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Today was a memorable outing, and our net results were the best I've ever had for a single day in Austin. This morning started quickly. My step brother, Christian, was already knocking on my door at 9:30 - yes, that may be late in the morning for everyone else, but it's a full hour before I'm usually fully awake. I guess that's the trade off for late nights! Yesterday we made plans to spend our day today hunting a spot that I was used to scouring but had not visited in a while. That was not the only motivation for choosing this particular spot though. When I originally discovered this area, there were lots of associated large bones in the creek. After finding one of those water stained vertebrae, I decided "wow, that's huge! Not fossilized though.Looks bovid. Must be cow...eh " *toss* Looking back at it, I was (and am) kicking myself hard enough to break a toe. I never even thought to look for a skull, to just be sure, and the more I think about it, the more the odds fall in favor that the bones were bison, and I completely disregarded a very interesting Pleistocene skeleton. So, this was going to be an attempt at redemption - I had observed many bones downstream during successive returns (still met with more, "eh, must be cow"), but this time we were going to do something about it. The locality is cretaceous, so we'd hunt cretaceous material on the way up, keeping a look out for those "cow bones", until arriving to the site where the bulk of the skeleton used to be. At least, that was the plan... After parking by a small business (which hasn't towed me a single time- shout out to them), we made our way on foot over to a bridge, which we then started descending. The creek is on public land, but there's no parking or easily accessible points down to it. Once down at the creek, we wasted no time and took a turn left - the direction I've always gone. Christian was immediately impressed by the enormous size of the Exogyra oysters, which are abundant here. He's not an ardent fossil hunter, meaning he's never had the intent to go do it on his own, for example, but he is impressed by fossils and has a wickedly perceptive eye. We worked our way up the usual spots - it was his first time here, but probably my sixth or seventh. I pointed out to him where I made my best finds - the mosasaur tooth, the plesiosaur caudal rib, a bison tooth, etc, but in the end we didn't find much there. The "bison" skeleton was nowhere to be seen anymore, and while we found other cool fragments of definitive Pleistocene bone, none were identifiable further. One find of note however, was a echinoid that Christian spotted. I don't know how the dude does it, but he finds echinoids everywhere, it's like a superpower of his. No matter where we go or what we're doing, if it's outside, he'll spot an echinoid somehow. (Below - an interesting mushroom, which I believe to be Ganoderma sessile ) The real party started once we made it back to the bridge that we started at. Our plan was to scout the left side of the creek, the part I've never hunted before. We rounded the corner, and upon seeing the steep banks, it was clear that we had to walk across some deep creek crossings. I took point, and seeing that the water came almost to my stomach, Christian decided to settle for what he had found and instead poke around under the bridge again while he waits for me to finish scouting. Immediately after finishing my first deep crossing, and as Christian was starting to walk away, I found my first proper arrow head, ever. Previously, this creek had produced some rudimentary stone tools, one of which we even found earlier on this excursion. But they were nothing like what I had stumbled across here, sitting proud and jet black under a centimetre of water. I yelled back for Christian to come check it out - if there was any motivation for him to cross the creek and continue to scout with me, it would be this. Apparently though, he was probably a cat in his past life, because even this, found 5 minutes into this scouting run, was not convincing enough. Besides, it had started raining, so he still decided to poke around under the bridge. From this point on, I decided to make haste. I wasn't a fan of being in the rain either, but it certainly wasn't enough to stop me. I made my way down, crossing through water a few more times to avoid climbing the steep banks, and eventually came to some great looking exposures with many small, tight river bends in the creek that accumulated lots of gravel.By this time, the little cloud burst had cleared, and things were nice and cooled off. I took a video to show him for when I got back, but before that video I accidentally took a picture of the beginning of the exposures: On the walk back, I found a palm sized piece of chunkasaurus, and the mother of all Exogyra, with both parts of the shell still present, I imagine it's Exogyra ponderosa, but I know that there are some other big local Exogyra species as well, so I could be off. Scouting was successful, so I continued walking back in earnest. When I got back to the bridge, I quickly showed Christian the tid-bits I was returning with, and asked if he had any success. "Oh, you have no idea..." he replied. He then held out his hand, and we both just crumpled into another dimension. The hype was unreal. In his hand, and as the product of just thirty minutes, were two Ptychodus mortoni teeth, another echinoid, a piece of Enchodus(?) tooth, and a new shark tooth I couldn't quickly identify.It's shape is suggestive, so I'll be putting it in Fossil ID first, in the event that I'm wrong.They were small, but none of us cared - this was in AUSTIN! Three shark teeth in 30 minutes is absolutely bonkers! Furthermore, Neither of us had ever found a fish tooth, and that top shark tooth looked new for both of us. He was as stunned as I was. This was the same bridge gravel I gave minimal attention to all 6 times I've been here, and we both walked past it or spent time there already, before he really started looking as he sat around waiting for me in sheer boredom. Apparently, all he had done was assign himself to small (as in a few square feet) patch of gravel at a time, giving the smallest rocks the most undivided attention, picking up anything darkly colored. Needless to say, we both had new drive to stick around longer, now using this technique to hunt, but funnily enough (I guess I'm bad luck, lol) we both couldn't find anything else for about 40 minutes. That was until Christian then decided to uncover the next crazy trip maker of the day, a small Ptychodus mortoni still in matrix!! At this point I was reduced to a blubbering fool, and had to explain to Christian the gravity of his find. Now more than ever I had a fire under me to at least pull one shark tooth from this spot today. After another 10 minutes, my hard work was rewarded! ......with one of the tiniest shark teeth I've ever seen Some seconds after taking this picture, I noticed an echinoid just to my right, and plop! There went the tooth. I couldn't find the tiny tooth again, but it was alright, because it's sacrifice made for a sweet consolation prize Some minutes later, while I was standing up, I saw yet another echinoid, but this one was different to the others... and what a great little sea urchin it ended up being. It still had some texture on it, and despite probably being too water rolled to suite the taste of an echinoid aficionado, it was more than enough for me, as this was the first echinoid I've ever found with it's little bumps preserved. (spot the echinoid) My last find here I almost missed - it was an ammonite chunk of a species I didn't recognize. The chunk is incredibly water rolled, but still note worthy because of those distinct suture lines that I'm not used to seeing. So, while we walked away with no bison material, we at least had new perspective on on old spots, and I'm sure this place will produce many more fossils and memories in the future. Entry Actions

