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Buried in Stone: Shores of area lakes, rivers ideal for digging up fossils By Brian D. King, Tahlequah Daily, Oklahoma Yours, Paul H.

Tammy and I made our first post-pandemic roadtrip and we went to Chicago to see family. Decided to drive as I was not yet comfortable with airports and airplanes. I had hoped to visit a site in southern Illinois where blastoids used to be plentiful and easy to find. Sadly, that site was mistreated and is no longer available. Members here on the forum suggested several alternatives which should produce the blastoids that I longed to hunt for. We found that the large (and well known) roadcut just north of Sulphur, Indiana was along the route (kind of) on our return trip and so it was added to the itinerary. We drove down from a last lunch in Chicago's Chinatown and crossed Indiana to check into a hotel in a small town just west of Louisville, Kentucky. The plan was to drive west to visit this Chesterian (Late Mississippian) site and see what we could find. We got up early, refueled, and had a quick breakfast since we planned on returning to the hotel and cleaning-up before the 11am checkout time. The morning proved to be much more overcast than the preceding evening. Things weren't looking promising as we were getting out to the site. You can see in the photos that the sky did not show promise of cooperating with us and the pelting rain along the highway was less than encouraging. The rain had slowed to a light drizzle and we arrived at the roadcut which provided nice wide shoulders to pull off the road a safe distance. Tammy decided she'd let me do the scouting and see if it was worth leaving the dry warmth of the car and so she stayed behind with her tablet to entertain her while I made good use of my raincoat. It took a while to find a good access point to climb up the first and lowest wall of this stepped roadcut. I walked most of the way down the road only to see the wall get taller and less accessible. I crossed over the road and walked back the way I had come till I found an opening. The rock face would have been easier to scale had it not all become quite slick from the rain. Once up on the first terrace level I walked along till I spotted a means of climbing up another level. I was headed up to the loose talus slope between the second and third levels. Along the way I spotted what I believe might be the Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina)--the shell patterns seem to be quite variable on this species but I'm sure @Tidgy's Dad could confirm or refute. When I finally started seeing crinoid stem segments and a number of small rugose corals I knew I had found the level I was looking for. It didn't take too long to spot the first blastoid looking like a pentagonally symmetrical marble. Most of the little Pentremites sp. blastoids were in the pea to garbanzo size range. Many of them were loose but a few were still attached to a chunk of the matrix. I spotted a little piece of the matrix that looked to be peppered with a bunch of semi-articulated plates from what I'm guessing is a crinoid calyx. This needs further inspection with the aid of some magnification. I took some in situ shots of my finds as I figured I'd probably write a post on this site. I selected a number of the nicer finds and upon review of the images I noticed that had missed things that I could clearly see in the images. I was so focused on developing the blastoid search image (rounded items with the pentagonally V-notched edge on the top) that I forgot that the Archimedes screw shaped bryozoans were also here. You can clearly see an Archimedes screw bryozoan actually touching the blastoid I picked up--talk about tunnel vision. https://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/fossil-month-09-2018-Archimedes.php The clouds were starting to break up and a little increase in light levels was welcome to aid the search. I could just barely see the car where Tammy was through the dense trees that cover this roadcut. I had tried to call her to let her know I hadn't fallen on my noggin yet but our cell phone reception was pretty poor here. Made a mental note to bring along some inexpensive walkie-talkie radios if we ever find ourselves split up and trying to communicate where cell phone coverage is poor. The rain had made the clay on the talus slope very soft and slippery. I spent a lot of time with multiple points of contact to the ground--holding on with both hands usually to avoid possibly losing my footing. Having my head held close to the ground in order to see the small blastoids obviously works better if you scan the area slowly. I knew I had limited time here and was searching somewhat quickly but I'm surprised that I missed this second blastoid just a hand-width away from the one on top that I did collect. It's also quite obvious (now) that I missed this other Archimedes that is nearly touching the blastoid underneath. At least I was getting pretty good at spotting even the tiniest of the blastoid specimens. I found a larger blastoid that had been flattened a bit and I spotted the first brachiopod. It was odd to see the brachiopods being so relatively rare as they were always so common at the few Devonian sites I'd hunted. I finally remembered that there were Archimedes at this site but only after I spotted this one. There is no telling how many more I missed. My time was running out and I was looking for one last find of the day before quitting and then trying to find a path back down (you never remember the path up as it looks different from above). Going down is usually more dangerous than up and so I spent extra effort looking for descents that wouldn't land me in the ER. Happily, the last find of the day was one of the largest of the blastoids. That seemed to put a cap on this 45 minute excursion into the Mississippian (my first fossil hunt from this geologic age). From up on top you can see the interchange with route 64 heading back to Lexington which is the route we took to arrive later that day in Asheville, North Carolina to visit friends we haven't see in 2 years. It was a fun little excursion and signs that a longer hunt would be even more productive. The fossil-bearing layer is about 2/3 the way up to the top of the slope. I spotted some better access points on the way back down and if I ever get back to this locality I hope to explore with with many more hours of time to dedicate to the hunt. Cheers. -Ken

