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Family and I took a trip to Beltzville State Park earlier this week. We stayed around the lake, looking along the shoreline and wading through water. Found some pretty cool Middle Devonian fossils. My wife lucked out with two Trilobite pieces, one of which is a really nice head imprint. I'm still working on identification, so please bare with me. Any help of course is appreciated. Coin is 22mm Shoreline Trilobite head (Phacops rana?) surrounded by Crinoid stems Trilobite (Phacops rana?) - lower abdomen Crinoid stems Crinoid stems Pleurodictyum tabulate coral (?) and brachiopod Crinoid stems Brachiopods and I'm not sure what the orange/black dotted impression is.

Hello everyone, Recently I visited a golf course in Falls Church, Virginia - Fairfax county for any who are not familiar with that particular city. I recognized that I was likely to be on Culpeper Basin strata and noticed that there were numerous decorative boulders around the course. Due to their size I suspected that they had probably been sourced locally, and I took the opportunity to see if any might contain fossils. Although many of the boulders matched the Balls Bluff Siltstone rocks that I have encountered in my local stream site, I knew it was a stretch to hope for fossils and I kept my eye out mostly for carbonized plant fragments. After a while, I came upon one boulder that did not look radically different from those I had seen before - until I took a closer look. The boulder contained abundant impressions of what appear to primarily be brachiopods but which could also include some bivalves. Below are some photographs that I took of some of the larger fossils: Impression #1: Looks to be a brachiopod impression though I am not experienced enough in this area to rule out bivalve. Impression #2: Brachiopod? at the top right of the photograph and assorted material. Impression #3: Impression #4: Impression #5: Additional photograph of the boulder (apologies for lack of scale): Since it was a boulder I could not collect the specimen. As such, I cannot take more photographs of the boulder. Considering the fauna present on the piece I highly doubt that it came from the Culpeper Basin - as far as I know Unio sp. is the only bivalve known from Culpeper strata and to my eye these more closely resemble brachiopods. If they are not from the Culpeper Basin, where might the rock have been sourced from? The nearest Devonian-aged formations are the Mahantango and Foreknobs formations with the Needmore Shale being a bit farther away. Do the fossils or the rock resemble what one might expect from one of these formations?

We recently found these brachiopods and I was wondering if anyone is able to provide any more information about who they are. They were collected on the Western cost of Newfoundland and they are early to middle ordovician in age. If you have any other questions regarding the fossils let me know and I will do my best to answer. Anything would help, thanks!

Age: Ordovician: Approx. 454-452 Mya Formation: Decorah Shale Location Grant County, Wi Amidst the frequent outcroppings of Platteville Limestone in Southern Wisconsin, you occasionally encounter the overlying Decorah Shale. From what I read this formation is more frequent north of Grant County, and in Minnesota as well. The outcrop itself is roughly 200 feet in length, and only extends about 6 feet from the ground. Its located in a very remote area, amongst a sea of corn fields. Here are a couple finds from my third trip to this locality. Here is a complete crinoid calyx with associated pinnule filtering appendages. Complete crinoids are much more common in Silurian/Devonian stratum. Next is a hashplate, with a few assorted brachiopods and crinoid fragments. There were also a handful of brachiopods to be found alone as well. All of these are very similar to the Ordovician Lepidocyclus perlamellosa/H. capax. Although these were much smaller in size. A single Lingula inarticulate brachiopod, which was a huge surprise since this was my first one ever. I found a mid sized orthoconic nautiloid. This one is 7 inches (17.7 cm) in length. The approximate width at its widest end is 2 3/4 (6.9 cm). Note the visible septa markings on the specimen. This is an internal mold, so structure is a little different from that of a normal mineralized specimen. Not the largest from this site, as others I've recovered push 25 inches (63.5 cm). The internal siphuncle is exhibited here in cross section: I marked the cross section and direction of the siphuncle here. Phragmocones from this locality only preserve as internal molds without any calcified structure. As a result of poor preservation they can be difficult to spot. With a trained eye, it becomes significantly easier. Here are some additional brachiopods that I dug out from this locality. A fennestellid bryozoan as well. There were a few, but none to write home about unfortunately. My favorite finds at this location are by far the large nautiloids, which have been consistently produced from here. (If only I could find one at 6 feet now ) If anyone has an i.d for that crinoid calyx, I'd be happy to post measurements or more detailed photos. Other than that I hope to run out to Indiana sometime within the month, maybe I'll see some of you out there. -Jonah

I don’t want to say more about the specifics of the location quite yet- i’d like to actually make sure this place is a fossil bed, and that this one find wasn’t just a fluke. I also have to talk more with the land owners, ensure they’d be okay with the site becoming publicly known, as well as work out if they are okay with me doing some more extensive searching and digging in the bedrock. But nonetheless, i wanted to share the find itself because i am so so so happy, as this is my first fossil (and potential site) that i’ve ever found by doing my own geological research, and i wanted to share it here. I hope once i speak with the landowners more, as well as find at least one more fossil to confirm its not a fluke, i can get permission to post the location!

