second life in this freezing water, small imperfections are hidden, making the texture smooth and lustrous, with beautiful vibrant colors. In homage of the Beatles, I call this one the Yellow Submarine Some brachiopod pile up over each other, I don't know what cause this rainbow of colors, the diffraction, the translucidities' of the fossils. Whatever the reason, it's a beautiful effect and a total surprise. A colorful brachiopod on a colorful rock I really like the contrast of theses two plate Don't need to search, no fossil here. Just a color full formation. Crinoid columnals are the most commonly recognized crinoid fossils, they are individual pieces of the column, or stalk, these resemble small washers. Olympic logos gone wild or Crinoid columnals, you choses. I particularly like the circles with a small star inside Columnals are joined together in life by elastic ligaments and skin. However, when the animal dies these soft tissues quickly decay and the stem break apart into individual ossicles, they leave behind a great many fossils. After the crashing waves, they sometimes cover themselves with air bubbles, giving this strange old world a new dimension. The hole in the center of the columnal is called the axial canal. It is most commonly round but may also be pentagonal or star-shaped, like this 1 millimeter fossil. Despite their small size some fossils can still be the star of the show. Bryozoans consist of a skeletal structure of calcium carbonate that has numerous tiny holes or openings dotting the surface. These holes once housed individual bryozoan animals called zooids, that derived their nutrients from the seawater. Atlas Of Ancient Life I found this briozoma all alone on this big boulder, strangely it comes out of the rock and comes back in right away. This is another bryozoan, it was on a smaller rock and I was able to collect it for my collection Most colonies were only a few inches in diameter but a colony of an Ordovician form found in the Cincinnati region ( Florence, Kentucky) is more than 26 inches in diameter and is one of the largest known bryozoan colonies. I really like this formation for it's richness of colors Photo taken in direct sunlight of a wet bi-valve Again, mother nature was playing with ice producing these wonderful sculptures everywhere we look. It was such a nice day, I couldn't resist taking some in picture. See other Ice sculpture Here. Crinoid columnals trapped under translucent ice. I found all theses fossils in just haft a day at that very special place. For those of you that did not see my previous post about my first fossil fishing trip, your in luck because it is still available HERE.

Hi everyone! Around 2 months ago on the 16th of october 2021 I went on a fossil hunting trip with the BVP to the stone quarry of Lompret in Belgium. https://www.paleontica.org/locations/fossil/654 The rocks in this quarry are Devonian in age and date back to the Frasnian (382.7 million years ago to 372.2 million years ago) with the finds mostly being from both the Neuville and Matagne Formations. According to Tom our excursion leader this quarry exists out of what used to be coral reefs and islands that formed around atolls. The fossils that you can find in this quarry are Brachiopods, Bivalves, Gastropods, Corals, Bryozoans, Cephalopods like Goniatites and Othocone Nautiloids and in very rare cases Placoderm and trilobite material (although no one was that lucky during the excursion). The quarry is also very rich in minerals like Baryte, Calcite, Quartz, Galena, Fluorite, etc... I have long looked forward to visiting this quarry, so I was very happy to finally be able to go and it did not dissapoint! It was quite foggy in the morning when we arrived which both looked eerie and cool at the same time, luckily it later cleared up! There where quite a lot of other people in the quarry (mainly people looking for minerals like Byrite and Galena) but our club headed straight to higher plateau of the quarry where some of the black Matagne Shales where with very nice Pyritized fossils and to where the waste heaps were to look for fossils. That's me looking for Brachiopods and pyritized Goniatites and Bactrites. A large Hexagonaria coral which was a little to heavy to bring home We also found some Pyrite cubes which (although very exhausting) we managed to extract

