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A friend found a few small tubs of fossils that she hadn't seen in years until she started moving stuff around last week for a possible move. She asked me if I could come over and look at what she found. Most of the specimens don't have a label but some of it is obvious to anyone who's been to shows and had friends who collect fossils as well. I don't specialize in invertebrates or plants but I know an Elrathia from Utah, a Lovenia from Australia, and a Metasequoia from British Columbia when I see them because I have a few of each myself. She has some trilobites that are out of my wheelhouse so I thought I would ask the forum for identifications. The one below is from Morocco and apparently a Devonian form related to Phacops. I forgot to note the dimensions or ask for the photos to have a ruler included but the specimen is about an inch and a half (approx 4cm) as I recall. The second one is also from Morocco. I think that plate has two of the same (Cambrian and related to Paradoxides). The third is also from Morocco and Devonian, I think. Thanks for any info that can be provided especially if you have an idea of the general locality. I have a few more photos to post but have to go now. Jess

This 3" specimen was collected out of the Mazon Creek itself, near the Benson Farm. It was collected around 1998 and filed as Problematica. We are finally starting to identify these specimens. It is our specimen number S00051. At first, we thought it might be a shrimp similar to Kellibrooksia Macrogaster, but there isn't much evidence of the proper segmentation, and no legs.

Another fine find from Sacha's Merritt Island Micro Matrix. I'm thinking this is modern, and it has a crustacean vibe to it. Any clue as to what this might be? @old bones @MarcoSr

This is a drawing I made a couple weeks ago. It is Euproops danae, a Pennsylvanian Horseshoe crab from the Mazon Creek (proper). My nodule is 100% complete with no restorations. Being a Mazon specimen, it comes from the Francis Energy Shale and is about 300 million years old. This drawing was done on textured paper with 2B and 4B pencils.

Greetings, all! I’m new here, but very appreciative already for this forum. I’m an amateur fossil hunter, collector and paleoartist, and I recently decided to organize and catalogue all of my fossils, which will take a very, very long time. Hence I’ll likely be posting quite a bit in this section... so here’s my first conundrum: It’s from Mazon Creek, Illinois. It looks like a shrimp, as I have a few to compare it with, but certain features of the rock give the impression of wings, so I start to see a dragonfly-esque shape. Any thoughts? Thanks!

I got this when I was a little kid (~20 yrs ago) in a grab bag of rocks and fossils at a local museum's gift shop. Could've come from anywhere. As a kid I thought it was a fossil beetle pupa in petrified wood and cherished it. Now I'm a lot less sure. Completely clueless in fact. Can anyone narrow it down from my current knowledge of "a thingy inside a lump of stuff"? Thanks all. Been wondering about this one for years, and finally showed it to somebody who told me about this forum. -Jake

Need help to identify this, it could be rare, but not sure. If not a naroiid, or soft bodied trilobite, than what could this be? Found at Little Hollow Formation...Cambrian, Nova Scotia. It is extremely small, barely visible to the naked eye. Tip of ball point pen for scale. I have magnified it with a digital microscope, 250x magnification. Has anyone ever seen this in their research or studies of fossils?

Hi all, Was recently on a short break to Rottnest Island in Western Australia and found a bunch of these in the rocks near the beach on the east coast of the island. I thought they looked like giant isopods but have no idea when they are from or if I am remotely close? Any suggestions? Ta Dan

Found at Hungry Hollow in Devonian-era clay. Seems iron-rich, so it is possibly man-made. Is it a segmented body part? Both sides depicted, with end views

