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Last week I made my third annual pilgrimage back to the Chicago area to visit family, do a little fossil hunting, gorge myself on great ethnic foods and treat myself to some Chicago-style deep-dish stuffed pizza for my birthday--yum! I had hoped to pick up some more Pit 2 (Braidwood Biota) Mazon Creek nodules from Fossil Rock campground in Wilmington but sadly it is now closed and up for auction with the distinct possibility that it will never again allow fossil hunters to gather nodules from the spoil piles at the back of the campground. Instead, I figured on focusing back on the Pit 11 (Essex Biota) nodules in the Mazonia/Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area where I first had hunted nodules since learning about them several years ago. I had hoped on meeting up with some TFF members but unfortunately this turned out to be a busy weekend for them and we never managed to get out for a group nodule hunt. I did make it out to Mazonia/Braidwood for a couple hours of the weekend. Luckily, this location in Braceville is only a short 45 minute drive from where we were staying so it is quite convenient to pop over there. The weather report did not look good for Saturday afternoon and soon after we arrived the low clouds and mist turned to drizzle and then to rain and we were chased out with little to show for our efforts. We did a little better on Sunday and I have a small cache of nodules soaking in a bucket at the moment before their first freeze/thaw cycle on a shelf in my freezer. I had suggested to the TFF members in the greater Chicagoland area (including far western cities and extending into Wisconsin) that if there were other fossil hunting opportunities in the area that I might be able to replace Fossil Rock campground with some other novel (to me and my wife, anyway) location. Rob Russell suggested a small road cut in north central Illinois as a possibility but stated that a much more certain location would be the St. Leon roadcut in southeastern Indiana. We considered how we wanted to plan our week in Chicago and decided that Friday would be the best day for a roadtrip to Indiana. Google Maps (for some unknown reason) showed this trip as just under 4 hours. I figured that would be only an hour more than we normally drive to get to the Peace River here in Florida and that we could do it as a day trip. We got up early on Friday (easy to get out of bed with the prospect of fossil hunting ahead) and were on the road before 6am. Being reasonably close to the Summer Solstice and at a much more northerly than our normal South Florida latitude, the days were long and we were able to depart in daylight. We ducked under the southern tip of Lake Michigan and once in Indiana headed southeast on I-65 toward Indianapolis. Right away I could see that the Google Maps estimate of arrival time was optimistic. Large swaths of I-65 were under construction and there seemed to be as many large semi trucks on the road as cars. We stopped off along the way for a quick breakfast and continued to make steady progress toward Indianapolis. We had planned on stopping there because in my haste to pack for the Chicago trip I had forgotten to pack a long sleeve shirt. I have had more than my fair share of solar radiation as a kid spending my days shirtless and shoeless running around the country roads of northern Wisconsin with the local kids during my youth and now prefer to spend my time in South Florida covered up from the sun as much as possible. Rather than lathering up armfuls of sunblock I tend to prefer long sleeve shirts for their abrasion protection as much as their SPF. I set the GPS for the address of a Target store in Indianapolis as we had left the Chicagoland area before they were open. Unfortunately, we got the E or W prefix wrong on the street address and ended up some 16 miles away from the store. We managed to find a discount store in the area and after about 5 minutes of shopping (twice my normal preferred extent) I came away with my new "in the field" shirt for the extravagant price of $2.50. Back on the highway again and heading toward the town of St. Leon. We were making reasonable time (as best we could with the traffic and construction) but realized that 4 hours was a hopelessly unrealistic travel time. When I double-checked the distance I realized that it was around 280 miles and a 70 mph average speed would be needed to make this journey in the specified time. As that was the limit on the fastest parts of the highway we would not be arriving mid-morning as I'd originally planned. In the end we arrived for an early lunch in St. Leon where we (surprisingly) found vegetarian food at a restaurant called Skyline Chili. Chili they had--several large cauldrons of it bubbling away in the open kitchen area--but skyline? The only skyline visible in this open rural area was that shown in silhouette on their sign. Post lunch we headed north on Old State 1 till we saw the splendor of the extensive roadcut that I'd seen in Google Maps satellite imagery or in the trip photos of other groups that have hunted here before us. This roadcut through the 450 million year old Upper Ordovician deposits seems to have been an effort to minimize the slope of the highway running through its middle. We parked well off the road on the extensive shoulder near the drainage area and could hear the frequent trucks and cars go by. On their way up the incline we could hear the trucks shifting into low gear to climb the grade and the engine breaking of the trucks making the opposite trip. We were the only ones there, the sun was shining, the weather was pleasant and within minutes of parking the car we saw that the rocks around us were virtually carpeted with brachiopods and other fossils--it was going to be a good day. It had taken us 6 hours to get here (50% longer than originally estimated) but with the prospect of a new and exciting hunting opportunity, we couldn't be happier. For those who have not yet seen the roadcut at St. Leon here is what it looks like looking down the sloping highway with terraced slopes flanking the road. You'll notice the wide shoulder and the shallow drainage trough which make for safe parking well away from the traffic. The photo of the brachiopod slab right next to where we parked the car indicated a productive day was ahead of us.