One of the rock clubs I belong to decided to go on a geode hunt near Keokuk, Iowa. Our private hunting area was not accessible due to flash flooding that previous evening, so we went to another dig site. A good 20 inches of goopy muck unfortunately overlayed the rock that contained the geodes. So I was hot and exhausted by the time bedrock was found. For fear of heat exhaustion, I quit at about 3/4ths of a bucket full. I will take these to the children's fossil pit for the kids to "find". Here is what the collecting site looked like., a split slab showing some geodes surrounded by MUD! With geodes in hand, or at least in the back of my truck, off I went to collect some Burlington Limestone that contained fish teeth. Permission was granted from a quarry known to expose the layer needed. Once the correct "pile" was located, I quickly put about 50 pounds of matrix containing the teeth in with the geodes. This matrix will painstakingly be broken down this winter in order to extract the teeth. Here is some of the material collected showing how rich the rock is in fish pieces. All of the black specks are fish remnants. While loading the truck, mother nature was beginning to expose a mayfly hatch. No mayflies were present when I arrived, but a short time later, the hatch began. I had multiple routes available to take home and decided on one that took me through some Pennsylvanian strata. This would be new territory and hopefully interesting material for me to explore. An old mining operation near Oskaloosa, Iowa was converted into the Russell Wildlife Refuge. There are 5 mine pits on the property exposing the mississippian Pella Formation. I chose this site because it contains blastoids. Unfortunately, the blastoids evaded me. But plenty of new fossils were found!!!!!!!! Brachiopods were the predominant fossil found, but some bivalves, crinoids, gastropods, and bryozoans showed up. Brachiopod ID was difficult due to the lack of much information. I tried my best and am open to changing the identity of anything labeled or adding a name to the unknowns. The rugosa coral has a beautiful appearance and is know for the protrusions on its surface. Most fossils found needed very little cleaning and are presented as shown like these corals. All fossils found are on the small side, That is why this burrow surprised me. I wonder what "large" animal existed in this environment. I have always had an affinity for epibionts. And they were plentiful here! As mentioned earlier, this site is known for blastoids. But the other unique feature is the presence of crinoid stems with bryozoan epibionts. This was a fun spot to hunt and recommend it for a great variety of Pennsylvanian fossils!!! Mike