Well it's been a while since I've last been on (over two months), and I know how much you all have been missing me , so I decided to finally get around to photographing some of the finds I've made over the summer. I've talked a bit earlier this year about collecting in the Frederick Limestone and other upper Cambrian-lower Ordovician units, but these finds are from rocks far, far older than those, nearly 100 million years older! These fossils are among some of the oldest in Maryland, and in the Mid-Atlantic region, which was part of the reason I collected them in the first place (because, let's be honest, most aren't that appealing). If you find these things interesting, the Araby was originally mapped as the Antietam Sandstone until about 1940ish when it became a separate geologic formation due to the strong difference in rock-type most common in either (the Antietam is mostly a quartz-sandstone, the Araby mostly a sandy and muddy shale and siltstone). When the time for the split came, the new name Araby was given to the formation that occupied a band roughly stretching from the Potomac River to the south north in a rough question mark shape to Pennsylvania as the type locality was situated near Araby Church (an interesting bit. A geologic formation from the Cambrian explosion named after a church!). Nowadays the church is gone as far as I know, but the area still bears the name with the apply named Araby Church Road. Going back further, in July of 1864, the Araby Formation would play a major role in the Battle of Monocacy. As Confederate forces under Jubal Early's command were marching east along the B&O RR, they were stopped in the vicinity of Frederick by scattered forces under the command of Union General Lew Wallace. During the day long battle (fought July 9), Wallace's outnumbered force of 5,000 men used the hills and small ridges to their east as a last line to stem the Confederate tide, strength roughly 15,000. This ridge, of course, was made up of the resistant Araby Formation, whose clastics didn't erode through time as quickly as the carbonates of the Frederick Limestone. Unfortunately for Wallace and the Union, the Confederates were able to outflank their positions, and forced them to retreat east past Urbana. Although it was a Confederate victory (the northernmost of the war), the battle delayed Early's advance for a crucial 24 hours, allowing reinforcements from the Union 6th Corps near Petersburg to arrive in Washington DC in time to stop the Confederate attacks on July 11-12 at Fort Stevens. Interesting to see how geology plays a role in how battles (and history!) are fought. I collected twice this summer, once in the early part and another time in September, from a roadcut near Frederick. This cut exposes the early Cambrian Araby Formation, which is nearly 550-530 million years old. The Araby is a nearshore clastic unit, likely deposited in a surf/beach zone on the elevated Piedmont block (a fancy term for a higher lying seabed). As such, it roughly correlates to the Antietam Sandstone further west, as well as, more roughly, the Kinzers Formation in Pennsylvania in the upper sections. Geologically speaking, the Araby is divided into coarser, almost buff siltstone and sandstone units and black, slaty-shale and siltstone (this includes the former Cash Smith Shale, which was found out to be in the middle of the Araby upon later work) ones. The darker, shale layers likely were deposited during times of deeper water, as there exists a degree of faunal differences between the two to suggest such (Olenellus thompsoni has been recorded from the black layers, but I never found any). Later, during the Taconic and Acadian Orogenies, the Araby Formation was slightly metamorphosed as were most other Piedmont and Blue Ridge units, though some parts escaped mostly untouched. These, of course, have the best fossils. Boring rock stuff out of the way, the Araby and the Antietam were formed at a special time in Earth's history called the Cambrian Explosion, which was a period when life underwent a rapid series of diversifications. Luckily we didn't miss out much here! Many beds of the Araby are filled with burrows and other traces of ancient wormlike creatures, as well as rarer edioasteroids, trilobites, and other creatures. Unfortunately little work has been done on the Cambrian units of Maryland, and less still on the Araby, so I haven't found any list of actual names for any species. As such, I'll use names from the Antietam Sandstone, as the two are time, stratigraphically, and lithologically equivalent. By far the most common fossils were the worm burrows, Skolithos linearis. These are rounded, somewhat tube shaped objects in their usual form, though they can sometimes occur as cross sections as you'll soon see. On top of this, they're also sometimes preserved in iron minerals, as is common with many other fossils. From what I've gathered, these "tubes" are interpreted to be the resting places of worms, likely annelids. Now, I'm not claiming to know 100% what some of these are so if any of you may have a better ID please let me know. First up are the Skolithos linearis. The first image is of a fairly typical "tube" shaped structure. The second image shows a cross section cut-away of a "tube", partially mineralized in what is likely iron (iii) oxide. The third image is of a large, albeit poorly preserved, complex of "tubes". The general way to tell where they are is by looking for the dark contours of them, and tracing them that way.

Found this little critter in a river bed in Grapevine Texas

I found this a while ago (back in February I think) and I initially identified it as a pill millipede. Well, I got back around to examining it and after some research online I'm no longer confident with that ID. It turns out that pill millipedes didn't exist as far back as the Mississippian, and even though millipede fossils are known from the area's Devonian rocks (like at Red Hill), none of their finds are similar to mine. I understand that time difference may play a role, but still they should look generally the same. This specimen is more rounded and "squat" then the Red Hill examples and other fossil millipede specimens, and has more robust tergites (segments) on its body. I still believe it is most likely an arthropod for a few reasons, one is that I still have yet to find any plant material from this layer, two because these rocks are early Mississippian in age an no plants that would look similar exist from this period in this region, and three is because the segments on it's body are too different from the growth lines of plants and appear to be part of an armored exoskeleton rather then the result of growth as in plants. Beyond this I have no real idea anymore. I have found a trigonotarbid before in this layer of shale, but even that specimen is not quite the same as this one. I'll try and get better pictures later today, right now all I have is this. If you look carefully enough, there appear to be faint impressions of some legs to it's one side.

Ancient arthropod with gnarly claws discovered in Burgess Shale Calgary Sun - ‎April 26, 2017‎ http://www.calgarysun.com/2017/04/26/ancient-anthropod-with-gnarly-claws-discovered-in-burgess-shale Paleontologists identify new 507-million-year-old sea creature with can opener-like pincers, University of Toronto, April 26, 2017‎ https://www.utoronto.ca/news/ouch-u-t-paleontologists-identify-508-million-year-old-sea-creature-can-opener-pincers https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170426131024.htm This 508-million-year-old sea predator had a remarkable mouth Washington Post - ‎April 26, 2017‎ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/04/26/this-508-million-year-old-sea-predator-had-a-remarkable-mouth/?utm_term=.770085e2838c The paper is: Aria, C., and J.-B. Caron, 2017, Burgess Shale fossils illustrate the origin of the mandibulate body plan. Nature (2017) doi:10.1038/nature22080 https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature22080.html Yours, Paul H.

I recently found this sample in a hill dug out for the construction of a new Walmart. I think the age of the rock is Silurian, but I need to get a more detailed map to double-check. It looks to me like there might be three pieces of trilobites on the rock. One bigger and one smaller at the center, and the other at the top left, kind of out of focus. I am thinking it is may be the anterior margin of the cephalon?