I just got back from an amazing and very fruitful week of fossil collecting on the White River Formation in northeastern Colorado. The White River Formation is a very easy and fun rock unit to collect vertebrate fossils on. The White River Formation was deposited during the very latest Eocene and the early Oligocene, though the faunal diversity in the areas I was collecting on suggest it was laid down during the Orellan North American Land Mammal Age, which centers on around 33 million years ago during the Rupelian age of the Oligocene Epoch. I am very lucky to have a grand uncle Gary (no biological relationship to me, is a close family friend who we’ve called “uncle” since I was a toddler) who is a cattle rancher up in northeastern Colorado, and he happens to have a pretty good amount of White River exposure on his property, in addition to some of the neighboring ranches of which Gary knows the owners and helped me to secure permission to collect on a few of them. He really is a great guy and is a real life true American cowboy. He has an interest in natural history and was eager to hear all about the fossils and geology of the area, though has never had the formal education or done the research to learn much about what’s out there. This is the second fossil collecting trip I’ve made to the ranch, though the first one where I’ve stayed for more than one night. The place truly is an amazing trove of fossil treasures and I can’t wait to tell you all about my week! In this thread I’ll make one post for each day (so as to not hit the picture limit too soon). Once I have the fossils prepped I’ll give updates here as well. Day 1, Sunday: My first day at the ranch began, ironically, at my own house. I had packed up the Jeep the night before with my field bag, two coolers filled with seven day’s worth of food, a suitcase full of clothes, and other such supplies for my fossil safari. I left my home early in the morning, took I-76 east to Fort Morgan, and then headed north to the ranch, in total about a 2.5 hour drive. The rest of the morning and early afternoon I spent visiting with and going over logistics with Gary and his wife and settling in at the ranch house I would be staying at, a property that used to be the home of another rancher before Gary acquired the property in 2002. They still maintain the house and it has both electricity and running water, so it makes a fantastic guest house and a place to stay when they’re doing work over on that side of their land. In the evening after I had made myself a quick dinner I decided I wanted to head down to a very productive exposure I had collected on last September for the evening. There was a partial oreodont skeleton that I had discovered eroding out of the hill the last time I was up there, and I wanted to see if there were any more bones there that had eroded out and I could collect. I picked up a few more bones from the feet and ankles that had been exposed in the last eight months and decided to take a scenic route back to my vehicle. A photo of the area of exposure I was in Sunday evening. This piece of badland will become very important throughout the rest of the week... On my walk back I walked over a ridge that I had apparently never been over, becase on a flat wash I noticed a pile of bone fragments. I approached the pile assuming that it would be yet another exploded tortoise shell that are so common in the area. As I got closer however, I was delightfully surprised to see the distinctive black color of fossil enamel, and a bit of digging revealed an eroded Subhyracodon jaw section, along with several loose teeth that I presume had come from the same section of jaw. This find, along with an oreodont jaw section I found later on while walking back to the Jeep that night, would be but a foreshadow of the big finds I would make later in the week. Two photos of the Subhyracodon jaw section as it was found in the field. The jaw section and some teeth after I had cleaned them up a little bit at home this afternoon.

Hello everyone, this summer I'll spend a month in Germany for an internship project and in the weekends I'm planning to explore the region and collect fossils as much as possible. I'll be based near Frankfurt. Due mostly to the language barrier I couldn't find many info about fossil hunting spots easily accesible or open to the public. Therefore I'm looking for your help here. Do you know any such place? I think that as long as it is a couple hours drive from Frankfurt, I can make it . I read about the quarry in Eckelsheim, but I understand that it currently closed to fossil hunters. Is that right? Thank yoy very much, Fabio

Hello, I'm taking my son (9 years) on a 6 day road trip from Evergreen, Colorado to anywhere in Utah. We're avid fossil hunters and spend a lot of time looking in Colorado. We're going to do a trip to Utah and i'm building out the itinerary now. At this point, we're entirely flexible. That said, since it's just a few days, I was thinking about focusing on the Moab area and then heading back home through Telluride. Would love your ideas for places we should go or stop along the way. Thank you in advance, we really appreciate it!! Dan

