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Last weekend I started my collecting season 2013 after this long winter. I was fortunate and found some Lower Carnian ammonoids. Hunting again is a very good feeling.

I recently went up to a place named Dinosaur Park, in Laurel Maryland. Mostly triassic aged stuff. The place was originally set up to be an iron mine, and the minors started digging up bones. This location is famous for the discovery of the Astrodon a large Sauropod. The images I have inserted are pictures of carbonized pieces of fern. In more common terms, it's coal. Roughly 120 million years old coal. Some of the coal still has iron traces on it.

Triassic - Lockatong Formation - Montgomery County - Pennsylvania This is another piece I collected March 2 at the Triassic Lockatong site I was exploring. The rock is a totally different color and the black marks on the pinkish rock are interesting but seem to be too indistinct to be fossils. My impression is that these are simply mineralizations and traces but since I've never seen these before I'm posting them here. These are natural light photos that show the pink substrate: These were taken with incandescent light: In technology innovation (which is my profession) we talk about "weak signals" indicating trends and innovations that are just beginning to appear. My few Triassic visits have been focused on some very fossil-poor Triassic formations that run like thin ribbons through Montgomery and Chester County, PA. I keep wanting to return to our fossil-rich Devonian and Carboniferous sites that are 1 to 2 hours away but the proximity of these sites (10-15 minutes from our home) makes it easy to spend an hour or two exploring. The trace fossils and few fish scales that turned up so far suggest that something more meaningful will eventually appear. This weekend Nan and I also found a very large flat rock with what appear to be lizard tracks but they were eroded into round circles - arranged in track patterns, and one has a sharp toenail type point - not worth collecting but another weak signal that keeps drawing us back to these sparse Triassic formations...

Triassic Lockatong - Plant or Root Fragments? Saturday I spent 2 hours looking over a Lockatong formation (Triassic) in Montgomery County, PA. I'm sort of testing my ability to spot some fossil patterns in this formation where fossils are very scarce. I found this interesting piece with lots of organic fossils and impressions - assume they are plant fossils. It's so difficult to find Lockatong fossils in PA, anything we find is interesting. I've included a piece of the large rock (about 10 inches) and several closeups. These look to me like some sort of vine-like plant stems with rootlets and also cross-sections of stems. Also on Saturday, Nan and I visited a second nearby Lockatong site and saw what appear to be reptile tracks on a piece of rock about 4 or 5 feet long - although the impressions were round and not track shaped except for one of the round impressions had a thin pointed tip. We did not photograph or collect this, mostly admired it and count it as a "weak signal" that there are better fossils to be found.

Recently hunting in one of my Lockatong formation locations I came upon this little piece. I thought some may be interested to see something, I believe, quite uncommon. I'm reasonably sure it is "the growth tip" of an Equisetites rogersi. I find quite a bit of Equisetite material in this location including transverse nodal sections but the "tip" is new to me. I've not seen an image of one in all my documention. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. Specimen is roughly 1.75 inches in diameter. Enjoy. Again, upper Lockatong formation, late Triassic, Montgomery county PA. John Yank

Hi fellas, I´am Thorsten,a fossilnuts from near Hannover,northern Germany. After about 30 years rockhunting in the surrounding country I may think of myself as someone experienced in the local geology and the fossil inventory of most of the deposits (formations?).With the Harz-Mountains nearby with the exception of the early stages of the palaeozoic we have almost all ages and lithologies at hand i.e. within an hour drive at max you are on the spot (Autobahn ).Unfortunately more and more quarrys and claypits had been shut down over the last decades.It may seem consequential to think outside the box... In the past years some hunting trips lead me to Texas (Brownwood ,Rocky Creek [Dallas]) and Wyoming (Morrison FM.,Green River) My hometown has been built over lower cretaceous sediments.so when I pick up a nodule here and beat it with a bat,chance is that it will hit jurassic ground.Another hit from there and it might land on triassic due to the extreme tectonic features,caused by the halokinesis that formed our landscape.The geological diversity is really awesome,well,at least I think so ;)but its also a burden for the fossil geek: In consequence my collection resembles more a patchwork of a fossi-messy.its hard to find a frame. .As a preparator with passion I´ve learned quite some methodes to handle most of the material:excavating,chem-prep,sandblasting,cutting,displaying. Maybe some of my favorite hunting grounds are known to one ore another of you guys: Alverdissen ,Triassic,Crinoids Resse,Lower Cretaceous, heteromorph Ammonites Misburg,Upper Cretaceous,giant Ammonites,Cidaris,Porifera Harz,Kupferschiefer (Permian),Vertebrates,Lagerstätte Hildesheim,Posidonienschiefer (Lower Jurassic,Vertebrates etc....same as Holzmaden only 3D),Lagerstätte Göttingen,Triassic,Crinoids So far my profile I´d love to share informations on all issues and matters regarding our geology.And of course,you are very welcome to join me on a fossil-safari at my stomping ground. Best regards Thorsten

