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Beltzville State Park is one of those rare parks where collecting is allowed. The adjacent federal land, owned and operated by the Corps of Engineers to operate the dam there, is accessible ONLY WITH A PERMIT. It is a functioning spillway and there is a gun range for the local police, so you and USACE need to make sure you are safe. With that important disclaimer out of the way, here's the good stuff! Beltzville is a very productive Middle Devonian site which includes the PA State Fossil, the trilobite Eldredgeops rana. Although no one in the group found any definite complete buggies, a lot of froglike trilo faces went home in our buckets! It wasn't all trilos, though. We found bryozoa, corals, pteria oysters, gastropods, crinoids and probably a dozen kinds of brachiopods. I led this trip for the Natural History Society of Maryland. The trip director made this lovely video of our day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdB5atWQmeQ Yes, I realized about 20 minutes after she took that video of me showing off the pop-outs that I was holding the fronts of the cephalons of one species, not the eyeballs of the other. This is what I get for not looking with my reading glasses first! Most of my finds I gave to whoever was sitting closest to me, but here are a few I kept.

Hello TFF friends! During the summer, in August I was able to take a trip to northwestern PA to collect some fossils at various locations. One of them had many different types of trace fossils which I did not collect (something I regret doing as those ichnofossils were quite interesting and beautiful), but I also found this piece, it is a thin sandstone piece containing multiple bivalve steinkern a from 1 to about 2.5cm in length. I am not sure what formation it was, the closest I can think of that is present in the area is Lock Haven but that one mostly has brachiopods and I didn't get a single one of those. I know these are bivalves because the shells have very similar form, some are paired just like two opened valves of a bivalve and two display growth lines along the shell, unfortunately those are very hard to see on camera. I was wondering if anyone knows what these might be as I have tried researching the topic myself but have gotten very few results. Thank you very much, Misha

A few weeks ago @Jeffrey P and I met up in Eastern Pennsylvania to collect plant material in the Late Pennsylvanian Llewellyn Formation. We started our day at Centralia and then made our way to another site. I have visited Centralia a few times now but Jeff had never been there before. Our hope was to find Jeff a nice Trigonocarpus seed but unfortunately our efforts did not come up with anything. The pickings at Centralia were rather slim. However, we did see in-situ a large segment of Stigmaria ficoides root with rootlets. I ended up only keeping a few finds. The first is this Sphenopteris sp. I also kept this plate with several Lepidodendron branches After about an hour we made our way to the second site and spent the rest of the day there. I love to visit this site because I seem to keep finding something new on every visit. This time around I decided to break down a huge block and ended up with a lot of exciting finds. Lepidostrobophyllum lanceolatum Cross section of a Calamites cistii trunk showing the cell structure Asterophyllites longifolius Asterophyllites sp. Terminal Shoots Asterophyllites sp. (including this really big Calamites branch) Sphenophyllum emarginatum Cyclopteris fimbriata(?) Cyclopteris sp. I have found other seed ferns at the site before, but Laveineopteris rarinervis is definitely the most common fern. It also seems to be the only fern of which you will find blades. While splitting the large block down, I ended up breaking on a plane that exposed multiple Laveineopteris rarinervis blades. Unfortunately the largest blade was cut off by the end of the rock. Perhaps against my better judgment I decided to carry the huge plate out. Even after cutting off the excess rock at home it is still very heavy. And just because it would not be a hunt in the Llewellyn Formation without me finding something that I totally don't know what it is, here is a mystery plant.

On Saturday I took a trip to collect some Late Pennsylvanian plant material from the Llewellyn Formation of Pennsylvania. I am still working through my finds and identifying everything, but as an initial matter I had a question about two pieces. I have a guess on what they can be and was hoping someone might be able to confirm my suspicions. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you! First, I believe that this fossil preserves the cell structure of a Calamites stem Second, are these the terminal shoots of Asterophyllites? Unfortunately some of it broke in transport back to my house but I took a more complete photo of it in the field. I found a similar example on another piece

A little over a month ago my dad and I checked out two exposure of the Mifflintown Formation (Late Silurian) in Western PA. While the sites are known mostly for their brachiopods, we ended up finding a couple of other fossils, including several Favosites niaragensis, Hormotoma, and some trace fossils. While I would normally leave the trace fossils alone, I was really awed by the size and appearance of the burrows. I love the bumpiness of the burrows and randomness of their direction. They are almost a work of art. So I decided to take one home. I am not very good at identifying trace fossils though. Are these Planolites?