Dear Guys, During the last several years i detected unknown truth talking about Lithuanian boulders- the Carboniferous and Permian marine rocks are very numerous and their age is various- there can be found almost each stage of Carboniferous and Permian. The main rock types are three- dolomite and limestone with masses of brachiopods that is various in color, stromatolite limestone with mollusks and unidentified cephalon like fossils, and the last- lacustrine limestone with coelacanth scales and possible plant remains (Carboniferous rhabdodermatids are very numerous). Carboniferous period and Early- Middle Permian was not known in Lithuanian glacial boulders so I very need the strong expert, especially who works on Carboniferous- Permian brachiopods. If my age determinations are correct then I will write the scientific book about this discovery and i think there is huge possibility that many of these boulders could be transported by someone glaciation from Northwestern Russia (or Northern Ural) because there are big areas of Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic rocks near surface and Northern mountains potentially could be the cold center at some glaciation period in the Pleistocene. I will show all the pictures with fossil identifications and size, maybe someone will tell the opinion about the taxon and age possibilities. Any contact detail or other important information is very welcome! First image- Angiospirifer (Late Carboniferous), 1.1 cm length Second image- Anthracospirifer (Middle- Late Carboniferous), 1.8 cm length third image- Archaeocidaridae sea urchin plates (Carboniferous), 5- 8 mm diameter Fourth image- unidentified brachiopod species from Carboniferous- Early Permian (8 mm- 1 cm length) Fifth image- Atomodesma? bivalves from Kungurian boulder with Waagenoconcha brachiopod (1.7- 2.3 cm length)

Hello from Glenville, PA. Where there are ZERO fossils to be found anywhere nearby....

Hi all, this fossil hash plate is like a super hard gray mud with cracks. Even using a wood rasp to smooth much off. Mostly a trial or training piece. The shell was broken and in layers, with much covered. I have removed a lot of the cover, can I get an I'd, and is it worth continuing? I also see two Brachiapods, and they still some material stuck on the surface. I do not know of a way to dissolve the matrix, to recover the fossils. ultrasonic does nothing.

I Found this last week on what I believe some call Lake Michigan Brownstone ? 3 5/8th in x 4 inch. Has Bryozoans and one I believe is a brachiopod 15 mm wide attached to the side. Bob

Greetings I'm a new member from upstate New York, Saratoga Region as well as a periodic visitor to Florida and happy to be on this forum. I'm not new to fossils having been introduced at a very young age you could say I'm "actively"returning after a short retirement. I find myself in an area rich in so many fossils and have major questions on collecting and more.......pardon the new guy and hoping to hear from like minded folks like myself. I'm actively seeking to find examples of trilobites and eurypterides near me. I've been to some of known local sites and not having much luck. Are there any clubs in my area.