This brach is really odd. Possibly a very weathered (pre-burial) Parazyga hirsuta?

Found in Northeast Costilla County Colorado in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at almost 10,000 feet elevation. From limited research I believe they may be brachiopods from late Paleozoic? There are shells and snail looking things. Found next to each other but not together in the same piece of rock rock. I was wondering what other kinds of fossils may be in this same area. Like fish or trilobites? Thanks

I found these Devonian bivalves (?) at the Milwaukee formation at estabrooke park in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I think the first one could be a bivalved arthropod like an ostracod and the second could be part of a brachiopod. Any help is appreciated! Thanks. Sorry for lack of scale! I just put one in my rockhounding bag.

I found this odder little brachiopod on my last outing a few days back. I didn't examine it until I got home later that day, and realized then it wasn't one of the more dominant species in the formation. It has qualities that match well with Phricodothyris. It would be a nice new species to my collection, but I am not completely certain. What do you think?

Found at the famous Caesar Creek spillway, which exposes the Liberty and Whitewater formations. Thinking Grewingkia canadensis for the horn coral. The brachiopod is not a spiriferid, and is too round for Vinlandostrophia. Four ridges (pictured) suggest Lepidocyclus perlamellosa/Hiscobeccus capax for the calcified brachiopod. And ideas what the circled encrusting bryozoan may be (circled red)? It is not patterned like Escharopora falsiformis--the zooids cells have no pattern, more like Aspidopora sp. Feel free to contest my identification; I am always looking to improve. What are your thoughts?

Newbie here, to the forum and fossil hunting. I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and have a couple spots within an hours drive, however so far have only visited Big Brook on a few different occasions with my family over the past month. Definitely addicted! Thought I would share some of my finds. All are fairly common, but totally amazing to me. Not sure on the ID of a few of them, and some I'm not sure if they are even fossils. I find your mind tries to make something out of nothing, especially with rocks. In any case, thanks for looking, and appreciate in advance any feedback, good or bad! 1979 3 3/4" Boba Fett for scale

Hi everyone, I recently purchased a collection from a retired fossil collector. Including in this collection was a box with Brachiopods from the Eifel region. Unfortunately it is harder than expected to ID them all. So here is the first batch of photo's of Brachiopods which I all believe to be Spiriferid. 1) A couple of small Spiriferid brachiopiods which seem to be from the same species: After some google searching and comparisons my best bet is "Hysterolites hystericus" 2) A larger well preserved Spiriferid Looks like a Cyrtospirifer sp. to me 3) Another larger and well preserved Brachiopod: Pretty sure this is a "Spinocyrtia ostiolata" 4) A larger Brachiopod Another Cyrtospirifer? 5) A larger Brachiopod (same species as nr 4) Another Cyrtospirifer?

Yesterday I received a 30 pound box of various shell, marine fossils, and some other miscellaneous fossils and a few extant bits as well. I will post in the ID section some as not everything has a label. It is a large overwhelming amount to sort through so this will be a bit at a time kind of thread. Please let me know if anything of the id tags are using outdated names or incorrect, etc. First an overall picture the seller had of the lot. Some Brachiopods from Wutach Germany What appears to be clam steinkerns also from Wutach Germany second picture of hinge point if that is useful. A pair of Glycymeris Americana with matching valves from Virginia Sticking with the Virginia theme a pair of Crucibulum constrictum A crab burrow from another Virginia location. And last but not least for now is some Olivia carolinensis from North Carolina I will try to make additional posts every few days as I unpack and sort this collection out. Stay tuned folks.

Found in creek bed in Northern St. Charles County, Missouri. It's interesting... don't think it's just a rock. Maybe just an impression (or whatever it's called, can't remember proper term), or if it's one or more things. Help with ID would be very much appreciated! Also, please let me know if photo quality is not sufficient or if anyone has any suggestions for future post.

Hi everyone! Yesterday I bought a collection of fossils from a retired fossil hunter, included in the lot was a box full of devonian Brachiopods from the Eifel region (mainly Gerolstein) in Germany. I find Brachiopods very interesting and I am getting better at ID'ing them, but there are quite a few species I've never really seen before and my usual ID website of Paleontica doesn't seem to have most in their database. So I was hoping if anyone here has some handy articles, papers or websites which might help with my quest on ID'ing these critters. PS. I was also planning on posting the ones I really can't figure out, but since I am leaving for Solnhofen tomorrow I wanted to get my hands on some good sources first. Thank you in advance!

