Search the Community

I'm trying to get to one Oxford Clay site pretty frequently, and it did not disappoint. I found my best gastropods from the site this weekend. I thought I had found two pieces of crinoid, but when I got home found it was four. More ammonite as well. Even better, I managed to not bring home any living creatures. Last time I had a caterpillar clinging to an ammonite.

Hello fellow fossil peeps, I am finally adding myself on here as I was told to do by Asa Kaplan almost a year ago. I love finding fossils and making new discoveries or new to me discoveries. I love to learn and I am joining here to learn more and possibly spread some of the things I have learned as well. I live in Missouri south of St. Louis in Jefferson County. This is primarily where I collect in various groups and formations including the decorah group, plattin group, kimmswick fm, warsaw fm, fern glen fm, and St. Louis fm. Favorite fossils right now are cyclocystoids. I have found the one in my profile pic and several hundred more individual submarginal ossicles and 2 more partially articulated rings (one that is also nearly complete). 2nd favorite thing to hunt for is either cephalopods or trilobites and it depends on my mood and location I am searching. Locally we can find a lot of straight cephalopods such as endoceras, actinoceras, cameroceras but coiled nautiloids and ammonites are rare to non-existent in these formations. In Missouri full or even close to full trilobites are also rare finds although I have been lucky to find a few over the past 2 years they are still very rare. Bryozoans and the wild diversity are also a favorite and very diverse in my area. Archimedes, Evactinopora radiata, diplotrypa, and others are prevalent locally. Thank you,

It's been a sunny and very, very cold day. Most of the finds at the Yaxley site are small and intricate, lots of crinoid ossicles. What pops depends a lot on the weather conditions - today I found a lot of lighter coloured fossils, including my first coprolite from this site. There are a few I think I'll ask for help to ID.

Hi. Around year ago I was exploring the area around Lough Hackett 20 km north from Galway. I found few fossils on the shore with much different fauna than typical late Visean fauna in Co. Galway. The main problem here is stratigraphy. It's similar to british Avon group of Mendips. I think all of them are Tournaisian. Fig1. Large piece of iron-stained black crinoidal limestone.

I collected some crinoid columnals and a horn coral....weathered from the Devonian Keyser Formation limestone in Pennsylvania. As usual, preservation is not very good.

