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Good morning forum. Can anyone tell me if this fossil is fauna or ????? It's from the early Triassic, lower Muschelkalk, Libiaz, Poland. Matrix is 70 x 50cm

Hi, In 2013 I bought a keichosaurus fossil from online , and since then I haven't thought much of it, after me and my mum and dad moved to a new apartment the fossil got somewhat forgotten, but today I tried inspecting it. I read some of the treads here but even with this I can't decide if mine is a real or a fake one. From what I have gathered there aren't many outright fakes, but more so real ones that are enhanced. I will be glad to hear your opinion on the pictures (sorry for the poor quality but I had to use my phone). Any response will be very much appreciated. Best regards to everybody.

Dear members, It’s time for another “review” of a palaeontological site I had the pleasure to excavate in. However this one is quite different from the others I already posted about: those were outcrops in Ohio, USA, where you could collect fossils freely or by signing a disclaimer. This time, instead, I had to operate alongside the institution that holds the concession to excavate and study the material. For fifteen days in August 2019 I excavated in the Late Triassic beds of Krasiejów, southwestern Poland, alongside the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, based in Warsaw. It is not the only “official” dig that I took part in, but, alas, the only I’m allowed to post pictures of! Krasiejów’s site has been exploited for the extraction of clay since the beginning of the XX century until 2002; the first scientific excavations took place in 1993 and the first publication was issued in 2000. Since then dozens of students and palaeontologists from all over the world have visited the site. The assemblage dates to the Late Triassic, but a more precise dating (Carnian or Ladinian) has not been assessed yet. Back then Poland was situated much southern on the Northern hemisphere, under subtropical conditions. Rivers formed extensive backwaters and swamps, separating islands from the dry mainland. Occasionally, intensive rainfall led to flooding that washed out skeletal remains and transported them to their final site of burial. Bones were then scattered and damaged, but rapid deposition led to their preservation. Krasiejów can therefore be classified as a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte. A section of the Bonebed is open to the public and it’s a truly mind-blowing sight! Dozens of skulls, mandibles and isolated bones of amphibians (later I’ll tell you exactly of which species) can be seen lying there since 220 million years ago. I pictured a small section of the bonebed, circling in yellow the skulls and in red the mandibles. The lithotypes that make up the outcrop are red claystone and grey pelites. Tools needed for excavating are geological hammers, pickaxes and shovels. That's what an usual day on the site looked like: The flora and invertebrate assemblage is not very rich: conifer cone scales and branches, freshwater bivalves and small arthropds. Fish were scarce and poorly preserved. In the case of lungfish, instead, toothplates were common: The most interesting aspect is represented by tetrapod bones: they are countless, even in my wildest dreams I could not have hoped of finding so many as I have! Metoposaurus was a temnospondyl amphibian characterized by a dorsoventrally flattened body up to 2 m (6,5 ft) long. Its bones are the most common remains in Krasiejów. It probably lived at the bottom of shallow-water reservoirs, as ambush predator hunting for fish and other small vertebrates. For air it had to resurface regularly, but it may not have been able to enter land. The bones on the bonebed belonged to it. Here you can see a close up of a mandible ramus from two perspectives, two ribs, a vertebra and interclavicle. Ciclotosaur, another temnospondyl amphibian, hunted on both water and land. It’s not easy to differentiate its bones from those of Metoposaurus on the field. Paleorhinus was a phytosaur, a 3,5 m (11,5 ft) long semi-acquatic predator superficially resembling a gavial. I have found a couple of teeth that belonged to it. Stagonolepis was a herbivorous, 3,5m long archosaur with a heavily armoured body. Its skull was small and equipped with conical teeth and a horny beak on the mandible and a fleshy snout on the upper jaw. It may have used them to dig food out of the ground. Osteoderms and teeth (not pictured) were rather common. We also found a femur of Stagonolepis: And a bone of the hind limb, that in order to be extracted and protected was covered with a field jacket of gypsum: Finally, a rauisuchian and dinosaur species make up the assemblage, but we didn’t find any of their bones since they are extremely rare. If you'd like to know more about Krasiejów, I suggest you to read these two papers: - Gruntmejer, K., Konietzko-Meier, D., & Bodzioch, A. (2015). The Triassic world of Krasiejów. FIELD GUIDE, 17. - Dzik, J. and Sulej, T. 2007. A review of the early Late Triassic Krasiejów biota from Silesia, Poland. Palaeontologia Polonica 64, 3–27. Well, that’s it! This excavation was an incredible experience for me, I met some great people and found amazing fossils! I hope you enjoyed and leave a comment if you have any question for me!! Fabio