As promised, my second trip report covering my day trip last October to the two most famous Pennsylvanian-aged fossil locales in Texas is here! That same Saturday after visiting Mineral Wells and finally finding my first trilobites I made the hour drive north to Lake Jacksboro. For those who don't know, the Lost Creek Dam on the southeastern side of Lake Jacksboro was constructed from earth dug out of a borrow pit a short walk away. As the lake and its dam happen to sit on top of the Finis Shale Member of the Graham Formation (although there is debate that , which dates back to the Late Pennsylvanian (or the Late Carboniferous for any international fossil hunters), the digging of the pit exposed a multitude of fossils that are still regularly being eroded out after every rain today. It's one of my favorite sites I've ever visited for the incredible diversity of the fossil species on display and the extreme ease with which someone willing to sit down on the shale can find them. Having just visited Mineral Wells, the variety of brachiopods, bryozoans, gastropods, bivalves, nautiloids, and corals was a welcome respite from the endless landscape of crinoid columnals I had just walked all over in my search for trilobites. Making my way across the dam and walking up to the expose shale slopes of the borrow pit, I was instantly greeted with the equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet for fossils. Everywhere I looked I saw something new. Right away I found a tripmaker: a huge shiny blue conulariid. It was complete too which was nice considering every one I had found on my first trip had been a broken fragment barely two centimeters across that I could only identify because of their ridged texture. Similar in appearance to modern day sea anemones when they were alive, there's nothing really like conulariids around today so I really enjoy finding such strange animals. Immediately following the conulariid was a second tripmaker: my first complete goniatite! Although small and lacking the ornate sutures that some species possess, I was just happy to finally find one that was complete. Broken fragments of other coiled nautiloids litter the shale slopes and I can only guess that there must be an incredibly short window to find one whole after it erodes out before it is destroyed. My guess is this one is Schistoceras. On the heels of one nautiloid find came another. I saw another mistakable coiled shell on the top of one of the slopes. Although it was flattened, I wasn't too upset. This specific specimen is most likely Domatoceras sculptile. Next up was a change of pace, with the largest brachiopod I've ever personally come across. The pedicle valve was speckled with stout but tiny spines and the shell material was partially stained a pinkish-orange in places which made a nice find even nicer. Identifying it wasn't hard as only one brachiopod at the site gets this large, Linoproductus. It was after finding the Linoproductus that I returned to the tops of the shale slopes. I had heard that the strata exposed here were the likeliest to produce the one type of fossil I was holding my breath hoping I might find. As everybody knows, my fossil interests lie with vertebrates first and foremost. I had never found one of the teeth that are colloquially said to have come from Pennsylvanian sharks but that actually come from a strange family of extinct cartilaginous fish called the Petalodontiformes. They would have cut an unusual figure during the Pennsylvanian with their buck-toothed grins featuring teeth that weren't sharp or even particularly hard like almost all fish and shark teeth that have evolved since. Fortunately I was in luck that day and the extra attention I had been paying to anything with a white enamel-ish look to it worked out. The tooth was missing the fragile root, which was expected, and about half of the blade, but I didn't care - I had found the oldest vertebrate fossil of my fossil hunting career! (Unfortunately I don't have any in-situ picture as I was too excited when I first saw the tooth to remember to take one. ) A couple paces in a different direction along the top of the outcrop and I had found a second tooth - this one possessing most of the blade but still no root. There was some matrix encasing the very tip that I later cleaned off when I returned home. Here are the two teeth side by side: Plus a picture of the smaller tooth once it was prepped: I tentatively identified these as either Petalodus ohioensis or Petalodus seratodus, but the in-and-out curving edges of the teeth don't perfectly match pictures I've seen online. I can only guess that this is just variation depending on the tooth's position in the mouth, or there might be a species of Petalodus at Jacksboro that just hasn't been noted yet. The sun was starting to go down by this point and I decided it was time to make my way back across the dam and to my waiting car. But as luck would have it there was one final surprise in store for me. Piled at the bottom of the slope were several huge chunks of nautiloid shell, arranged almost as if someone had visited the site before me and picked them up, before eventually deciding they weren't worth the trouble on their way out and dumping them on the ground. That there were two different species present seemed to support this. The two large chunks towards the top of the photo are from the grypoceratid nautiloid Domatoceras sculptile, absolutely the largest variety of coiled nautiloid you can find at Jacksboro. The smaller chunk with the bumps along the rim is a different nautiloid, Metacoceras. Here are some additional pictures of the Domatoceras chunks: And that was it for my Pennsylvanian day trip! Just a couple of weeks before I had put together a bucket list of all the different types of fossils I most want to find, and I was very happy that after this trip I was able to cross my first trilobite, a complete goniatite, and a Petalodus tooth off the list. A return trip is definitely in order! The day's best finds: Top: Petalodus ohioensis/seratodus Top Row: Parajuresania sp. (2 individuals), Unknown, Linoproductus sp., Domatoceras sculptile Bottom Row: Astartella concentrica, Condrathyris perplexa, Composita ovata (2 individuals), Schistoceras sp., Conularia crustula - Graham