Search the Community

Hi, Monday I visited a new site highly recommended by another TFF member. It was a roadcut on an interstate highway near Schoharie, NY. The roadcut exposed what I believe (based on fauna and preservation) the Lower Devonian Kalkberg Formation, part of the Helderberg Group (410 million years old). The day was gorgeous. Temp was in the low 70s. Fossils were plentiful in particular layers and the preservation was often excellent. Many were found loose from the matrix lying in the rubble. As with other exposures of the Kalkberg in Schoharie County, the biodiversity was awesome. I collected for two and a half hours, exploring only about half of the exposure when a state trooper pulled up and informed me that this highway allowed emergency stopping only and recommended I move along. I had time to gather all of my finds and my tools. I am a bit sad knowing I can't return to this very productive site and that there were likely more magnificent specimens still sitting there waiting to be picked up. However, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to collect there once. Here is an overview of my finds and a pair of Diaphorostoma ventricosum gastropods on matrix.

My family and I went on a cruise in December and my 10 year old dragged me to the watercolor painting lessons during the "at-sea" days. I got hooked on painting, she didn't...Anyway, these are my first attempts at combining two of my hobbies.

This past weekend I stopped by Glenerie, NY to look for some Devonian braciopods and gastropods. This was a very cool location as many of the shells, preserved in silica, weather out of the rock complete and ripe for the taking. Thanks @Jeffrey P for suggesting the location! I plan to spend much of this summer exploring the fossil localities of NY and this spot was certainly a great introduction. Here are some of my finds. Brachiopods

I made two trips to Little Falls NY recently, one alone, and one with my 10 year old that I took to Penn-Dixie last year. Both trips were successful. The fossils are abundant, relatively easy to find and extract, and the site is kid-friendly. It is slippery on the slimy shale in the water, so be careful. The shale can be sharp and cuts fingers easily if you use ungloved hands to brush bits away from a site you are excavating. The shale is also very oily, can will stain fingernails, so consider gloves with covered fingers. Rare pyritized fossils can be found. I also found two cephalopods.

This is my first time posting. My husband is a huge fossil enthusiast. Our two sons and I would like to surprise him by taking him on a fossil hunting excursion for Father's Day. We live in NYC, and are hoping to find someplace that's fun, that's within 2-3 hours of the city, and that also has the opportunity to hike or swim or do one other activity of some kind. Any suggestions? Thank you for any help or ideas you can share - we really appreciate it.

Hello! I found this rock along the trail at the bottom of the canyon in Whirlpool State Park, NY, along the Niagara River. Very curious to know what the fossils might be. The rock was in a pile of recently fallen shale from the side of the canyon. I was tempted to keep it, but left it there for others to find and enjoy! Thanks for your help!

I found this in New York. It appears to be petrified wood. I polished it, unwittingly realizing it was some sort of fossil. Can anyone help identify what it is? It is about 1" in size.

While rock hunting in my father-in-law's front yard, I found this. My father-in-law lives less than a half a mile from the Long Island Sound, NY. Is this petrified wood? Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Hi everyone! My name is Steve, and I live in “upstate” New York (Saratoga County). I was very interested in paleontology as a kid, but I did very little actual fossil hunting. Now that my son is old enough, I would like to start hunting for fossils with him, and eventually with my younger daughter as well. TFF has a ton of great content, and I’m just scratching the surface. I’m glad to be a member, and I hope to able to contribute in the future! - Steve

I went on a short, 2 hour hunt today after work. I decided to hit the trilo layer at Briggs Road once again. I found a fair amount of trilo parts and a few which may be whole. Here are some of the finds.