Okay gang....let's have some fun....a contest of sorts... As an experiment, I'm going to have you folks here at the TFF choose the location my fossil hunting/camping excursion for May 2021... There are a few minimum requirements, however: Will take place over the Last Weekend in May, 2021 so I have up to 5 days available. Keep in mind, I allow a day to get there and a day to get back) Location must be no more than a ten hour drive from Omaha, Nebraska. (You can use Google maps or the like to figure drive time from Omaha) Primitive/Disbursed/Car camping must be available in the vicinity (Prefer no franchise campgrounds or RV parks, and I do not do hotels) Must be accessible to the public AND fossil hunting must be legal. (Though access fees if needed are OK) Please, no urban sites...the whole point is to get away from the city! Prefer to avoid Bear Country, but other critters are not an issue. Folks are welcome to join me, but prefer not to have the added hassle of kids and pets! "Contest" ends Saturday, May 8th at midnight, Central US Time Zone Trip may be delayed on short notice due to extreme weather or pandemic restrictions. I'll post up a way for folks to vote from all of the viable submissions on May 9th...and then I'll find out what sort of trouble you folks got me into! Winner gets a bunch of specimens from the site shipped to them- have to do your own prep work though! OK! Go go go go go! Where do you want to see me brave the elements and bust open some rocks for dead stuff?

hi I'll be in the Rochester mn area on Saturday and wondering where besides quarry Hill park can I take a small rock club group for fossil picking? good road cuts that safe for for old and young?

Hi everyone, now that it is a prohibitive time for fossil hunting (at least where I am!) I though it was a good opportunity for a little throwback. This summer I travelled to southern France and I had the chance to visit museums, paleontological heritage sites and, of course, collect fossils. Towards the end of August I met with a friend and we headed to an area that was quite popular among professionals and amateur collectors alike, but we didn't know any exact location. We stopped at a place that looked promising and we asked the owner of the land permission to survey and, potentially, collect. And we were very lucky indeed! Note that I cannot pinpoint the spot to you, because the owner asked not to disclose it. Here's a picture of the outcrop at the end of the day. It was a 1.5 m (5 ft) thick bed of grey marls with limestone interbeds, Cenomanian (Late Cretaceous) in age. As I am chiefly interested in the scientific aspect of collecting, I managed to record bed-by-bed stratigraphy and fossil occurences. I drew a few sketches and a log, so that no info will be lost. We found a lot of material. Large inoceramid bivalves (not pictured) were very abundant. Ammonites were relatively common, but very fragile and most of the time fragmented. We did find however a few complete ones. Here's the first find of the day. This large boulder was detached and, in hitting it with the hammer, this ammonite popped out undamaged: This was the largest specimen, before and after collecting: Another very delicate specimen, it may need a bit of prepping: And, finally, one of the most interesting find, a heteromorph ammonite, still to prep: In conclusion, I hope you enjoyed my post and my finds. Let me know if you have any ID suggestion, they'd be much appreciated. Cheers, Fabio

Hey! As some of you may know, I am a software engineer. What does that mean? I program. Cool, like games? Mainly essential or utilitarian programs, such as my own sorting algorithms (I know... riveting stuff!), but, yeah, games, sometimes. Anyways anyways weird questions aside, I'm Isaac. Full time fossil nerd, part time programmer. Recently, I began work on a sort of palaeo game, single-handedly. The premise of the game is just to explore a (randomly generated?) world, finding random fossils, prepping them, and exhibiting or selling them. I want to make the game as realistic (play-wise) as possible, and the graphics I've decided upon being low-poly (edgy, toony). I thought you guys might be interested in the development of this, and figured I'd post about it. NOTE: The point of this is NOT for commercial purposes, and I will not post any links to Youtube or some other commercial site. The point of this topic is for you all to get to know me, and for me to get feedback and input on mechanics and graphics of the game. Feel free to comment however you want about this game, constructive criticism welcome! I intend to carry on posting here through it's development, and would love input! Also, feel free to pitch me your ideas and / or roles in it's development. I'm currently not looking for a bigger team, although, it is just me, and I can see that being an issue further on. Ooh, another note, I don't necessarily intend on making this a payed / commercial game! Cheers for reading, and I hope you enjoy this look into my work!

So, I was digging through old fossil emails looking for some information, when I stumbled upon this gem. I think I didn't officially join the forum until Roz and RJB made the jump a few years later, but I thought this was still cool. haha ... Cheers, Brett

Was curious if anyone has used the Bureau of Land Management's new RAPTOR online permitting system. Doesn't seem to be working too well for me. https://permits.blm.gov/raptor/landing

Hello everyone! Fossil hunting is massive hobby of mine and I am trying to find new localities (that are of course, legal). I have a background in GIS and Spatial Analyses (albeit, working on completely different things!) and was thinking about using my geo-spatial skills to narrow down a few areas. In so far, I have layers dedicated to streams, bedrock, and DEM but I was curious if others have used GIS and remote sensing to aid in fossil hunting, and if so, are there any specific layers or techniques that you find to be particularly useful when searching for areas that may have fossils? Thank you!