As a late Father's Day gift and early Birthday present (I turn 39 tomorrow ) I spent 4 hours Saturday morning in the Glen Dean Limestone. A Carboniferous (Mississippian) formation. As usual, I was channeling my inner mountain goat and scrambling around a Central Kentucky roadcut. As I pulled up to the road cut my heart sank. Grass had grown on the exposure. If memory serves, the last time I was here was in the middle of September of last year and the exposure was bare. Most finds are small so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find much. Luckily my fear and apprehension was unfounded. As a side note... I wasn't intending to use a screw driver for scale, but you will see the tip of one in multiple pictures. I was using it as a way to mark where the fossil was while digging my phone out of my pocket, but since it is there I will tell you that it is 5mm wide to give a little perspective. With the finds being on the small side, and surface collecting the norm, these were my weapons of choice. A collecting bag of some sort is preferred here over my usual plastic container. It's been my experience that the bag conforms to the slope better and tends to roll up on itself should it start to tumble down the hill side preventing its contents from spilling out. Below is a typical section of ground here. It is littered with bryozoan and crinoid stem fragments. I knew the day was going to be good when my first find was this very long example of Archimedes sp. I'd estimate it to be about 7 inches (nearly 18cm) long. In an exposure that is notorious for broken and flattened fossils, this was a real treat. Unfortunately it was in a rock that was too thick and wide to chisel it out of. I'm fairly certain my chisel and hammer would have worn out long before the rock did. Horn coral are always nice to find. Especially these, which are some of my favorite. Zaphretites spinulosum. Another favorite find from this exposure is crinoid cups. There are multiple species of crinoid here. Crinoid calyx cups are on the uncommon to rare side of finds, but I made out like a champ with crinoids on this trip. Stick around to see some of my rarer finds of the day. Echinoderms are probably my favorite type of fossil to find, and so crinoid cups are great, but my absolute favorite thing to find here is blastoids. Pentremites is the genus to be found. There are several species known from the Glen Dean. That is it for the field pictures. Next up are a few pictures of finds taken after I got home. Horn coral (Zaphretites spinulosum) Calyx cups from various species of crinoid. Blastoids! All are species of Pentremites. The ones on the left are massive for the formation, and rare. Although they are preserved in the typical fashion, crushed and deflated. The middle are more common and are typical size and preservation. The ones on the right are typical size, but are inflated. Pardon the fingers, but it was the best way I could find to get a clear picture of this particular blastoid. I wanted to show the preservation detail. Lovely. Extra long crinoid stems that I grabbed. An line up of brachiopods found here. The last three on the right are typical of the preservation. Just like anything else here they are deflated and crushed. The middle two are new to me species and were found at the transition layer from shale to limestone. The three on the left are preserved in a rare fashion being that they are inflated. Close ups to follow. Again, pardon the man hands. And finally these next few pictures are of the rarest of my finds from this formation to date. These are small gastropods. I still need to research an ID, but @Jeffrey P told me about these when we hunted the location last year and mentioned them as being very rare for the exposure. We only found a couple of broken fragments between the two of us after hunting for 6 hours or so. I found 5 complete ones this time around. Next up is a crinoid cup that has plates attached. I also found a grouping of crinoid arms. These do not go together and were found far apart. Not quite a complete calyx, but maybe next time. That concludes my report. It was a good turn around to a slow fossil year for me. I added many new and rare (for this exposure) things to the collection. I couldn't have asked for a better Father's Day/early Birthday present! Thanks for looking. Edit: I almost forgot the rarest of the rare! I have never read about trilobites being described from this formation and have never seen any other than this tiny pygidium. A small (4mm), but extremely rare (and possibly undescribed) find.

When I break open brachiopod packstones from South Haven (MI), I usually find three types of tiny to small fragile brachiopod shells more often than any others. These are from the Mississippian Coldwater Shale formation. I’ve been having a private discussion with a fellow forum member, and we’ve come to the conclusion that these are likely all from the same brachiopod. The largest shell in the first photo always bows inward. The shell in the second photo always bows outward. We suspect those are opposite sides of the same half because of the V on the one side and the indent on the other. The shell in last photo is more flat than the other two. And, after reviewing my rather extensive collection of these specimens today, I can verify that the shell from the first photo can be found with similar growth rings akin to the ones in the last photo. The problem is, the farthest we seek to be able to take the ID is a chonetide. It looks similar to a European species called Tornquistia. Does anyone here have any other ideas?

Fossil found in Sierra County New Mexico in a wash located in the Monticello Canyon. Geological determination for this area is documented as Cretaceous - Mississippian. We have found horn coral and some type of sea sediment rock in the wash. Would like to have an opinion on this fossil embedded in rock.

After cracking open this packstone, I happened upon this odd little fossil. I did a bit more excavating to uncover the extra lobe. So far, the speculation is leaning heavily toward some sort of Actinocrinites plate. There are a few people pondering echinoderms. What are the general thoughts here on this piece? From South Haven, Michigan. Mississippian Coldwater Shale.

So many different ideas have been tossed out for this piece now. I thought perhaps some folks who aren’t in the Facebook group I regularly post in might have some clue to be able to narrow this down. The tan-colored half seems to be two layers of diagonal lines stacked on top of one another in a crisscross pattern, creating the holes in between. This is another Mississippian Coldwater Shale packstone from South Haven, MI.

