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Hello! I have been a life long "rock hound" with a particular love for fossils. My first fossil hunting trip was when I was 7 to Lilydale Park in the Twin CIties of MN. That was when I started my collection and I have been going off and on since then. I got back into it pretty seriously a couple years ago, increasing my childhood collection of about a hundred random gift shop items and stuff picked up from hiking trails to my current collection of probally 500+ individual items. My collection is currently more of a reference and learning collection and not a display worthy collection. As I live in the northern part of Minnesota, theres no fossil record in the immeadiate area due to the glaciers that scoured the region. So most of my collection is bought instead of found. I have been working on picking up unprepared items so I can learn how to clean and prepare them and have been building a home lab capable of handling everything from microfossils up to medium sized bones and other heavier peices. My collection is mostly inverts but I have recently started getting into verts. I collect primarily Mesozoic and older specimens. I am planning on getting back into field collection this summer with a trip back to Lilydale park for fossil collecting. I am so happy to find such a great resource for like minded individuals and look very forward to participating in this forum!