Hi everyone, I want to start by saying I am new to the site, so I apologize if I do something incorrect commit a faux pas. I am a younger gentleman in college living in North Carolina; my father instilled a love for fossils in me from a young age, and as I grew up I would explore beaches and phosphate piles. Even though it is just a hobby, I put a lot into fossil hunting; my interest was always beyond the surface level of "I love shark teeth," and I have done countless hours of research. This brings me to the present day where I call your wisdom and guidance. Unfortunately, due to my age, I missed out on what I would consider the "golden age" for North Carolina fossil hunting. I have come to find that NC once had a lot more fossil sites. Mines have been shut down, sites overgrown, and closure to the public; it pains me greatly that I was only able to visit a phosphate quarry once. I know there are options, like joining the fossil club; I plan to do this when I can, my only problem is that I am short on funds and college absorbs a lot of time thereby making my schedule rigid during fall and spring (I am pretty sure this is when most of their events are held but I might be mistaken.) I guess the purpose of my post is to ask for thoughts and guidance from those far more knowledgeable than me; what should I do? I really love this hobby and while the Aurora Museum spoils and the rare beach finds there's nothing like expanding your passion to new heights. I know that giving locations is also a bit of a challenge given commercial hunters, but if there is any guidance you all can give me there that would also be great; I am open to any formation, while I don't have any kind of boat I am still interested to take note of those kinds of locations. Thank you all.

Goodmorning/ afternoon all! Being a middle aged 20 year old, I've outgrown the need to go trick or treating for candy on Halloween. This year, my brother and I were supposed to have my nephew over for the weekend. We had originally planned some fun activities for the little guy (he's 4) as real trick or treating was out of the question this year. Turns out this week that 4 of his day care workers came down with the Covid, so he's now in quarantine at his mom's house for 3 (her choice, she won't budge) weeks. All alone for Saturday now, I decided to go out and look for the real treats, fossils! I started by going to my first and favorite honey hole, knowing the site wouldn't be the best to collect currently. Fluctuations in water levels determine how ideal this location is, and the waters been very low this year. While this being a good thing, it's also been so low for some time that overgrowth has had more time to come in. This just makes it more of a pain to scope around, but for me that just means going down to the hands and knees. There were some spots where it wasn't as bad, but all of the ideal scrap spots required patience and sifting through. Not sure why, but I only took one picture in situ this time. Glad I did, because it was a nicer, plump blastoid! It only required a bit of digging around the rock, and prep should be easy peasy on this guy. For the first fossil hunt in a while for me, I would say that yesterday was a successful day out. I only take nicer, complete specimens now a days. I hauled home a nice Globoblastus norwoodi blastoid, an Uperocrinus pyriformis crinoid, a Platycrinites? calyx, and a nice little brachiopod I still need to ID. Heres everything cleaned/ prepped besides the Uperocrinus. I may just leave it as is, but something in me tells me I'll do detail work someday on it. I trimmed down the matrix and half prepped the blastoid. I think this one will stay like it is in matrix. I remove most of the calyxs from the rock, but figured it would be cool to keep a couple of fossils in their rock setting. The hour I spent out fossil hunting was much needed. This past month has only entailed packing up possessions, moving on, and working. Getting out was nice and much needed. Now I have some more fossils to pack up. Hope everyone had a fun, and safe Halloween. Regards, Jackson