Hi, I am in search of Plate 8 from the following paper. Yes, the paper is published online at Biodiversity Heritage Library, but both Plate 8 and its accompanying "Explanation" (i.e., captions) page are unfortunately missing from the online edition. Please post a scan if you have easy access to Plate 8 from this paper, thanks. Driscoll, E. G. 1965. Dimyarian Pelecypods of the Mississippian Marshall Sandstone of Michigan. Palaeontographica Americana, No. 35.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what makes this sort of pattern? The opposite side was just a plain, smooth clay deposit. Found this Coldwater Shale piece in South Haven, Michigan, along the shores of Lake Michigan. I did have someone suggest Fenestate bryozoan. When I tried looking it up though, I found a ton of variants.

Hey everyone. I’m looking for more information on Goniatites found in the Mississippian Coldwater Shale. I found this little guy today after cracking open another packstone (second to last photo shows the host stone) I picked up in South Haven, Michigan, along the shores of Lake Michigan. Any insights you could toss my way would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much for your time!

Late last year @minnbuckeye was kind enough to send me a test tube full of fragments of teeth he collected from an exposure of the Mississippian Burlington Formation in Iowa. As part of the deal, he asked that I post photos of my better finds from the tube. These are the first Mississippian fish teeth in my collection. I am really happy with what Mike was willing to share with me and I cannot thank him enough. I also owe a big thank you to @Elasmohunter for helping me identify the finds. If you haven't seen it already, check out Mike's trip report from his hunt of the Iowa Burlington Formation... His finds are really cool! My best and favorite find is probably this Orodus cf. varicostatus Orodus cf. ramosus Deltodus sp. Antliodus sp. Venustodus sp. Cladodus sp. And by far the most abundant of the teeth fragments was Chomatodus sp.

Some new finds from an exploratory trip to Southern Illinois and Missouri. Originally I was focusing on Silurian rocks, but wasn't having much luck. Mississippian fossils Kaskia chesterensis Richmondian stage fossils Missouri Conulariid impression. Very beautiful magnified. Haven't had much time yet to look up names. Not sure what this species is. Very small, just a few mm. Thanks for looking!

I recently found this fossil while walking in a shale creek bed in Cuyahoga County, Ohio (Northeast Ohio just south of Cleveland). The area is late Devonian - early Mississippian. The piece is approximately 11cm x 7cm (4.25in x 2.75in). Any help in identifying it would be greatly appreciated.

I found this in the bank of the Iowa River amongst a nice collection of brachiopods. I have been trying to visualize an ancient living creature at the center of this rock, but I suspect my great discovery is nothing more than some type of weird rock. Would really appreciate your expertise and opinions! I have included photos of Left outside Right outside Middle Left middle Right middle Closeup Fossils from reference layer. IMG_0976.HEIC IMG_0975.HEIC IMG_0972.HEIC IMG_0971.HEIC IMG_0970.HEIC IMG_0969.HEIC IMG_0968.HEIC

Does anyone have any idea what kind of brachiopod this could be? I'm sure we can't identify the species, but maybe the family or even the genus? Carboniferous Serpukhovian Bear Gulch Montana

I had some spare time this past weekend, and a fossil hunt sounded nice. Bad weather had made that impossible the previous month. The weather was great out finally, so I went out Sunday (3/7/2021) to good old Truman Lake to look for Burlington Formation crinoids. I mainly just wanted to find and keep nicer, intact crinoids that day. It's a good walk to the crinoid hunting grounds from my car, and there is fossiliferous chert material along the way. I decided to split one chunk of chert, which contained only one single platyceras gastropod steinkern. After finishing work on it, I hid the snail along the trail behind a tree because it was to delicate to carry along. I actually ended up forgetting it, and will have to retrieve it next weekend. Once I got done walking and hit the encrinite rock, I decided to hunker down and look for recently fallen debris. Within 5 minutes I found my nice first possible complete calyx. Only prep would tell if this was complete, but it was worth throwing in the backpack. Looking low was paying off, because 3 feet away and right where the water level dropped was another one. I could tell right off the bat it was an Azygocrinus rotundus. It looked complete, but being lodged upright and inbetween two more pieces of rock, it was almost guaranteed to either be missing plates or extremely weathered. It was weathered, but actually better than I had thought! As I kept going, I kept flipping rock. Its always good to look at the underside of fossiliferous rock, because I've found some nice pieces that way. The next find was found doing just that, and looked to be a complete Macrocrinus verneuilianus. This is what I saw before flipping it over. And the backside after some rinsing in the lake. After throwing that in the backpack, I kept scrounging. Macrocrinus was the most common find of the day, and I found another within minutes. This one was buried in some sediment on a bigger chunk of rock. Can you find it? It will definitely clean up well. I spent another hour or so looking around and also managed to find a nice Uperocrinus pyriformis crinoid and another partial Macrocrinus verneuilianus calyx, but I didn't get pictures of those in the field. I cleaned up everything with soap and water when I got home, but I only had time to prep one crinoid and partially prep another one. Well, heres the calyxs cleaned up. Uperocrinus pyriformis Macrocrinus verneuilianus #1 (first crinoid find after final prep) macrocrinus verneuilianus #2 Macrocrinus verneuilianus #3 Azygocrinus rotundus Macrocrinus verneuilianus #4 And why not end on a brachiopod! Thanks for reading.