With fall just around the corner, I was able to get in a hunting trip with my friend Jeffrey P, to the wilds of upstate NY: Specifically, the Deep Springs Road Site, in Earlville. I met up with Jeff at our usual meet up place, and time, (6:00 am at a park and ride near Jeff - about an hour away from my home.) and loaded his gear into my vehicle. Off we went. We enjoyed some very nice scenery, once the morning fog lifted. Hills, streams, farms, and wildlife. We both saw a bald eagle flying by, and some turkeys, chickens, and a deer or two. After a stop for gas and some food in Roscoe, NY, we headed up to Earlville. It was, as usual, a good ride, punctuated with some great conversation, and some interesting music. We arrived at the site around 9:50 AM. The place looked like it had be worked quite a bit, with large areas of rubble from other people's digging. The weather cooperated nicely, - it was beautiful, with temps in the low 70's, and we enjoyed sun and some cool breezes. We got to work quickly, and finds came in drips and drabs. We both made some decent finds, (pics to follow.) Jeff getting ready to start the day. We hunted until about 5 pm. With a 4.5 hour drive ahead, (for me) we got on the road. A brief stop at everyone's favorite Scottish Restaurant, and a quick stop for gas, we finished the day out with more good conversation and music. Traffic was great until after I dropped Jeff off. I spent about 25 minutes in stop and go traffic on I-84 through Southbury. I got home at around 9:45 PM. Jeff is such a great guy to hunt with. Informative, supportive, knowledgeable, and often quite funny. I always enjoy hunting trips with him. Thanks again for another great trip, Jeff. Please feel free to add your finds here, Jeff. Hope you enjoyed the report and finds. Until next time, Kind regards,

sLast weekend I took a four day trip to Kentucky to see family; parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. While there arranged to get together with Herb from the Forum to collect Mississippian Age fossils which I hadn't done before. There are no fossiliferous Mississippian Age deposits in New York and the nearest are in Western Pennsylvania hours away, so this looked like a good opportunity to add some marine fossils from that age to my collection. Fortunately where my family lives is in an area of marine Mississippian deposits. On the way to our rendezvous with Herb in E-Town (Elizabethtown) my nephew and I stopped at a road cut in Leitchfield that he knew about and had seen other collectors collecting at. Fossils were eroding out of the hillside by the score and could be picked up right off the ground free of the matrix. Collected a number crinoid stems, bryozoans, and small brachiopods. After an hour, we continued on to our meet up with Herb. My nephew had already met Herb at a collecting site. We continued on to another road cut collecting site about forty minutes away. Again, fossils were eroding out of the hillside and could be picked right up free of the matrix. Prior to this I had no blastoids in my collection but in just an hour and a half I'd collected fifteen plus more brachiopods, crinoid stems, and some more bryozoan specimens. We then returned to the first place in Leitchfield where my nephew and I visited earlier. Found more specimens including a number of crinoid calyxes, a couple blastoids, and a few more brachiopods and bryozoans. I'll have to study to learn the IDs of these specimens. All in all a great day and Herb was wonderful to collect with and very generous and knowledgeable besides. Hope we get to do this again next year. Oh, and by the way, the family visit went well too.

Not a huge piece of my collection but still neat. The fine details of these marine animals are often lost to the ages but every once in awhile you find a few pieces that catch your eye. I was digging through my collections curious about those fossils I found when I first started collecting. Came across this little invertebrate nugget. It is worn but the color and how it hugged the matrix was attractive. Taxonomy: Animalia; Bryozoa; Ectoprocta; Gymnolaemata; Trepostomata; Amalgamata; Monticuliporidae

Here are a few pics of the bryozoans I cracked into today. Experimenting with the camera, hope they come out OK. (will delete some if necessary) You may see more detail by saving and zooming in ..... not sure. Thanks for looking, Enjoy.

Hi Folks. Anxious for the rain to quit so I can start digging again. Took a walk through the garden patches and picked these up today after several nice "rinsing" rains". I hope to find more of the bryozoan plates, maybe more larger ones. Maybe you can see more than one variety in the attached pics. More to come .... I'm hoping. Kind regards,

Hi everyone, I find this tiny but well-preserved encrusting bryozoan sheet: Same piece includes not so well-preserved branching bryozoans: I understand species ID is likely impossible without more magnification, but I will be very thankful for any guesses about their order, family or genus. Maastrichtian strata, Catalan Pyrenees.

Last week I drove out to Kentucky to spend a week with my family. Of course I also hit the fossil beds. The first day I visited the two Mississippian sites- Wax and Leitchfield that I visited last year. Here are some of the highlight finds of that day. First- Wax: Blastoids and bryozoans:

Hello. 2 years ago i got box with fossils described as Fossiles U.S.W Marvejols. I didn't get any more info about them. For me fauna looks Devonian Frasnian. Most of fossil sites in the area are Mesosoic. First specimen contains 3 different corals.( Alveolites ,Aulopora and Thamnopora ??)