This is my first official Triassic fossil - a tooth (or fish fin) and some associated (poor quality) tissue/bone pieces found in a late afternoon exploration of some rocky outcroppings in Montgomery County, PA. Both halves of the impression are included. The impression/cast are very faint and some of the definition is in jeopardy of being lost since the material powdered and flaked off a bit as it dried, and is less defined now than when I first brought it home and took the first images. Here are some views of the full shale piece and surrounding smooth area with a small skin or tissue fragment at the top: You can see the smooth area around the fossil "tooth or fin" in the positive and negative halves of the shale - which is medium grey in color and about 20 centimeters long. I chiseled open the shale while I was exploring a steep vertical outcropping. What led me to crack this particular piece of shale was a nearby small assortment of what appeared to be dessicated bones and fragments and the shale color was different from the surrounding red shale. I'm including images here of the "bone fragments" and associated material which appear to be fossilized organic material: This closeup has some impressions/pockets that may help with identification: . Update (Oct 23): There is a growing consensus that this may be a fish fin (or scale) - considering that this appears to be attached to a smooth section, and there is a bit of "skin" at the top left, this interpretation makes sense. I agree that I should remove more substrate to see what else can be revealed. Thanks to Fossildude19 for providing links to the Triassic Teeth chart and to a few experts I contacted off-line to get their opinion. The best thing about this find - regardless of the faint impressions, difficult ID and the crumbling possible bone and skin - is that this was found in an area where finds are few and far between, in Triassic sediments that are really scarce in Pennsylvania, because glaciers basically scraped and eroded most of the Triassic and Jurassic geological formations down to older (Ordovician, Devonian, Carboniferous) layers. I wasn't expecting to find anything and this was revealed just as the sun was going down, using the last half hour of daylight and came from inspecting an anomalous shale color in the formation. This suggests that it is worth our time to check out more Triassic formations in our home county/southeastern Pennsylvania. We are totally "clueless" about Triassic fossils (more comfortable with Carboniferous ferns) but since the Passaic and Lockatong formations are scattered in several places within 20 minutes of our home, we are making a few short trips to see what we might run across. Nancy and I remain interested primarily in Devonian and Carboniferous fossils and sites, however our first venture into Triassic territory holds some promise.

Happly Holidays to everyone and all the best for 2013... Here's a trace fossil from our last Fall fossil trip - Lockatong - Triassic - not sure what this pattern represents. The rock is about 1 foot wide. Here are some additional photos including a shot of the full rock, and some angles that show the thickness of the trace material and may give some clues to the consistency, etc. The opinions on what this might be are very interesting - as for me, I have absolutely no clue...

Last week my friend and I went to our probably last trip this year before winter comes. We went to an old location of mine. I stopped digging there years ago because rock was the more solid the deeper we dug. Now after several winters I hoped for new material. We found less but good material. I did preparation immediatly after washing . The ammonoids are of upper Triassic, lower Carnian age. Exactly they range into the Zone of Trachyceras aonoides(=Zone of Trachyceras desatoyense in US strata) Sorry for the bad pics but light was/is not good in these grey, misty days. Andreas

Father of flying fish found in China, palaeontologists say PhysOrg, October 31, 2012 http://phys.org/news...ntologists.html Flying Fish Evolved To Escape Marine Reptile Predators, Fossil Research Suggests, Hufffington Post, Oct. 31, 2012 http://www.huffingto..._n_2048889.html Oldest flying fish fossil found in China, Nature News, October 31, 2012. http://www.nature.co...n-china-1.11707 Xu, G.-H., L.-J. Zhao, K.-Q. Gao and F.-X. Wu, 2012, A new stem-neopterygian fish from the Middle Triassic of China shows the earliest over-water gliding strategy of the vertebrates. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Published online before print October 31, 2012. doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.2261 http://rspb.royalsoc.../rspb.2012.2261 best wishes, Paul H.

Found this gorgeous little fella today in some Triassic sediment that had eroded out of a cliff near here. It was in a layer that also had a lot of Dicroidium leaves. I thought it might be a cupule, just looking for an accurate ID. Cheers,

A Weekend Visit to A Road Cut Near Our Home Nan was busy this weekend so I drove to a road cut on Route 422 south of Pottstown, PA - about 5 miles from our house. I had been told by a friend at the Delaware Valley Paleo Society that there wouldn't be any fossils here - from the geological record, I think this is part of the Gettysburg-Newark Lowland Formation which is described online as late Triassic. The shale is red with some green and gray mixed in here and there. Telling me that there wouldn't be any fossils here was a challenge I couldn't resist. So I decided to see if I could find anything in this very barren but geologically interesting formation. What I found were fossils and impressions of a tree and twigs that resemble Siggilaria (which were extinct by the Triassic I believe), and a few other trace fossils and what I assume are some mineralizations that look like leaves but probably aren't. I wonder what kind of tree this bark pattern represents...any ideas? The roadside exposure is a very steep slope covered with golf ball sized rubble and lots of larger rock formations protruding, here and there. The roadcuts are located along Route 422 several miles south of Pottstown, Pennsylvania. I studied everything that was visible, cracking lots of rocks to see what might be hidden. Nothing, no marine fossils, not even a freshwater clam. I began to feel that this might have been a dry area, or mostly dry area. Then I came across a narrow cascade of rubble that had eroded off the steep wall and noticed some red shale pieces that looked like smooth bark of some kind. On closer inspection, I discovered several pieces (many were fragmented) that turned out to be a grooved bark pattern. In the first fossil (1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 with backview and closeup - see below) you can see: a) the bark pattern which resembles Siggilaria including one branch node (the round circle) and you can also see at the top where the bark ridges begin to branch into a diamond shaped pattern. Although this is supposed to be a Triassic formation, the tree bark has a Carboniferous look, but I'm not familiar with Triassic trees. Here are the images of the bark sample: BARK 1.1 BARK 1.2 BARK 1.1 Back View BARK 1.1 CLOSE Bark 2.1 and 3.1, and Fossil 4a(front) and 4b (back) - These are additional samples of what appear to be bark and branches/twigs: BARK 2.1 BARK 3.1 FOSSIL 4a Front FOSSIL 4b Back Twig 5 - Here is what appears to be a twig and twig impression: TWIG 5 Not sure what this is: FOSSIL 6 I assume these are mineralizations (dendrites) that look like leaf impressions but are chemical, not fossils - note the shale color is different from the red shale above (labeled Mineralization 1 and 2): MIN1 MIN2 Anyway, I guess my point is that I visited a road cut that is close to home, easy to access, and where I was told there should be no fossils. I found quite a lot to look at and ponder, and best of all, despite being parked on the roadside for 3 hours, I wondered if I would receive a visit from curious police but not at all so I felt very comfortable, except for the times when I climbed some very steep sections and found it a bit tricky to make my way back down the steep crumbly slope (I got down by choosing a section that had small samplings and used those as grips on the way down). I'm still not sure what else might be here or at other roadcuts but I have a hunch that this must be what fossil hunting in "dry" tree and plant areas might be like, since all the sources claim that not many dry forests were preserved as fossils because there wasn't much mud in the dry areas and they almost needed to be buried in a rockslide or freak flood to be preserved. Paleobotanists also suggest that the fossil record is heavily weighted toward wetland plants and trees so anything that comes from what was originally "dry" forest or meadow is worth inspecting.

I bought this specimen many years ago on an exhibition. It was labeled "Saurichthys" (100 % wrong). All I know is that it's from the Karoo Supergroup of Madagascar. Since the Karoo Supergroup spans a lot of time (upper carboniferous until lower jurassic), it makes it especially difficult to asign the fossil to the "correct" order or family of tetrapods. I don't think it's possible to identify the genus, but I would be glad to know the order. araucaria1959

Picked this strange looking item out of a gray mudstone/shale layer within the Narrabeen Group (second picture). Should be Triassic in age. It broke into 3 pieces as I removed it but inside was a beautiful arrangement of black, white and red minerals. It also has small round 'nodules' on the left part (seen as the small dark circles), and appears to have 'veins' on the right. Any thoughts on what it is would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Susan

Fossils in the First Days by Randall Irmis (Scientist at Work - Notes From the Field) New York Times, August 31, 2012, http://scientistatwo...the-first-days/ Separating the Dinosaurians From the Crocodilians by Randall Irmis (Scientist at Work - Notes From the Field) New York Times, August 29, 2012, http://scientistatwo...e-crocodilians/ Best wishes, Paul H.

I found another new site for Triassic petrified wood in Pennsylvania. I am sure this location has never been hunted. The following specimens are very similar to what I've found elsewhere in PA Triassic. Scale bar is 4 inches (10+ cm).

I found more petrified (silicified) wood at a new site in the Triassic Newark Supergroup of S.E. Pennsylvania. Almost all specimens show good grain patterns and are a nice dark chocolate color. Yummy. Attached is a photo of the larger specimens that I collected. The scale bar is 4 inches. (I have posted other similar pet wood photos in previous topics.)