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I strolled around Lake Texoma today. I mainly was looking for a chunky ammonite to take home, and I knew I was in for some serious work if I wanted to find a nice one. While walking to the ammonite beach, I picked through some marl banks and found a couple cool keepers. The pyritized small ammonites were plentiful, so I picked a few, while the shark teeth were not. Only found one. Looks like Cretalamna sp? I did manage to find a pretty nice echinoid that the water had cleaned perfectly. Hemiaster sp? Unfortunately the ammonite beach wasn't what I had hoped for. I'm not sure if I picked a bad time to go, or if it's just too popular but all the rock I could find was pretty much smashed to pieces along with many big ammonites. It took a long time to find a potential keeper. I did manage to find one, and man it was a lot of work to pry this out. This ammonite is over a foot long and was very heavy to haul back to my car. Needless to say, I took frequent breaks on my way back! On the journey back to my car, I did find a nicer complete ammonite exposed. It was the only one that day I found that was nice that didn't require extensive excavation, so I decided to take it home too. All in all, I had a pretty nice time at the lake. It was a lot more work and walking than I expected.

Hi, all, my seven year old has recently got the fossil bug. We live in Budapest. Does anyone know of any sites we can visit to hunt for fossils, please?

These are from the Devonian of Morocco

In 1995 (long ago...) a friend of mine and me digged at a highway-constructionsite in nw-germany. It was the Highway Nr. 2 between Gelsenkirchen and Gladbeck in famous Ruhrgebiet-Area. The construction site opens at a lenght of 3 km sandy sediments from middle Santonian, Zone of Uintacrinus socialis. We really found a lot..., beach sediments with everything from plants over echinoderms up to vertebrate fossils (some lang-living ones...), and stored it. Till now. Some weeks ago I started to clean, glue, sort..., to write a paper about it. Hope to finish in 2025, lot of work... I go to show piece by piece fossils from this site, might be one a day, might be one a week. depends. Start is a nice Cretalamna appendiculata, approx. 2 cm long, root is a little bit damaged.

I got three Ammonites, but they had no ID or locality. I'm wondering if anyone recognizes a genus or possible locality. They could come from Minnesota because that's were a acquired them. Also, one looks like its from South Dakota, but I'm not sure.

Happy New Year! I'm looking for some suggestions on how to more effectively prep some Dactyloceras. These are in Whitby nodules. The matrix surrounding them is too small to split. I've done a few with a dremel using Zoicpaleotech points with some success. But the inner whorls are not coming out as I'd like. I would appreciate any help Thanks!

Looking for some access points to texoma. Generally near the dam is so over collected. Looking to find some ammonites but it’s just not worth the drive anymore to go to the well known site.

On Friday I made a visit to an Atlanta area gem/mineral/fossil show. Generally I have poor luck at these shows, in large part because there are only a couple of dealers with fossils. This trip was different. One of the dealers was selling some items from an old collection. Most of what I bought was exciting to me because they are species I have wanted for a long time, for one reason or another. First up is a nice (to me at least) New Jersey Tiassic coelocanth, Diplurus newarki (I think the genus might have changed but Diplurus is OK for now). The dealer thought it was just a skull so it was very cheap, as the rock is very black and it was hard to see the skeleton in the room lighting. I used the flashlight on my phone to give oblique light and was very happy at what I saw! He also had some ammonites I was excited to see. Two are Triassic, a Ceratites nodosus and an Acanthoceratites spinosum from Germany. I collected a Ceratites when I was a kid (about 10) living in Germany, but it broke and all I have left is a piece. I've wanted a better specimen for roughly the last 50 years! I started to clean out the inner whorls on the Acanthoceratites but that will take quite a while. There was a third ammonite that was labeled as another Triassic species, but when I got home I recognized that it is actually a Placenticeras, a Late Cretaceous genus. I am not sure of the species and the preservation is different from the North American sites I know about, so I suspect it might be from a European source. I'll post more photos in the Fossil ID thread to see if anyone recognizes it. I also scored a trilobite I've wanted forever, an Elliposocephalus hoffi. Not because it is especially pretty, but because it is representative of the Chechosolakian Cambrian that is so important in trilobite lore. I also grabbed a nice Calymene celebra. Last up for now is an OK shrimp from Lebanon. The body is all authentic, but I'm not 100% sure about the appendages. It's pretty nice though so I like it. There are a few other little things but the above is enough for now. When I got home a box of New Mexico ammonites from the Christmas auction was waiting for me, which made a good day even better! Don