Hello everyone! We just finished our study of the diminutive bryozoans we found in the Fort Apache east of Payson along the Highland Trail. As expected, they are all very small indeed and tell us once again that the environment they lived in was a stressed and sediment filled sea bottom, with little escape from the huge clouds of silt and sand raining down on them constantly. Thanks for looking, and it is with great pleasure we share this write up with you! (Adapted from our Paleo web site) For the amount of Limestone we have dissolved - now in excess of 200 pounds or so, it was surprising to only see about a teaspoon of bryozoans show up the acid fines. But this is an additional clue to the conditions which deposited the Fort Apache Limestone. As noted from write ups on previous batches of material, the amount of sand and silt mixed in with the limestone was a whopping 10%. The source of course was the Sahara like dune complex on shore with its blowing winds and large amount of muds and silts washing into the sea. The dune complex is now lithified into the adjacent Schnebly Hill formation, and forms the gorgeous Permian red buttes seen in Sedona and surrounding areas. Great for scenery, but at the time, bad for the marine fauna which had to deal with large amounts of sediment always raining down on the ocean bottom. This explains the almost complete lack of certain fossils, such as crinoids, brachiopods and corals. These invertebrates cannot tolerate large amounts of sediments raining do on on them as it clogs their filter feeding apparatus, and will not be found in such areas. Bryozoans were also filter feeders, and they are very limited in this formation, as are sponges. We encounter three types of small bryozoans in the acid fines from the Fort Apache. First, we have a branch or twig like diminutive bryozoan with extremely small pores over its surface. These are some of the smallest bryozoans we have ever seen! Second, a larger zooid type that encrusts shells and urchin spines. These have excellent detail in each zooecium. (the body chambers for each animal) And finally, fan shaped fenestrate bryozoans can be found in small broken pieces. These net like "moss animals" have some very nice fine details in the fan segments. Only a half a teaspoon of those were found, so are quite rare. Here are some representative images of the bryozoans we have found in the Fort Apache Limestone, with magnifications that vary from 7x to 45x. Fenestrate bryozoans - 7x. These fan shaped colonies were always found in tiny centimeter or less sized fragments, and never larger. But they have excellent surface details on the zooecium side. Closer view, with pin head at bottom for scale. 45x view showing small tube like pouches which contained individuals. These small tube like chambers are called zooecium in fossils and cystid for still extant living species. Every small branching bryozoan we found can fit in a half a teaspoon. Some have Y shaped branching, others are straight or tapered. A pinhead for scale is at the bottom. Some of the smallest members of this type seen here. Millimeter scale at bottom. 45x view of individual with very tiny pores. The third type was a more robust larger encrusting bryozoan. This one covers the exterior of a broken urchin spine. Millimeters at bottom. An urchin spine with a bryozoan partly encrusting its surface. The largest encrusting specimen was stained red by oxides in the silica. Encrusting type over a spine, showing detail in the zooecium. Thanks again for looking, we are now starting work on sponges we found, a very few of them, but they are spectacular in micro details! Living Bryozoans - Gary McDonald.

Hey there! I'm sorry its been so long since I've posted on here but suffice it to say I need your help. I'm planning a six to seven day fossil hunting trip in Pennsylvania (sometime in mid august) and I need your help verifying that the sites I've picked to visit from Robert Beards guide Rock Hounding Pennsylvania are still accessible to collecting as well as coverable given my time frame. The places I'm looking at hunting are sites 27. Beltzville State Park (Outcrops on shoreline), 28. Lehighton, Lehigh Canal (Former borrow pit and outcrop),30. Deer Lake (Borrow Pit), 33. Suedberg (Outcrop in former borrow pit), 35. Centralia (Former strip mine outcrop), 38. Rockville (Former quarry), 48. Walker Lake (Hillside and unpaved road), 51. PPL Montour Preserve (Hillside, Former borrow pit), 57. Uniontown (Former quarry). Any insights as to whether or not theses sites are still accessible to collecting, weather our not you believe covering all these sites within 6 to 7 days is possible, and any other tips and tidbits of information on the sites, and or planning a large trip like this etc, would be greatly appreciated! When I go I'm planning to take notes and pictures and then, when i get back, write a few essays illustrated with pics that I will post on here! Thank you in advance, Glenn aka Fossil123

I don't mean to overkill with ID questions ha. Haven't quite been adjusted yet to a forum group that is actually rich with knowledge. I have so much to learn, really stoked this exists. Anyways I found the left item from Walnut Creek in Austin. The rock to the right came from the Pedernales river from a gravel pit.