My first post was so popular that I decided to do a second. I went to the same place, and found more many rich and colorful fossils, and got enough material to write to you about it. For those who missed my first post, you will find it HERE As you will see in this article, I combine my two passions, collecting fossils and color photography. I love color, creating black and white photographs of fossils is good for scientific research, when you are a paleontologist and want to record the small details for science and posterity. But for people who are just starting to explore the world of fossils, we need something more inspiring, because to be fair, fossil photos are generally drab, and generally unappealing to the general public. Not that fossil collectors don't take great photos, I see fantastic photos all the time on TFF, but usually in a different context. I'm just trying to be a little different and take a picture of the fossils as I see them, in their natural environment. Maybe this will inspire the next generation of fossils collectors. This site is part of the Lorraine group (Chambly sub-formation). It contains the most recent sedimentary rock in the region, a series of clay and limestone schists that are redder towards the top. It's made up of clay schists, a sedimentary rocks of dynamic origin, formed by the splitting of existing rocks and calcareous schists, a sedimentary rocks formed by the accumulation of animal or plant matter in bodies of water. This region also bears the marks of the Quaternary geological era. Immediately after the last ice age, the whole St. Lawrence Valley and its waterways became a vast inland sea (the Champlain Sea) that stretched as far as today's Lake Champlain. The site is not as gorgeous or rich in fossils as the other sites we see in this forum, but it is rich in brachiopods, crinoids, bryozoans, and a few gastropods. Sorry @Kane no trilobites. Here are some photos to give you an idea of the site, it's a small beach where the fossils are underwater, so I'm literarily fishing for fossils. The formation is made up of many colorful stairs and steps leading to the water's edge. Like a time machine, each step takes you back a thousand years, where you can discover at each staircase the remains of a thriving fauna, long extinct. Don't expect to see anything bigger than a few inches, this is the Late Ordovician historically rock formation in the Richelieu River Valley in the St. Lawrence Lowlands rests on sedimentary rocks. which are some 450 million years old and formed during the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. I was able to photograph this hash plate full of sowerbyella at that special moment, when the water was receding after a previous wave. This is not a painting, just a photograph of what typical Ordovician fauna might have looked like 500 million years ago, almost as if we were there. I try to keep my hand dry and out of the freezing water, picking up the fossils between two waves, leaving the fossils out of the water. It was difficult to photograph the fossils underwater, because of the waves I took the photo at a time when the water was calmer and just before a wave came crashing on it. A lonely sowerbyella taking her beauty bath I found bi_valve playing hide and seek, with the bubbles A lot of times I hear that fossil and water aren't a good mix, but in my case it's a perfect match. The water acts as a sort of magical act, bringing these 450 million year old fossils back to life, infusing them with vibrant colors and hiding the passage of time. These normally terness fossils have a second life in this freezing water, small imperfections are hidden, making the texture smooth and lustrous, with beautiful vibrant colors. In homage of the Beatles, I call this one the Yellow Submarine Some brachiopod pile up over each other, I don't know what cause this rainbow of colors, the diffraction, the translucidities' of the fossils. Whatever the reason, it's a beautiful effect and a total surprise. A colorful brachiopod on a colorful rock I really like the contrast of theses two plate Don't need to search, no fossil here. Just a color full formation. Crinoid columnals are the most commonly recognized crinoid fossils, they are individual pieces of the column, or stalk, these resemble small washers. Olympic logos gone wild or Crinoid columnals, you choses. I particularly like the circles with a small star inside Columnals are joined together in life by elastic ligaments and skin. However, when the animal dies these soft tissues quickly decay and the stem break apart into individual ossicles, they leave behind a great many fossils. After the crashing waves, they sometimes cover themselves with air bubbles, giving this strange old world a new dimension. The hole in the center of the columnal is called the axial canal. It is most commonly round but may also be pentagonal or star-shaped, like this 1 millimeter fossil. Despite their small size some fossils can still be the star of the show. Bryozoans consist of a skeletal structure of calcium carbonate that has numerous tiny holes or openings dotting the surface. These holes once housed individual bryozoan animals called zooids, that derived their nutrients from the seawater. Atlas Of Ancient Life I found this briozoma all alone on this big boulder, strangely it comes out of the rock and comes back in right away. This is another bryozoan, it was on a smaller rock and I was able to collect it for my collection Most colonies were only a few inches in diameter but a colony of an Ordovician form found in the Cincinnati region ( Florence, Kentucky) is more than 26 inches in diameter and is one of the largest known bryozoan colonies. I really like this formation for it's richness of colors Photo taken in direct sunlight of a wet bi-valve Again, mother nature was playing with ice producing these wonderful sculptures everywhere we look. It was such a nice day, I couldn't resist taking some in picture. See other Ice sculpture Here. Crinoid columnals trapped under translucent ice. I found all theses fossils in just haft a day at that very special place. For those of you that did not see my previous post about my first fossil fishing trip, your in luck because it is still available HERE.

Hi everybody, I'm a neophyte to the geological realm (especially regarding paleontology), but I thought I'd share some finds on the forum. In Layman's terms, I found some clams, possibly some coral, and (...wait I know this one) Crinoids! Any possible fossil ID would be great, happy to be here, and glad to join a community with similar interests! All items below were found within 100-200 yards of each-other on the Meramec river just outside of St. Louis, Missouri. 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10) 11) Artifacts:

Hi Everyone, In the latter half of last month I took a two week trip to Kentucky and Tennessee. My sister, her husband, two of her adult children, and my parents all live in the Elizabethtown/Louisville area and I was able to spend some quality time with them. Fossil collecting was also part of my agenda. Herb, my primary fossil collecting partner in Kentucky and I had a three day trip down to Tennessee planned. Before I went on that expedition, I was out with my brother-in-law driving around central Kentucky. He dropped me off for 20 minutes at the Upper Mississippian site at Wax where the Glen Dean Formation is exposed in a roadcut. I picked these up:

I know not much about Crinoids but have taken a liking to one and due to my previous purchase I wondered if anyone can please confirm if this is real or not? thank you

Hello Members, do you think these crinoids are the real deal? How to recognize fake one? Thank you in advance

Finally got to visit Mineral Wells Fossil Park. Got there right at 8am, and were the only ones there ! Gonna have to go again

The weather was promising, the husband wanted a good place to hike, and the dog had cabin fever. So I loaded them, along with my gear, into the truck and drove down to Crystal Lake to hunt around in the Madison limestone while the husband and the dog went for a romp in the Big Snowy Mountains. On the dirt road to the area, we drove past a mama black bear and her cub, hanging out only about 30 feet from the road. To avoid aggravating either, we didn't slow down to take pictures, but my husband was pretty "bear"-anoid about running into them again Well, the mountains weren't snowy and the lake wasn't much of a lake, but the weather was great and the shoreline looked promising, so I set off to start combing through the countless dead snail shells to find myself some brachiopods. Most of the shoreline was water-worn limestone chunks, but the outcrops of layered stone jutting from the shore harbored some wonderful fossils. My first find of the day! Can you spot it? After my first little brach, I started seeing a lot of crinoid and coral hash plates. This plate was several feet across and still half-buried. I had been finding some nice little brachiopods that I suspected were some sort of spirifer, and decided to start splitting some limestone to see what else I might be able to find. After a few hours, the husband and dog came back and started smothering me with their boredom. So, in an attempt to appease them, and perhaps scout out another good spot or two, we started off on the trail that circled the lake. There wasn't much in the way of good exposures, but the dog ran most of her energy out on the little trail. We picked along the opposite shore on the way back to the truck, finding a few more small brachs and crinoid bits, but I didn't want to go home yet. I talked my husband into letting me stop at a few roadcuts on the way back to the highway, and he agreed as long as he could nap in the truck while I hunted. Perfect: now I don't have to entertain him. The dog was pretty pooped out too, so it was a nice stress-free hunt-and-peck down Crystal Lake Road. Until my angry bowels could not hold out any longer. We swung over to Cascade Falls Trailhead to use the outhouse, and there was a tiny little exposure near the parking area of the trailhead. I couldn't help it. I had to check it out. A whitetail doe hanging out on the right side of the hill played peek-a-boo with me as I scoured the well-split limestone. My last find of the day is probably my most favorite. After researching these a bit more, I believe these are a type of Cyrtospirifer, lower Mississippian and common in this area. I believe that there are at least two different species present in this plate and need to do some more research to find the species of each. I believe I found the impression of a Schizophoria on this piece. Bryozoa? I have a fair bit of homework to do, and as always, I am extremely happy with my finds. Thanks for stopping by; have a great day!

About a week ago my boyfriends' parents and uncle came to visit us in Lancaster and on Monday I had the pleasure of entertaining them for the day while my boyfriend was pulled away unexpectedly by work. With the prospect of a beautiful drive (and of course, selfishly, some fossils) I decided to take them to Salthill Quarry. It's an interesting site as it's an old limestone quarry that has been turned into a nature reserve, in the middle of an industrial park. Whilst walking we all thought we could smell bakery goods and were getting hungry, I looked this up later and found a pet food producer is located in the park... Anyways it really is a fascinating place. As soon as you get to the fossiliferous part all you have to do is look down, grab a handful of gravel, look closely and you will find that that gravel is actually thousands of crinoid ossicles. The floor is literally littered with them, it would be impossible to walk away from this site without fossils. It's a fantastic show of just how prevalent crinoids were and how they flourished in this area 340 mya. There isn't much to find apart from crinoids, although I found a couple of small rugose corals and plenty of calyces too. Overall everyone had a good time, it's easy hunting so turned out to be a great place to bring people who had never really thought about fossils much before. I haven't got far on IDs yet but hopefully I'll be able to ID most of the calyces. Amphoracrinus sp.? Also Amphoracrinus sp.? This fossil cracked in two, on the other side is a large, broken calyx (below). Whilst cleaning it I discovered the whole Amphoracrinus sp. calyx above and managed to pick it out. I have no idea what is covering this crinoid stem. There are many other types of crinoid species stems as well, too many to photograph them all. The rugose corals, I think Dibunophyllum sp.

Summertime is here in Texas and that means if you want to go fossil hunting and not get heatstroke....you better go early in the morning! My Grandmother would say "Spring has sprung, Fall has fell, Summer is here and it's hot as usual". I am fortunate that the Glen Rose Formation is close to where I live, so that is my best hunting in Summer! I hit up four different spots recently (one with the Paleontological Society as our monthly field trip) and found some nice new things and some nice not-new things! A few "new" finds: My Favorite : Associated Starfish Ossicles! It may not be a full leg, but it was awesome to find a whole mess of them that were "together". Biggest one is 1/4 inch. Floating (Cormatulid) Crinoid. Apparently a slightly different species than I had collected previously. 3/8 inch Another Floating Crinoid : Solanocrintes sp. 1/2 inch And a TINY one of another different species of Solanocrintes 1/8 inch A couple of cool new crab claws (Unknown Genus and species). Found these at two different locations: 1/8 inch A few more new to me crab claws (again, Genus and species unknown) Size 1/8 inch Found a Fish tooth; Lepisosteiforme (Gar) And lastly, a "different" Leptosalenia - it may just be a variation on the regular texana, but it might be a cf. texana. (as per Smith and Radar) It really looks different than any other I've found. 3/4 inch A "regular" Leptosalenia texana for comparison. Also 3/4 inch and from same location: Some more not "new" finds, but nice ones nonetheless. A bit water worn but still detailed Echinoid Spine Balanocidaris sp. A couple of odd fragments of plates from an Echinoid Echinothurid. Size 1/4 inch A couple of Tiny Echinoid Loriolia rosanas. The big one is 3/8 inch A cool Trigonia wendleri A nice big Neithia occidentalis the BIGGEST Gastrpod Nerinia I'v found so far: A nice little unknown Gastropod with some good detail: and finally, A ZOMBIE CRAB CLAW!! hahhaha! These are usually fairly well preserved, so to find one in this state of decomposition was actually kind of cool:

Largest find of Jurassic starfish and relatives ever discovered in the UK excavated by Natural History Museum British Natural History Museum Part-time adventurers’: amateur fossil hunters get record haul in Cotswolds More than 1,000 scientifically significant specimens taken from former quarry after discovery. Miranda Bryant, The Guardian, July 20, 2021 Yours, Paul H.

Hi, These crinoids from Morocco look very nice with the good contrast of the red matrix. My question is if the seller has enhanced the red colour of the red matrix with paint or is his red colour the real and natural colour? I hope that anyone with experience can advice me in this. Thank you.

After a couple trips to smokes creek we found some awesome crinoid material

First I want to say hi to everyone! Been picking up rocks and poking around in hillsides since I was a kid. Until recently I mostly had no idea what I was looking at.. but I’ve always been really good at finding goodies. With that, I’d like to share some things I’ve found in the last couple of weeks! There is a quarter on there somewhere! This is one of the smaller plates that have washed out. This is not Sugar Creek. The creek was high from the recent rain, but the last time I was on the other side, that shelf is absolutely packed with goodies. About 100 yards downstream there are hash plates the size of a small car that have fallen into the water off of a ledge.

I had the opportunity to collect in the Red Mountain Formation recently, and considering the seeming lack of accessible sites in the area (RIP Tibb's Bridge) I thought it'd be good to show some of my finds here and say there is some stuff out there. At first I thought the site was in the Mississippian Lavender or Floyd Shales, which was my initial reason for venturing out to it as I didn't have the opportunity to collect in marine Mississippian units closer to home. I can say now with almost 100% certainty it's actually within the Red Mountain Formation, an early Silurian unit that is also a prominent ridge former in northwestern Georgia. This is based on the trilobites I found. I am more familiar with the Rose Hill Formation of central Appalachia, which bears some similarities with the Red Mountain. Not only do the two begin with "R" (and consist of two words XD), but more importantly both represent roughly similar stratigraphic sections and depositional environments. This was something I instantly noticed at this site, as some of the fossils, their mode of preservation, and the rock lithology is strikingly similar to the Rose Hill further north. Both the Red Mountain and the Rose Hill consist primarily of clastic units, particularly iron-rich sandstones and silty-shales. They are both dominated by shelly invertebrate fauna, and contain many of the same genera. There are some differences, however, namely that the Rose Hill contains a much more diverse fauna, is more abundantly fossiliferous, has many ostracodes and some tentaculitids (which the Red Mountain lacked), and contains more limestone and calcareous layers, whereas the Red Mountain appears to be mostly coarser-grained clastics. Likewise the Red Mountain Formation has more abundant crinoid remains, is a ridge-forming unit, and does not appear to have a Rochester Shale equivalent, at least from what I've seen, which is interesting. Of course these are just some quick observations I noted from a couple of outcrops, so take all of that with a heavy grain of salt. I know the Red Mountain does contain limestone and calcareous shale layers in more complete sections at Birmingham, and the exposure I went to was obviously not complete. Elsewhere the Red Mountain has produced a more varied and abundant fauna, and conversely the Rose Hill is largely devoid of fossils in many sections. Anyways, here's what everyone's been waiting for: Calymene sp. (?) I've seen a couple of threads about the Red Mountain Formation in Georgia, but none mentioned trilobites from it. According to the Georgia Department of Mines, Mining, and Geology, the Red Mountain has a a few species of trilobites. This is a plate containing a pygidium and part of the lower thorax of an individual, and a possible fragmentary glabella/cephalon. These are likely molt fragments. This was also my very first find of the day, so a great way to start it off XD. There are probably more specimens at the site, as the exposure was actually fairly large (for what I've seen in this state) and exposed a decent section of the interbedded shales and siltstones, but it was very overgrown and I couldn't reach it. This was laying on the soil. I'm going to go on a limb and say Anoplotheca hemispherica ? A plate with a couple of brachiopod shells on it. The Red Mountain's shale layers are said to be more fossiliferous than the sandstones, which is what I found to be the case at this site. Even then fossils weren't that common in even the most fossiliferous layers. A well worn plate containing abundant crinoid columnals and brachiopod fragments. I'm going to go out on a limb again and say the larger shell fragment is a Dalmanella (?) sp. , but that is a guess. A plate with a Dalmanella (??) sp. and crinoid fragments. The report I'm basing this off of is old, so a lot of these names probably no longer apply. Lots of crinoid pieces in this rock. All in all fairly successful. Any day you find a trilobite (even fragmentary) is a good day in my opinion XD For those of you interested, the site is near Summerville, near an evidently popular swimming location. The fossils actually came from several different "exposures", albeit all within close proximity to one another. If you want to visit I would highly recommend going in winter, when the plants will all be dead and the snakes/spiders down to a minimum. Thankfully I didn't come across any snakes, but I did find an alarmingly large piece of shed skin.

This all started over a year ago. I was selected as Member of the Month and a couple of TFF members from Texas invited me down to the big state to collect. I primarily collect in my home region, the northeast, but I've taken fossil forays to New Mexico, Kentucky, and Germany and was willing to consider a trip to Texas and the opportunity to visit some classic fossil sites and collect fossils that are outside my usual focus. I began planning this about ten months ago, contacted potential fossil collecting partners and did my own research on fossil sites, geology, and the types of fossils I would likely encounter. I had never been to Texas let alone fossil collected there. From the Forum I knew there was a lot of great hunting. Then there was all of the logistics, what to stay, what to bring. Since I wanted to bring back a lot driving appeared to be my best option, but I hadn't driven that far solo in over thirty years. Timing of my trip; mid-late September, came right after my daughter went away to college and I was in the middle of moving to a new place. So things couldn't have been more hectic. Finally, early in the morning on September 8th I set out. Things went okay until I was in Kentucky. Just as it was turning nightfall, torrential rain hit, traffic was stopped on the interstate for two and a half hours, and the last two hours of the trip I struggled with wet conditions and poor visibility. I finally arrived at my parents' house just after one in the morning. The next day on my way over to my sister's I took a small detour and stopped at an outcrop I was well familiar with in Leitchfield, the Upper Mississippian Glen Dean Formation.

I am wondering what fossils you can see in these rocks. they are all carboniferous limestone (prehaps not the red/brown one). I can see Bivalves, coral, crinoids, brachiopods (I think), And nothing else. Why aren't there other carboniferous life. (I understand soft parts go) These rocks are packed with fossils, what can a real paleotologist see?

I am hoping to go to Crawfordsville IN this year, but I have heard that there are no places open to the public where you can hunt for fossils there, Is this true? and if so then I need some other ideas of where to go. PS. it doesn't really matter what kind of fossils are foound in the locations, but I do prefer trilobites, brachiopods, and criniods.

Fossils from Mineral Wells fossil park in Texas. Crinoid stalks and columns.