Hi everyone! Today I went on another fossil hunting trip with the fossil club the BVP. https://www.paleontica.org/sites/fossil_site.php?plaats=3&language=en We visited the "La Couvinoise" quarry in Couvin, Belgium. The rocks in this quarry are part of the Hanonet Formation which lies at the boundry of the Eifelian & Givetian. But the layers we searched in today where all Givetian in age (387,7 - 382,7 mya), I mainly searched in the Crinoïd & Brachiopod layer. Although I have to admit that we probably visited the quarry at a bad moment, as the yield was quite poor in the quarry this time according to members who've been there before. Which was quite obvious as I think we only found our first fossil rich rocks after 50 minutes of searching and even then the first hour of finds where few and poor in quality. But after a while of searching I found some good and rich blocks and managed to get some decent Crinoïd stems, Brachiopods and some rugose coral pieces. But the best 3 finds we did during the last 30 minutes of being in the quarry. The 1st one was the only Trilobite I found during the hunt! Trilos are very rare from this quarry and I believe only 1 other member found one before me on this trip. I found a pygidium which is still partially enbedded in rock. At first I wasn't sure whether I was a trilo or a brachiopod but after having a couple of other members checking it out, they all believed it to be trilobite. The excursion leader time was quite amazed by the find as this trilo came from the Crinoïd layer, which is a layer where he believed no trilobite had ever been found. The trilobites are usually found in another part and layer a bit further in the quarry. So yeah I am very pleased with that find! The 2nd best find, was one I didn't find myself but recieved from our Excursion leader Tom, which was a piece of very nice Stromatoporoidea which I wasn't lucky enough to find. The 3rd best find an perhaps my favorite was something that Tom told me to check out. He had discovered the remains of a cave that collapsed during some excavations in the quarry. You could clearly see the remains of dripping stones on the walls and luckily for us, some pieces of those dripping stones where also laying on the ground. So I managed to take a nice piece of them home with me They are encrusted with a layer of dried mud but I am sure they will look gorgeous once they are cleaned! The rings are already clearly visable in some areas. Here are some pictures from inside the quarry. This was the way to the newly excavated plateau which unfortunatly was a complete was of time as not a single fossil could be found in those rocks. After that we went to the other lower parts of the quarry where I mainly worked in a single piece of wall in the Crinoïd layer. I was lucky enough to find a few good fallen blocks and some good places in the wall with some decent Crinoïds and Brachiopods. One of the nice Crinoïds stems I found in the layer. And here is the piece of wall that has some of the dripping stones in it.

Hi everyone! Yesterday my girlfriend & I went on a fossil hunting trip to an abandoned quarry in Resteigne in Belgium. https://www.paleontica.org/sites/fossil_site.php?plaats=10&language=en I am currently at home for some time due to mental health issues. I am currently dealing with despression and severe anxiety attacks all related to COVID-19, I am in a risk group and work in an essential store and the stress and way that people threat you finally became too much and I simply snapped. I finally decided to go see a doctor and a psychologist to help out of it all. Since besides going to work I hadn't left the house for the past 6 months and I really needed to get out to help me get rid of the stress and fear, so both the psychologist and doctor encouraged my to go on some fossilhunts as I needed to come out of the house and do some outdoor activities to help with my healing process. So yesterday I went on my first hunt to help me recover! The quarry we visited was an abandoned quarry in Resteigne and the rocks found there are Devonian in age. Most of the fossils found here are from the Eifelian (393.3 - 387.7 mya) and are part of the Jemelle formation. We arrived quite early at the quarry and spent almost 5 and a half hours searching for fossils here. Since we went on a normal week day, we were lucky enough the have the quarry all to our self! Since it was our first time in the quarry we didn't really find anything too spectacular, but I am very happy with the things we found and most important of all, we had a great and fun day! The surrounding environment was stunning and the weather was prefect, sunny but not too hot and not too cold! Ruguse coral in the rocks Only 15 minutes after we arrived we already found our first trilobite! Unfortunatly it was enbedded in a big boulder of very though rock at an impossible angle to remove. We did try to remove it, but when we noticed it would be near impossible and removing it would probably destroy the trilo we eventually decided to leave it. There where multiple other fossils in the same boulder, among them these nice Brachiopods

I found this in Nyack, NY near the water, close to where fossils have been discovered before. It looks as though it has some of the characteristics often discussed in this forum in regards to fossilized eg gs. Please forgive me if this is another river stone...