From what I've read and pictures I've perused I'm pretty convinced that this is a helicopter seed. Anybody have some insight for me? The venation looks too . . . regular, soI'm undecided. My son found it. I hope the photo does it justice.

Last weekend I took advantage of the warm weather to visit my favorite exposure of the Llewellyn Formation in Eastern Pennsylvania and collect some Late Pennsylvanian plants. I had not been to this site in some time but I was inspired to visit it again by some recent Llewellyn Formation fern finds by @frankh8147. I had the site to myself except for the noise of nearby ATVs and BMX bikes whose riders were also seeking to take advantage of the great weather. Despite temperatures in the fifties, there was still snow on the ground. I spent about 4 hours digging out and splitting large blocks of shale. What I like about this site is that you don't get the mash of dozens of plants on top of each other. Although the dark color shale makes it sometimes hard to see the plants, when you find a clearly visible example, the plant tends to be well preserved. As I am learning, this site seems to also have a wonderful diversity of Late Pennsylvanian flora. Overall the trip was a great success until the end of the day. As I was attempting to carry down my collecting bin with all of my finds, I tripped and crashed the bin into a large rock. While I survived the fall with only a couple scraps on my hand, the bin was totally destroyed and so too were most of my better finds. A view of the site Calamites appears to be the dominant flora at the site. Here is a large Calamites cistii trunk with my hand for scale Unfortunately the block was full of cracks and did not hold up, but I did find these cool smaller pith casts inside it I also found a really large block with several whorls of Asterophyllites equisetiformis. Unfortunately the piece was at the bottom of my bin and was totally obliterated during the fall. Here is all that I was able to save The first of several new finds for me were this partial and this immature Calamites cone (Calamostachys sp.)! Some of my favorite finds at this site are the remnants of lycophytes. I am yet to find an outer bark impression, but I have found several pieces showing the subepidermal surface. Here is an example of Sigillaria tessellata Cyperites bicarinatus Lycopodites meekii Lepidostrobophyllum lanceolatus Lepidodendron sp. Branches I thought this Sphenophyllum longifolium whorl was pretty cool due to its size and shape of the leaves Here are some of my better fern finds I was really excited to find my first ever Mariopteris decipiens with a partial Lepidodendron sp. branch on the piece too Cyathocarpus arborea This Cyathocarpus arborea would have been one of my best fern finds ever, but it too fell victim to my fall and did not survive. At least I have a photo! Laveineopteris rarinervis Neuropteris flexuosa I am still working on identifications for the rest. Last, but certainly not least, are a couple of mystery fossils. This plant appears to be vine-like with alternating leaves on either side. I have seen nothing like it in the literature . This plant is almost whisker-like, with thin radiating leaves that do not appear to connect to any central point I hope to make it back out to this site soon and hopefully continue finding new flora to add to the collection. Fingers crossed that I don't fall again!

After searching through a couple of publications on Pennsylvanian plants, I am a bit stumped on what this plant could be. It is certainly not the classic fern or horsetail that one often collects from the Llewellyn Formation of Eastern Pennsylvania. The preservation is ok - not perfect, but better than some plant material I have collected from this site. I unfortunately broke the piece trying to transport it out of the site. Here is an attempted close-up of the individual leaves and their venation Here is the negative with some more preserved venation Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

This past Saturday I collected some Late Pennsylvanian ferns and plants from an exposure of the Llewellyn Formation in Eastern Pennsylvania. I got lucky and found some new things to add to my collection, including the following. I am not quite sure what they are. My guess is that they are associated with a lycopod - possibly the terminal shoot of a lycopod branch where the Cyperites leaves come off. I did find Lepidodendron branches and Cyperites bicarinatus at this site. These fossils are really small - only about 1.5cm to 4cm in length. I also found this fossil that looks a little different than the other five- more cone-like, but I doubt it is a cone. It is also much longer than the other fossils, measuring about 7cm in length. The fossil continues underneath the rock chip- I tried to expose it more but the rock started to separate along the fossil so I stopped. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!