You know I am very fortunate to be able to collect in a lot of special places and with a lot of great fossil friends. Over the years I have had the good fortune to meet many of you and even prep a few fossils for some of you that are patient enough and brave enough to trust your gem to what is for the first time a stranger. Arkona, Bowmanville , Brechin, Ridgemount are all special places that I collect....... but equally special is New York States very own Penn Dixie Fossil Park. A real gem. Now some of you might think that Penn Dixie is not for the serious collector ......... but you would be dead wrong. Just ask a few of our Forum Members that came away with exquisite and mighty rare Bellcartwrightia from there last season. I was fortunate to be able to prep a few of them . I even found one earlier this season myself but alas as my post on the forum showed it turned out to be a less than stellar partial but none the less the only one in my collection. Well I was at Penn twice in the last week and a half, once to get in Jay's (Devonian Digger) way as he was getting the area ready for the upcoming "Dig With The Experts". Both times I went with Greg from the forum here. He is my designated driver it seems so far this year.......(Dave you may have been replaced).. You see I have this phobia and cannot drive over large bridges. Well anyway back to the story....... Since I spent so much time helping Jay (getting in his way) on the Friday I needed to go back this Sunday to actually look seriously for some fossils. Kane from the forum as you can see from his posts was there later on the Friday afternoon just as we were finishing up with the excavator. For some reason only my cart and saw ended up in any of his pictures. I The Friday was a reasonable day as I came away with about 15 complete eldredgeops and a so so bug that will be either a greenops or a bellacartwrightia once I get around to prepping it. Greg and I had a pretty good day on this past Sunday. I came away with probably 20 to 25 complete trilobites and Greg seemed to have a fair amount in his bucket but only asked me to cut out one large prone Eldredgeops for him. Anyway on to the topic at hand . ... Since greenops and bella's at Penn seem to occur in clusters On Sunday I went to the area I found the greenops on the Friday and I found what looked to be a promising Greenops. Both were in the first inch of the Smoke Creek (no Jay I will not tell you exactly where). For those of you going to "The Dig WIth The Experts" there is plenty of this material that has been piled up for you in an area that is off limits till the 19th of May. Jay and I did take a walk about the piles and we can see that the material for this year'd dig looks to be excellent. We both saw complete trilobites, brachs and cepholapods waiting to be removed from the rock. I must say we were both very good and made sure that no one (especially Kane) collected from the out of bounds area. So here is the promising Greenops that I found on Sunday as collected, prior to any preparation. I did not get a picture in the field but as is typical of how I collect ( I am an excavator) it was in a 200 plus pound slab that I removed from a bench that I was excavating. Don't look like much.... obviously the eye is less than perfect........ but looks can be deceiving.. Here it is again after a couple minutes of prep... After 1/2 hour it is actually starting to look like a fossil albeit a compressed , twisted and somewhat deformed one... but that gives it character Prep is being done on a COMCO MB1000 at about 50 PSI using 40 micron dolomite. using .015, .018, .025 and .030 Comco nozzles . All work is being done under an Olympus zoom scope at 7x to about 20x magnification Scribe work on this bug is with a British Sealy for the rough work an American ARO for general work and a German Pferd MST31 for the fine work. A real mishmash of nationalities.... Progress continues... At this point definitely thinking that it is a greenops (not a bella) and that it has some potential even though I can see it has eye problems But what is this... is that another bug I see coming into view.... could it be a 2nd Greenops... that had been completely hidden We like hidden bugs as they have the greatest potential to be pristine... nice genal spine poking out of the matrix... probably means the whole cephalon is there Definitely looking like there might be two (which I believe is pretty rare for Penn Dixie).... We find lots of pygidiums but rarely multiple complete greenops on the same plate... Anyway fingers crossed at this point... After a bit more prep work...actually a lot more........ OH No !!!!!!!!!! the second one is inverted ... what a shame.. But what is that under the first greenops.... Oh my goodness its an enrolled large Edgredgeops......... Wait a minute ..... What an I thinking.... no reason to be upset,,,,,I can fix that ..... who says an inverted trilobite has to stay inverted.... Lets just do some prep magic and see what happens.... As you can see the second greenops was flipped in the same location on the matrix. Absolutely pristine killer eyes..... So here is the plate as it currently stands. I still need to make a level base for it once I decide exactly what orientation that I want to present it in. I need to do a final clean at high magnification with a .010 nozzle and low 15 PSI to get the last bits off and remove any abrasive that is still there (the white stuff) Total prep time about 6 hours. I also need to decide if I want to repair the broken right genal spine on the attacking bug and its left eye. I am thinking yes for the genal spine as that is an easy repair as either a mold of another bug's spine or a part from a spare cephalon if I can find a size match(always take home cephalons of greenops that have genal spines you never know when you will need one) Let me know what you think I should do in the way of repair/ restoration. I am thinking a restored genal spince will definately enhance the overall look of the piece I absolutely love this plate and it is staying in my personal collection.To me these are natures work of art. I am calling it "Attack of the Killer Greenie's". When you sit staring at a bug under a scope for many hours doing prep you have lots of time to think. In my wild and crazy imagination I can see this pack of Devonian raptors swooping in on the big fat Phacops ... a moment in time , captured forever. Actually this would just be the random way they ended up postmortem......but it sure is neat to speculate.... Again from a slightly different angle.... I would say that if you can find specimens like this at Penn Dixie it is well worth the trip. (Well I think so anyway) As I understand there are still a few spot available for the Sunday of the Dig With The Experts Weekend. I had hoped to be there helping out with my trusty saw and limited advice ......but as you would have know it my wife scheduled my daughters birthday celebration for the Saturday... So not this year...... Here are a few extra angles... Note that there is a partial greenops or Bella pygidium under the Eldredgeops..... Should I have continued looking......... Naw a some point you have to say it is good to go..

Recently, I have obtained a Wikipedia account so that I could update articles on some of Vermont’s geologic formations. The first of which I have made is the Ordovician age Crown Point Formation, in which I have collected many rocks completely covered in fossil invertebrates. Although I am unsure as to how far this formation goes (possibly extending into New York as well),localities known for having some of the most fossils from the formation include the towns of Panton and Isle La Motte. In creating the list, my main source of information was Paleontology of the Lake Champlain Basin in Vermont, as well as my own observations of what fossils were collected by myself and other members of the Burlington Gem & Mineral Club when we collected specimens from private quarries in Panton, VT last October. However, as my main source was written in 1962, the names and classification for some of the fauna included in the list may have names that are dubious, and the list itself if subject to change. If there is any further information that should be added to the article, please let me know, or edit the page responsibly (basing your facts/information with resources). Note: I have not added algae & porifera yet, so this post (and the Wikipedia article) will be edited. The Crown Point Formation Cephalopods Maclurites magnus Stereospyroceras champlainensis Vaginoceras oppletum Vaningenoceras sp. Proteoceras perkinsi Proteoceras pulchrum Plectoceras jason Nanno sp. Trilobites Bumastus erautusi Bumastus globosus Cryptolithus tesselatus Eoharpes antiquatus Flexicalymene senaria Isotelus gigas Pliomerops canadensis Vogdesia bearsi Echinoderms Dendrinocrinus alternatus Brachipods Atleasma multicostum Camerella varians Macrocoelia champlainensis Corals Streptelasma expansum Foerstephyllum wissleri Lambeophyllum profundum Bryozoans Praspora orientalis Rhinidictya fenestrata Stictopora ramosa

Despite the foreboding weather prediction, the conditions for the spring gathering of TFF members at Deep Springs Road quarry was nearly ideal; sunny and pleasantly cool in the morning and when the rain finally did arrive in early afternoon it was only light and intermittent. Kane had announced to us he was traveling across the border from Ontario, accompanied by his wife, Deb, and member of the month, Jay (Devonian Digger). Members from New York, PA., Connecticut, and Massachusetts wanting to meet them and collect at a great spot gathered there. Deep Springs Road is the easternmost exposure of the Middle Devonian Hamilton Group's Moscow Formation's Windom Shale, the same formation exposed at Penn Dixie where Jay work and collects. But the fauna at Deep Springs Road is entirely different. Corals are nearly absent. Bivalves are extremely abundant. Species such as the large trilobite Dipleura dekayi which are very rare at Penn Dixie are common here. Every rock has the potential to reveal the gems of this rich and diverse fauna. Oh, and by the way, thanks largely to Kane and Jay's and Darktooth Dave's prodigious efforts a massive amount of rock was moved. In the picture, left to right-Kane's wife Deb, Jay, Mike (Pagurus) and his wife, Leila. Above them- Kane. On the far right, Tim (Fossildude19).

One of my 5-year-old's treasures. He has a keen eye for the interesting. We have such a variety of stone formations and tufa out here it's tough to tell what is what. I would love to give him an answer on this one. Thank you again for your help!

Hi everyone, for your consideration - I excavated for a septic system on my property here near Chittenango Falls, NY, which is Lower Middle Devonian. Can anyone identify from picture whether or not this is bone? There are a couple more rocks just like this one. I can post more pictures if need be, thank you for your time!