Dear TFF Members, It’s a bit late after my return, but I needed to wait for the delivery of my spoils by mail, which took a while :). Nevertheless, all the fossils are safely with me now, and I can share this report from the trip to Albania with you. I chose Albania (with a brief visit to Macedonia) as the next destination because it has everything a perfect holiday destination should have, namely: mountains castles lakes seas (Adriatic and Ionian) – btw, the name of the Albanian Riviera is well deserved lagoons with pretty birds canyons and quite a few interesting sites to visit, both from the ancient times, like Butrint to the bunkers from the communist times in Tirana.

Greetings Guy/gals! I'm making a short trip to Laredo Texas next month. Do any of you know if there's many fossils in that area. I will have a full day to poke around. I'm told that it's hill country, with many old washout creek beds. Any thoughts would be great. I'm a bit new to fossil hunting, so just thinking ahead. Thanks in advance, Joe

Hey everyone, This year I've been somewhat less active on the forum, although I did check in regularly to make sure I didn't miss anything important. The main reason for this is because this was my last year in secondary school, and, unsurprisingly, that comes with more work than usual (including university application). Even with corona and home-schooling, my workload didn't exactly diminish. However that doesn't mean I haven't been active in the paleo-field! In fact I have gone hunting quite a few times on the Zandmotor and made some cool finds that I'll share soon, and more recently, during my annual trip to the south of France, did some more successful hunting. In July I also went to the east of the Netherlands to go hunting with my friend @Hunter0811 and we found some pretty nice stuff. (I'll make some trip reports with my finds soon.) This year I started playing around with my dad's camera while in France to take some pictures of different animals I came across (mainly butterflies), ID them and submit them to iNaturalist (an app where you can upload your nature observations and make potentially useful scientific contributions, check it out, it's quite nice!), so that's a fun new little hobby I picked up. So for my 18th birthday, which was 4 days ago, my parents got me a sweet new camera! Despite the cancellation of my final exams (due to corona), I did graduate successfully! And, more importantly, my university application went very well: In October, I will officially be starting my MSci Palaeontology & Evolution at the University of Bristol! I am incredibly excited to start getting into paleontology more professionally and spend the next 4 years of my life studying my lifelong passion. According to the Center for World University Rankings, they are currently the best university worldwide for Paleontology. The city itself also seems really nice and student-friendly. On top of that, the Aust Cliffs are very nearby and that seems like a really interesting location to hunt at (although very different to the Zandmotor!). All in all, I think, and hope, that I'm gonna have a really fun time there, and I couldn't be happier to start this new chapter in my life. And I am glad to now share this news with all my friends on The Fossil Forum, as you guys have definitely played a big role in not only maintaining, but also deepening, my passion for all these "dumb dead rocks", and it has clearly paid off. So a big thanks to all of you in this wonderful community! Love you all! Max

I was wondering what the Texas law is for fossil hunting in a creek bed? I have been hunting in a creek and properties are fenced off above the creek. I have no interest in going onto the properties. I stay in the creek beds while I'm hunting. I just don't want to get myself in a pickle. I park near a bridge on the side of the road. This weekend I ran into a situation where the police came out to inspect why my car was there. Some of the people was understandably concerned since my car was there a couple of hours. Would it be a good idea to put a sign "fossil hunting" in my window to keep this type of thing from happening. I don't want my car to be towed while I'm hunting for fossil's. lol..

Hi, I found this tooth in South Carolina earlier this summer and was wondering what it was, right now I’m thinking desori or bene(I’m hoping its a benedini, but I don’t know how realistic that is)

Today I was able to get out to the outcrop along Rickard Hill in Schoharie, New York. I didn’t find a ton of interesting things because I was looking in a more crystalline layer of the Kalkberg formation that had less abundant fossils. I found a handful of nice orthid, spiriferid, and atrypid brachiopods and one fenestellid bryozoan. Next time I go I’m going to try and get into a different, more fossiliferous layer because the crystalline rock is hard to break and when it does it breaks randomly, often damaging the fossils.

So I am in the process of building a raft in order to reach those backwoods fossil hunting spots. I really don’t want to spend the money on a canoe/kayak that I will only use a few times. Is this a waste of my time and effort?

A month or so ago I found these while trout fishing in a creek in the lower Champlain valley. I have no idea what they are, so any info would be very helpful. They were from Ordovician rock that was pretty barren except for a few brachiopods.