I found this fossil today in the Missouri Ozarks - we find fossils from the Mississippian period here. It is small: for scale I could probably just fit the tip of my pinky in it. We have lots of brachiopods, bryozoans and crinoid fossils around here but I have never seen this sort of interlocking "spine" (I know its not a spine). Does anybody know what this is a part of?

Work and weather have kept me from doing much fossil collecting these last couple of months. But I was finally able to photograph finds from my last outing. I found some interesting stuff I think. We'll start with my favorite find.. This is the large blastoid Xyeleblastus magnificus. They're always found crushed to some extent (even the holotype.) This is only the second blastoid I've found in the Fort Payne! Did well with the crinoids that day A very nice Agaricocrinus sp. with the stem attachment point exposed (they usually have that area filled with matrix.) Also shows an unusual texture that I havent seen on other specimen in my collection. Another Agaricocrinus sp. calyx slightly damaged and with calcite coming out from between the plates. Agaricocrinus is one of the three most common genus from that formation. Another being..... Alloprosallocrinus conicus. I never find one with the anal tube intact, most likely from them being transported and deposited. Heres a slightly rarer one... Gaulocrinus veryi I normally don't collect stem sections anymore, but I did decide to grab this large section.... Its a Platycrinites sp. stem. They are distinctively twisted. This is my second favorite find of that trip.. Its and Auloporid coral (most likely Cladochonus sp.) wrapped around a crinoid stem section! More later...

This little thingy was in Mississippian Redwall limestone in central Arizona. It was in a section of the Redwall with very few other fossils. It's about 10mm long and 7mm wide. What do you think?

I run across these guys frequently in the Mississippian Redwall Limestones around Arizona's Verde Valley. They are generally accompanied by lots of Crinoids and solitary Rugose Corals. They're always this oval shape with segmented structure. They look like an isopod, to me, but could be some other crustacean. Any help out there for the identification of these "bugs?"

I've had some difficulty narrowing down the identity on some assorted brachiopods. The diagnostic features may not be preserved but I figured I'd post them here to see if anyone knew. @Tidgy's Dad Any ideas? The first is a single large valve from the Warsaw Formation in Fenton, Missouri (The old Meramec Bridge site). I've been able to track down most species reported from here and identify everything else but this one is harder. The wear doesn't help. The second are a couple o Echinoconchidae valve casts in chert from a creek in Lincoln County, Missouri. It could be residual chert. The area is otherwise Ordovician. 2.8 cm width x 2.5 cm height. 3.8 cm x 3.2 cm

It's been a long time since I've written a trip report. Not that I wasn't hiking, I was hiking like mad and finding stuff. Just didn't get around to documenting in the latter part of 2020. Too much craziness. A couple of days ago, I went in search of an extremely elusive shale formation, that contains some of the loveliest ferns I have seen. My records show I specifically planned 13 hikes last year trying to find another exposure. That was over 100 miles of fruitless searching. Zero. Zilch. Well, two days ago I found another small exposure. Scenic photos of the journey follow starting with walking uphill on an Ordovician rock bed The Ordovician transitioned into this Silurian bed with Devonian formations rising above it on the left Although fairly stumble-free walking this was relatively steep. That day I ascended 2,800 ft with my big pack full of tools, food and drinks. A nice shattered chert nodule in the Devonian. Just to show not everything has fierce thorns here, some 'Cushion Buckwheat'