I've found a number of fossilized jaws on this beach that I have no clue of the animal they came from. Hopefully someone here will be able to tell me. We also find many bones of probably bison that hasn't fossilized. So here are a few pics -------- This is what the beach looks like.

I have hunted McFadden Beach many times. It's located on the Texas coast near the small town of High Island. Most of the it's easy collecting bones, teeth and if very lucky, even a paleo dart point. I can't put names to many of even the bones we find on the beach but my question isn't about the obvious bones, but about many of "something" we have found that has turned into what I believe is iron. Please get your opinions. Were these some kind of animal or plant or just funny looking rocks? First picture is what I'm asking your opinions about. Seems to me they turned into a form of iron. Have people hunting McFadden found anything like this? Then for the group, are this fossils and what are they? The second picture is the fossils most people find that hunt McFadden. Thanks everyone for your time.

My daughter and I are looking for new fossil-finding adventures in central and Northeast Texas. We have already been numerous times to Ladonia, Sherman and Mineral Wells. We also like to hunt for arrowheads!

I am not sure if this is authentic but I picked it up with a large lot of fossils. How do I find out?

Hello Fellow Fossil Friends, My love for rock and fossil hunting began very early. My mother tells me that as a toddler in Honolulu, I was always picking up rocks. We moved to coastal Virginia when I was about three, and some of my earliest memories are of walks through the fields with my father, rock hunting. He was pretty knowledgeable about rocks, and I would pick one up, he would identify it for me, and we would move on to the next. Today at 55 I still pick up rocks. Except that now I bring them home. My daughter walks by the sheet spread out on the den floor covered with fossils and stone tools I am sorting from my most recent trip, rolling her eyes. I have recently had to move my bins of curated curios from where they were overflowing out of the unused foyer out to the barn so I have more room for them. I have enough for a small museum now, from a lifetime of collecting relics and studying our friends from the past. Lately i have discovered several dozen potato-sized rocks with glyphs carved on them, as well as a number of animal effigies - especially of turtles. Our local native American tribes are represented by the symbol of the turtle, and I found a few dozen small stones decorated as turtle heads on a single sandbar in a quiet river near their original, ancient grounds. One excellent specimen I found this week under a foot of sand in two feet of water will be my first photo post. The 2 3/4" quartz stone has a deeply etched eye, mouth, and neck scales on one side. I also found fish, otter, eagle and other representations there and in other local rivers, as well. I just realized that I may have been finding them all along - I just wasn't paying attention. I steal what time I can from my advertising design firm, and horse and carriage business, to slip my kayak into the local rivers to look for my treasures. I do consider myself an amateur archaeologist...every stone tool or cache I find gives me pause. I hold the small nutting stones and pestles and think about the women at the river's edge, hundreds, thousands of years ago, preparing their food, weaving nets, talking among themselves while watching their children play. I look at the images on a small stone and think about the young man who wanted me to remember him stalking wild swans, his head camouflaged with a rack of deer antlers; he is whirling a sling from which stones pelt the birds as they attempt to fly away. He left me other images: pairs of deer, a dancer with bustle and regalia in celebration; and more, along with his engraving tools, eroding out of a bank at the waterline near the stone knives, hammers and nutting stones of the family and friends sharing his site. Like us, he and others who left their marks didn't want to be forgotten. What a gift to be able to read, in the rocks, their stories...

The 12th Annual Tallahassee Florida Fossil & Arrowhead Show will be held February 23, 2013. The show will be held at the Elks Lodge, 276 N. Magnolia Drive, Tallahassee, Florida. 8:00am - 3:00pm. Adult admission is $4.00, children under 16 are FREE. This is one of the premier Florida fossil & artifact shows that features fossils and artifacts not seen at any other shows. See below for a few pictures from past events. View www.PrehistoricFlorida.com/show for more pictures and details. Call Nate Curtis 850-591-2780 for more information. Prehistoric Florida will be displaying part of our private collection that has never been publicly viewed. Bill from megateeth will be on hand offering his smorgasbord of shark teeth. Jim from Paleo Enterprises will be set up. Zach from Primitive Past will also be displaying. EVERYONE who is ANYONE in Florida fossils will be there. This is not a show to miss!! Here are some pictures from past years:

Well guys its been a long time since I ave been on a fossil hunting trip......like 2 years........well times are getting better for myself an family and I was able to get out for the first time and hunt in summerville sc ........I was able to score a 4 1/2 inch and 4 inch wide megalodon pics of tooth to be posted very soon........I also was able to hit a spot where I hunt arrowheads and scored a few nice ones......so my question is to arrowheads knowledgeable folks do you see anything killer or of any value......I know my fossils just not artifact. Thanks.........and yes its good to be back

Attached are pictures of 2 items. I posted one of them recently and received comments that it may have been a scraper or a flake knife. I included what I hope are better pictures of the front and back. I should note that it is extremely sharp. This was found in northern Illinois. The other one sure looks worked on both sides. There is a small recessed area on one side (may not be visible in the pictures)-almost perfect for a thumb. There appeared to be a tip that was broken off. The front (as I call it) contains the red dot-not sure what it is but right above it is some flaking that is evident in certain light. The edges have what appears to be pressure points and have similar marks to an arrowhead-but are much smaller. They extend along both sides until where it appears broken off near the base. Parts are very smooth-as if worn smooth and there is flaking on the back as well. I have no idea what it is but with all the knowldge in this group-hopefully you can help. This was also found in Illinois. Thanks