I'm very new to fossil hunting (I've never been!) But I am hoping to find some ammonites in North Texas. The problem is I am not sure where exactly to go and the 2nd problem is, I'm very limited on time (and money) SO i need a day trip (I'm about 4hrs away from Dallas area). I see Spring Creek is a good spot... but that creek runs forever it seems! I'm not looking to take a car load home, I'm looking for just a few pieces! My 78yr old mother and 75yr old aunt would be thrilled to have an ammonite!! But i gotta find it myself! It would be kinda cheating to just buy one some where. So can anyone pinpoint me to a location where I should be able to find a few (small ones are just fine!) And like I said, limited on time and money! I've got a bunch of kids (8 with 5 still at home) and a full time job (stay at home mom) at home! So hoping for a place I can find a few in a few hours (cant justify spending money on a hotel and cant afford it either) I'm willing to do the work, just need a location! Rachel

Here’s the last item…(also threw in a the last photo of a good ammonite remnant, this one had great ridges) …this curve looks like ammonite but doesn’t have the ridges the others in the area all seem to have..stumped. I’m leaning toward ammonite…. thanks patrick

Part two…looks like stems …Maybe, palm, cycad or fern? I guess another possibility is bone.. ?

Hey everyone! My trusty pup and I are heading to Texas and Louisiana for business and I am hoping to spend about a week in the north Texas area in search of a few good specimens for my collection! As many species, as high a quality as I can find! I’ve been researching extensively, and have what I think is a solid game plan, but since I have never been in the area for fossils I will happily take any advice and if anyone would like to join me, you can blindfold me, swear me to secrecy and sign an NDA if it means I find a few goodies. These will never leave my collection! I am hoping to be in the Dallas area around the 5th-6th!

Here are some of my finds from spending a few hours on Wednesday, October 26th, in the Graysonites wacoense Zone of the Grayson Formation, Washita Group of north Texas (Early Cenomanian, ~97mya). This particular site exposes a micromorph layer full of thousands of tiny dwarfed Mariella bosquensis and M. rhacioformis ammonites plus a wealth of other taxa like various urchins, brittlestar fragments, shark teeth, many gastropods & pelecypods, etc. Those familiar with the Del Rio exposures of further south in central Texas (particularly the now closed-to-public Waco Pit in McLennan County), should recognize much of the fauna to be found at this site as it is laterally equivalent to those and faunally nearly identical, differing only slightly in the rarity of homomorph ammonites at this site vs further south, as well as slight differences in preservation/lithology. The following is just a fraction of what I found: One of thousands of dwarfed Mariella bosquensis (Turrilitidae) ammonites: Cretalamna cf. catoxodon (Otodontidae) shark tooth, this species was first described from the Cenomanian of Western Australia by Siversson et al., 2015 where many species were split out of the broad C. appendiculata: Goniophorus scotti (Saleniidae) sea urchin fragment: A tiny Stoliczkaia texana (Lyelliceratidae) ammonite: Arm fragments of Ophiura graysonensis (Ophiuridae), a brittlestar. I hope to find a complete specimen or at least a central disk at this site soon: Another Goniophorus scotti (Saleniidae): Some more dwarf Mariella bosquensis (Turrilitidae) ammonites: Found in just a few seconds of searching in one spot: Neithea texana (Neitheidae) scallop: Praescabrotrigonia emoryi (Pterotrigoniidae) clam: cf. Margarites (Margaritidae) gastropod: A very small Cymatoceras hilli (Cymatoceratidae) nautiloid: Imprints of the pellet-lined burrows of mud shrimp (the ichnogenus being Ophiomorpha). These almost certainly belong to Meticonaxius rhacheochir (Micheleidae) which is known from both the older Pawpaw Formation and the younger Britton Formation, the latter of which contains abundant identical Ophiomorpha which have been found with the bodies of M. rhacheochir preserved inside: Chondrites trace fossils: Bivalve shell fragment conglomerate slabs consisting mainly of Texigryphaea roemeri oyster and Neithea texana scallop fragments: A mass of white nodules which I presume are likely fossilized rhodoliths, structures made up of the calcium carbonate secreted by coralline red algae which would freely roll around on the sea floor: Hundreds of Texigryphaea roemeri (Gryphaeidae) oysters: The layers above the micromorph zone abound with more typical Grayson Formation lithology & fauna, such as this Mariella rhacioformis (Turrilitidae) ammonite fragment. This species occurs in abundance in at the site in the more typical layers and occasionally as limonitic/pyritic micromorphs too: A portion of a typical non-dwarfed Mariella bosquensis (Turrilitidae) ammonite: Protocardia texana (Cardiidae) clam: