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On my eighth trip to the locality, I collected fossils at the famous St. Leon roadcut. Exposed were the Waynesville and Liberty formations, which date to the immense coral reefs of the upper Ordovician, or 450 ±5 MYA. The site was heavily picked, its erosive forces slowed during Indiana's summer heat. My drops of sweat evaporated on the sun-tempered limestone faster than I could count to ten. Despite the setbacks, acquisitions were generous. Best for last. Behold my brachiopods. The top row is Strophomena sp., the top-left sample demonstrating encrusting bryozoan. The second row is Vinlandostrophia ponderosa. The third and fourth rows are Lepidocyclus/Hiscobeccus, though I am of the opinion the genera are synonymous and are just sexual dimorphs given their identical ages, appearances, and regional occurrences. I am curious what other brachiopod enthusiasts think of this similarity. (Four boxes on the grid is 25 millimeters.) I continue with the bivalves. The top row is Caritodens sp, the top-left sample being a particularly well-preserved example. The bottom-left sample is Anomaladonta sp., and the bottom-right sample is a near-perfect Ambonychia sp. Life is incomplete without the gastropods! I didn't take French in high school for nothing! The top sample is unknown to me, despite being the second I have found of its type. The middle-left sample is too buried. The remaining four are all Paupospira sp., the middle sample being a good example. Interestingly, the bottommost Paupospira has a partial Flexicalymene sp. trilobite cephalon on it, which makes me question if the trilobite was consuming the calcium to augment its own development. However, considering the sample is a messy storm deposit, it is likely pure luck. I have to mention the numerous Isotelus maximus fragments at the site. When looking for fossils at St. Leon, one must wonder how many beautiful I. maximus lie under the surface, only to crumble down the slopes of the roadcut and into my hands. Of interest is the long, delicate genal spine on the top right. Now to the more interesting fossils. I follow with three of six total straight-shelled nautiloid cephalopods. The middle sample is a rare, (calcified) Anaspyroceras sp., and the right sample is also calcified. The beautiful, ancient calcite crystals within the dull-appearing right sample: Now to the next three. The left orthocone is all associated and is very large. The middle sample is also quite large. Species-level identification of orthocones can be difficult even with a clear cross-section of the siphuncle, so "straight-shelled nautiloid cephalopod" will have to suffice. However, I suspect these three samples are likely Treptoceras sp. Excellent samples to say the least. I kept saying "straight-shelled," so perhaps some of you guessed it: I found a coiled nautiloid cephalopod! These are very rare. I have found only a handful of these. Behold the curved Beloitoceras sp., a member of Oncocerida, to which the modern nautilus owes its existence to! It's unbelievable how this rock from half a billion years ago directly led to the existence of modern nautiloids! The continuity of life is incredible. The penultimate is a bryozoan fan. Yes, a fan! The bryozoan tapers off at the upper edges. I have never seen anything like it! It is 8x4 cm. And finally... ...a giant bryozoan! This is my biggest single fossil find ever! The caliper on the left is set all the way out to 15.00 cm! It is easily 15 inches in diameter and four inches thick! After crashing my bicycle a few weeks ago, this immense find could be my new wheel! Hear me out. In ten years of collecting, I have found many rare trilobites, behemoth cephalopods, and more, but this colony of tens of thousands of individual animals takes the cake for the most interesting fossil I've ever had the privilege to collect. On top of being huge and complete, it's riddled with trypanites (trace burrows for you bone hunters out there) from all a manner of creatures that used to reside in the Ordovician. I'm sure my fellow amateur paleontologists appreciate that this isn't just a fossil coral, it's an entire ecosystem! It's literally a window into life 450 million years ago! It's riddled with traces left by crinoid stems, scolecodonts (boring worms), parasitic encrusting bryozoans, brachiopods, bivalves, and so much else! I'm considering donating it to a museum. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed.

Sample was found in the Liberty formation in the well-known St. Leon roadcut in southeastern Indiana. Sample measures 70.0 x 38.3 millimeters. Monticules are not star-shaped.

Hi. From: "Malomhegyi Mészkő Kft" limestone quarry (Hungary, Zebegény) 1 2 3 Urchin? With video 4 5 ? 6 Bivalve? Thank You

So there was some talk about my recent needle preps and this Archimedes is on the same stone as the broken pygidium. The first photo is where it started. The others are where I currently am with it. I'm prepping at 30X zoom with sharpened sewing needles and hypodermic needles. It is a long process. But I can get some fine detail in the prep. I have 7 needles. Sharpened sewing needles. 1 wedge shape 1 four sided 2 cone shape Hypodermic 18 gauge 22 gauge 32 gauge 20220722_174254.jpg 20220722_174150.jpg

Never seen this texture on a brachiopod or bryozoan before. Found in Wisconsin gravel.

I was finally able to get back to Penn Dixie for the first time in a couple years. Between the pandemic and life just getting busy, it had been difficult to find time to do a little fossil hunting. But this past weekend I was able to make a few decent finds. I have a lot of the common fossils found at Penn Dixie so I was trying to limit myself to things I haven’t found before and/or better quality specimens. Here are a few of my finds, some of which I’m not quite sure what they are. A sizable hash plate with a nice bryozoan (my first at this site!) An unknown specimen, I don’t even know where to start with this one. Three E. rana: two rollers (one hidden), and a partial at the top of the photo. A few brachiopods, three of them had both sides.

FINALLY getting around to posting about my first time ever fossil hunting in Oklahoma! Went on an extended weekend with the Paleontological Society of Austin to a variety of locales in Central OK - places I have heard about, read about and dreamed about going! I finally made it! And it was so very worth the drive, even if I did end up with a stupid cold the last two days (the drive home was a little....weird. Cold "fugue" makes for interesting driving- I really don't remember much of it, which is either good or bad....) But the FOSSILS! I've never hunted the Ordovician and Silurian so it was a real treat to find some new fauna. Of course I also brought home some micro matrix to extend my "hunting" fun. I was happy to find what I most wanted - a decent flat trilo and some good rollers. The rollers still need to be prepped a bit, but that is not my forte, so I have to find someone to get it done for me. But I also found some great stuff I wasn't expecting to find! I got there a day early and had scouted out some places to check - a lovely creek which supposedly had lots of species of trilobites, but all I found were some brachiopods and such. It was HOT. 98 degrees and humid, just like I had left behind in Central Texas. It was much greener though! Beautiful rolling hills and a lovely creek, but I didn't stay there long. I had another spot which I was pretty sure would be a winner. And yep, it was. Turned out some of the Society was there also, so I joined a half dozen of them already hunting. I was hoping to find an echinoderm called Oklahomacystis. The group had already found a half dozen or so, so I asked to see what they looked like. I had seen pictures, but it's always good to see something in the field to know what you are looking for. I was super happy to find a nice big one, fairly well preserved. I wasn't there very long, so I didn't find a lot, but I found a few nice things. Some cool Bryozoans and lovely Brachiopod with nice color: A Gastropod: The next morning was our first "official" PSoA site - Yellow Bluff. The weather took a dramatic turn overnight and we woke up to cold and drizzle! We hoped the drizzle would stay just that or quit altogether. It turned out perfect...the occasional drizzle but a wonderfully cool mid 60's day!! Apparently last time the Society had been out there it was in the 90s and miserable. So we lucked out. Yellow Bluff is on private land and we had made arrangements ahead of time. What I was NOT expecting was the scramble up a creek bank ravine followed by having to hop a barbed wire fence (which other members assured me had NOT been there before) and then found out the other group had found a much easier way up..... ah well. It was an adventure. This place is BIG...I didn't even really get to explore the Silurian stuff up above. I stayed mostly in the flat area and found wonderful crinoid parts, the occasional trilo bit, some great brachiopods and bryozoans. And FINALLY, after getting a little frustrated because all around me I hear "I found a Trilo!" (not everyone, but it seemed like it...) I finally found a whole trilobite and I have to say, it's pretty nice. cleaned up as much as I could A few more finds: A desegmented crinoid cup: a really neat little curled crinoid arm a little floating crinoid We were all looking for a newly described species of starfish that one of the PSoA members had found last time they were there - about 3 years ago. Alas, none were found. His is still the only one. I was hoping maybe this was one, but I think it's crinoid. A Gastropod Platyceras and some cool little tiny things from my micro matrix We finished out the day with some good food and conversation and got ready for the next day which I was most excited about - Black Cat Mountain! I had made arrangements to go to this amazing site and boy did it exceed my expectations. I found 49 Trilos -some just bits, but most whole! The place is enormous. Some of the group went off to hammer away at the stone to get the fossils- I prefer surface collecting. I just put my nose to the ground and found all kinds of great finds! Granted, they may not be the best finds, but I was super happy with what I found. I wasn't looking for the fancy stuff, I just wanted a couple of good rollers. I love the eyes!! And these aren't even cleaned up....just washed a nice big pygidium A Huntoniatonia impression with the part of the tail visible And of course there were some other really cool finds, like these button bryozoans: and of course a plethora of brachiopods: plus some nice size Cephalopods Oh, and last but not least, this cute tarantula and his little house: I was warned about rattlesnakes and was all prepared with my snake shin guards, but I think the temp was too cool for them so no sign of them this trip! Which was just fine with me. I'll stick with bugs and spiders, thanks so much!

A couple weeks ago during a collecting trip down to the Cincinnati area, I spent half a day collecting at the big roadcut near Maysville, KY. It's really hard to describe just how big this roadcut is. Pictures don't do it justice, but here's one anyways. For reference, the pine trees are probably 3 meters tall or so. I spent all my time collecting in the Fairview Formation. In the picture above, the contact between the Fairview and the underlying Kope Formation occurs near the first bench. The contact with the overlying Bellevue Limestone is just above the third bench. It really helps to study literature on this site before visiting, it's very overwhelming and it's harder to have success without knowing what to look for. I didn't collect too much but was happy with my finds. Plectorthis fissicosta A variety of bryozoans, including the blade-shaped Escharopora falciformis towards the bottom The dumbbell-shaped burrow Diplocraterion The rare bryozoan Graptodictya perelegans The most exciting find was the rare trilobite Ceraurus milleranus. Unfortunately it's weathered and I'm not confident that much more is hiding under the matrix, but I'll probably have it prepped at some point to be sure. To the upper left is a Ceraurus hypostome, not sure if it's from this individual or not. In the future I'd like to dedicate a whole day to this site. I've visited twice so far and still barely explored any of it. If you ever have the chance, definitely check it out.

Thanks to Tim @Fossildude19 for identifying the following recent find as a bryozoan. I'm trying to narrow it down to at least genus. Taking a wild stab . . . genus Parvohallopora? I can't seem to find any image that resembles this one with any degree of certainty. Thanks. Camille

This is one of my favorite oddities: it’s a spherical colony of bryozoans from the York River of Virginia. You’ll see from the closeup that’s it’s layers upon layers of colonies. There’s no telling how deep they go… is there a pebble at the center? Anything at all? Specimen is 7cm. It’s tricky to find ID’s for these, but I’m curious if this is an encrusting bryozoan or a coral. Also, it’s just neat and wanted to share. Frank

Recent Eastern MO find. Some sort of bryozoan? I'd like to clean it up a bit without damaging it, any tips are appreciated. Thanks!

On my way home from Georgia today I decided to make a short stop at the Vienna, Illinois roadcut that is right off of I-24. The weather was nice, a balmy 52 degrees and I was out collecting without a jacket. I decided to stop for 20 minutes and see how many blastoids that I could find, but alas, I only found a small one. I did find the usual pieces that are found at the Mississippian roadcut- blastoid, brachiopods, horn coral, a crinoid basal plates, bryozoan, including Archimedes screw and a number of hash plates. I really do like to collect Mississippian hash plates, I think that they are really pretty. Here are a few of the finds-

I know crinoid "forests" are a dime a dozen, but still its nice to find one so packed . . . And some bryozoan pieces, my first that I can identify with a bit of confidence . . . but please correct if I'm mistaken. Cheers!

This past Sunday, I had about 2 hours to spare, and wanted to look for fossils. I obviously couldn’t go far, so I decided to see whether I might have any luck fossil hunting along the Iowa River right in Iowa City. The exposure there is from the Coralville Member of the Cedar Valley Formation, which is mostly Devonian limestone and Dolomite. The faunal diversity in this strata is not great - some solitary and colonial corals, a smattering of brachiopods and bryozoans, and a few small crinoidal columnals. I had time to check out two locations very near downtown Iowa City, and both within two miles of my house. The banks leading to the river in this area are relatively short (~10-15 feet), but can be steep and/or blocked by dense vegetation. The first location allowed access to the river via a small boat launching ramp. The river at that point is not scenic and the brief stretches of shoreline contain a surprising amount of large discarded slabs of concrete. This must have been near somebody’s favorite fishing spot, as I saw a chair perched neatly on the stones of the shore. I poked around for a bit and found quick collection of some species of the colonial coral Hexagonaria. I assembled the finds for this photo. They are not that well-preserved. I did find it interesting that some pieces are brownish and contained open corallites without intact septa. These were all thin sheets about 10 mm thick. Other pieces were thicker and larger, grayish stones whose corallites were filled in. I didn’t find much else there other than a small patch of some species of the Bryozoan fenestella a beat-up brachiopod and an even more beat-up solitary rugose coral. With only 45 minutes left, I went about ¾ of a mile north, where there’s a rough, worn-out path to the river; a path likely made by people going down to fish. Here I had more luck, finding a place I’ll return to later when I have more time. I almost immediately found two very large rocks with plenty of brachiopods in them. Unless you zoomed in very close to where my fingers touch the rock in the second picture, you are sure to have missed my favorite find. Here it is zoomed in more closely. Both valves of a fairly large Platyrachella iowensis. I was in a hurry and at first was not going to try to get it out for fear of damaging it in my rush. But with just a little gently prying with the pick tip on my rock hammer, the specimen popped out quite nicely. Here are some pics of it after I got it home: I then found a palm-sized chunk of solitary rugose coral. I’ve read that a common genus of this coral in this strata is Cystiphylloides, although I have no real basis to ID this as such. I still had about 10 minutes to pry open a few pieces of one of the large, brachiopod-filled rocks and got what I think is a species of Vinlandostrophia, as well as a few, small brachiopods that are not identifiable (to my unskilled eye).

I had the opportunity to visit another Silurian site in the northern Georgia/southern Tennessee area. This is now the third such site I've visited, but the first in the Rockwood Formation as opposed to the Red Mountain Formation. As far as I can tell there's very little different between the two lithologically and paleontologically, with the Rockwood and Red Mountain occupying pretty much the same stratigraphic position. The difference seems to be that the TGS prefers to use the term "Rockwood" to describe it's Niagaran Silurian system and the GGS and AGS prefer the term "Red Mountain", mostly because the unit is more differentiable in Tennessee whereas in southern NW Georgia and Alabama it is less differentiable. However, the GGS does use the term Rockwood in some of it's reports, and there are some lithological differences between the more southerly and easterly exposures and the more northerly and westerly ones (most notably in the thickness of the hematite beds), so I'm going with Rockwood Formation for these specimens. I had some difficulty in telling the age of the rocks at first. The geologic map I was using wasn't very accurate, and had both the Rockwood Formation and some upper Ordovician units within close proximity to each other. As you'll see with some of the fossils, there are some forms more associated with the Ordovician, such as Isotelus and Vinlandostrophia (Platystrophia), but at the same time I couldn't help but notice there were some similar characteristics between this fauna and the Rose Hill Formation, such as the calymenid molt fragments, and prevalence of Leptaena, which I did not find in the nearby upper Ordovician rocks (not to say it doesn't occur in the Ordovician, just that I didn't find it). Combined with the presence of Eospirifer and the thin beds of iron-rich sandstone and ferruginous limestone, this site is most likely in the Silurian Rockwood Formation. However, in my opinion, it appears to host an earlier, transitionary fauna than the Rose Hill. The collecting itself was pretty easy. The weather was nice, the site not too hard to explore, and the fossils easily extracted from the rock. Most of the exposure was unfossiliferous, however every now and then I'd come across a little part where there'd be a densely packed assemblage, with some loose specimens scattered about. The shale and thin limestone were the most fossiliferous. The first up are some of the brachiopods. A couple of different species it looks like, both tentatively of the genus Dalmanella sp. The report I'm basing this on is pretty old so that name probably no longer applies, however. These are pretty good examples of the more Ordovician forms present at this site. Although Vinlandostrophia (Platystrophia) sp. does occur in the Silurian as late as the Waldron Shale, it is definitely more common in the Ordovician, where V. ponderosa forms veritable coquinas in the upper Leipers Formation. It's a bit hard to see in the bottom one, but it does have a sulcus, unlike most of the Dalmanella sp. present. A few Leptaena sp. Although it is known from the upper Ordovician, I have not found it in the Ordovician rocks nearby and have found several in the Silurian Rose Hill Formation. It is interesting to note that there are such similarities between the two early Silurian fauna across such distances. One characteristic I quickly noticed was that a lot of the specimens in this area occur as loose shells, whereas in Maryland and Pennsylvania they're often internal molds wedged in rock. It makes for easier collecting, and more photogenic fossils! I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is Dalmanella elegantula(?) Pretty good preservation on this one, but I'm not quite sure about it's ID. Maybe some kind of Chonetes (?) sp. Eospirifer sp. with crystalline preservation.

I collected this a couple years back, from the Topeka Limestone in Elk Co. Kansas, and it was identified as Archimedes. Is that correct? it doesn't look quite right to me (in fact, I think it looks more like Penniretepora, but I could be wrong). The specimen is 18 mm long. I apologize for using the penny for scale, the picture was taken before I started using a ruler as the scale in my fossil pictures, and my camera is having problems right now.

From the Atrasado Formation in San Diego Canyon, New Mexico. Took a couple of younger friends fossil hunting, and we found a good bed. This one's a real beauty. My photographic equipment is primitive and doesn't do it justice. Graptolites and something else. Not sure what the circular structures are; I don't have the equipment for proper microphotography. There is a very clear echinoderm plate elsewhere in the sample so I'm wondering if these are some kind of echinoderm. They're very clear under the loupe and obviously fossils, not sedimentary structures. Bryozoans. This particular bed was thick with the stem bryozoans in the second photograph, as well as scads of brachiopods and a few crinoid stems.