Hi Here’s another fossil I found over Christmas. These bones are pretty rare and are the articulated ischium and pubis from an ichthyosaur. No prep involved apart from cutting the block to size and applying a thin coat of varnish to increase the contrast between the bone and matrix. The fossil is from the Hettangian of Penarth. The block before:

Hello TFF Members, I'm looking for a specimen of the Triassic plant - Dinophyton spinosus (not exactly the one from the picture of course, I just attached it to make the post more attractive) and I was wondering if there is anyone here willing to exchange it for some other plant material or other fossils. Regards, Kasia

10 foot long Triassic relative of herrerasaurus named gnathovorex discovered in Brazil https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/12/one-of-worlds-oldest-carnivorous-dinosaurs-found-brazil/

Hi from Northern New South Wales, Australia. I've recently rediscovered a love of fossil hunting thanks to the enthusiasm of my dinosaur mad kids; We have several collecting sites not too distant from us, mainly in coal measures Permian, Jurassic and Triassic in age where some beautiful and varied plant fossils can be found. I'm looking forward to sharing some pics and picking your expert brains!!

I'm rather embarrassed but i need some ID help on something I purchased a few years ago. My chagrin is because I usually am very good at labeling purchases or at least taking a pic of a label if the seller does not provide one. I have this piece of shale that has some fossil claw or fin marks on it that I recall are swimming traces. The shale comes from the Triassic or Jurassic of the Newark Supergroup in Pennsylvania. Any help is appreciated!

Hi. They were found in Muschelkalk facies of Ladinian. Bony remains of nothosaurs and placodontos appear in the area. In a book they appear classified as placodontos teeth, but I would like to specify more. Thank you.

A very well preserved herrerasaurid dinosaur, Gnathovorax cabreirai is described in the attached paper. For us collectors it gives us clues around Carnian age teeth. Unfortunately most of the teeth available to collectors are Norian or earlier in age. https://peerj.com/articles/7963/ Unfortunately the paper does not do a great job describing the teeth, here is what we have: "All tooth crowns are blade like, caudally curved and labiolingually compressed. The premaxillay and dentary teeth lack serrations in their mesial margins. However, in the distal margin there are small serrations that form a right angle with the main axis of the tooth. In the maxillary teeth the serration occur in both margins."

Staurikosaurus tooth. Measuring 3/8 inch. San Miguel, New Mexico. Triassic .

Here is an interesting vertebrate with a very long neck. It meaaures 6.5 inches 16.3 cm around curve. The Keichousaurus Hui from Guanglin, Guizhou Province, China. The formation is the Huixia beds and is preserved on a one inch thick limestone plate with no cracks.

Exploring the dinosaur graveyards of the Eastern Cape A chance discovery by a local shepherd has lead to a major scientific research program involving palaeontologists from South Africa, the UK and the US in the Karoo Basin. The area is proving to be one of the richest localities for vertebrate fossils in South Africa. by David Paul Ford, Oct 03, 2019 https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/317374-david-paul-ford/posts/54340-exploring-the-dinosaur-graveyards-of-the-eastern-cape Yours, Paul H.

This is said to be a Triassic fossil coral from Guizhou, China. Any idea if it is a fossil coral and what species it probably is? Thanks.

Part 1 Scientific Integrity in Education; Part 2: “The Great Dying” – end Permian extinction John Geissman, University of Texas at Dallas Geologists of Jackson Hole https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYTuDP54ZI Yours, Paul H.

Looks like a fossil branch perhaps. About three inches long. Ends appear to be porous. Pretty much looks like a small log. I

Here are some of my Bull Canyon Formation fossils from New Mexico.

Barely a month had gone by since my last trip to New Mexico and Colorado, but I already had plans for this trip in the works. Primary focus this time, which was a solo trip, was fossil collecting, visiting well known sites that have been on my radar for quite some time. I flew out to Salt Lake City and drove directly to Kemmerer, WY. My first stop there was Fossil Butte National Monument: Here is a view of the visitors center (free admission) and the surrounding barren, but awesome landscape that surrounds it: