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Well im heading down to Mazon creek in a few weeks. Forum members Digit (Ken) and Rob Russell should be meeting me down there. I think we're going to dig the Park, but it's still up in the air. Feel free to join us on our hunt, it would be nice to finally meet some members! Things to bring. -bug spray and/or tick spray -shovel, gardening claw, rock hammer or pick-axe -water, snacks, etc. -bucket/s (big or small) -backpack to help carry everything -gloves -cake it will be Ken's Birthday!!! ^^^^Feel free to add to the list^^^^ Again it's June 7 th 2014. 9 a.m. exit 236 on I55 Coal City exit @ the Shell station on Johnson rd Rte.113. Hope to see you out there! Weather update if you're interested http://m.accuweather.com/en/us/chicago-il/60608/weekend-weather/348308

I and other members will be heading to Fossil Rock campground to hunt pit 2 on Sunday October 19th 2014. Hopefully the weather will corporate and we can get our buckets filled! Come and join us. It doesn't matter if you've never done it before, i will be happy to teach you what to look for and how to be successful in your 300mya scavenger hunt. We will meet at the Shell gas station in Coal City @ 8-8:30am. It's just west of rt.55 on 113. Hopefully this link will help http://goo.gl/maps/z6m7q Supplies you need and may want. -shovel, pickaxe, rockhammer (basically a good and sturdy digging device). We will be digging through hard shale. -a pair of gloves to keep from collecting blisters -a pair of extra clothes and boots/shoes definitely helps on the ride home. -a bucket, backpack, rock bag (anything that will handle about 5lbs-50lbs worth of rocks) -water is a must, water, water, water -snacks and food is up to you -hiking boots, old pair of shoes, etc. They will get dirty. -i would say bug spray, but being so late in the year hopefully they won't be too crazy. -also it's $5 a person to dig at the campground. This pit is great for very well preserved plants, wood, insects and horseshoe crabs. I have found some awesomely preserved stuff there. These are some of the hardest nodules you will collect anywhere in the Mazon Creek area, and sometimes they take over 30+ freeze/thaw cycles to pop. As i stated above, we WILL be digging, so eat your Wheaties. You can hike around and try and surface collect, but since the spoil piles aren't that tall it may be a waste of time. Here's a live weather link to check the weather for that day. http://m.accuweather.com/en/us/coal-city-il/60416/weather-forecast/332818 Hope to see you there!

St. Clair Fossils - What are these Bubbles? Nan and I visited Deer Lake on Aug. 30 and squeezed in a couple of hours at the end of the day to visit the fern site at St. Clair - we looked mostly for insects or insect traces, and fern seeds. Also we wanted to pick up a nice specimen for one of my colleagues. Here are our finds - maybe someone can explain what the "bubbles" are in these fossils: Carboniferous Bubbles/Bumps: Here are some closeups showing the "bumps or bubbles": Almond Shaped Fossil with Small Bumps: This almond shaped fossil shows bumps on the surface - it is about 2 cm long: This is the most intriguing fossil of all - also has these peculiar bumps: Thanks in advance for helping to identify and explain these finds.

Dear all, Since it is simply impossible for an individual collector to collect everywhere, trading offers a great method to diversify. Several TFF Members are actively collecting plant fossils and together we cover an almost worldwide range of different localities. Even if you are specializing in a particular area, fossils of equivalent age from elsewhere could prove interesting material for comparison purposes (for example, there are some interesting parallels and differences between the European and North American Pennsylvanian floras). My question is, therefore: is anyone interested in trading plant fossil material? Anyone who had any plant material to offer for trade, or is looking for particular specimens to trade, please chime in! Cheers, Tim

Parry's Lip Fern (Cheilanthes parryi) growing beside fossilized coral in Clark County, NV. This was one of my favorite photo-ops and one of the few cases where I had a specific subject in mind before actually finding it. I had seen lots of ferns and plenty of fossils at this spot, but I really wanted to show the juxtaposition of their patterns together—one living, the other as ancient remains. After a few visits, I finally found what I was looking for! -Zach

My wife and I are spending our "cabin fever" off-season cleaning some of our summer finds and also expermenting with ways to display them - as sculptures, on stands, in Riker mounts, or on the wall. I'm re-posting this topic here in the General Discussion - the "display thread" with some photos - the original discussion thread is located HERE (click here). Here are some photos of display ideas we've been developing: There are some great ideas from other Fossil Forum enthusiasts, on the original thread.

I am from Louisiana and I have been to Mazonia in the past with some success in the south unit. I will be going out there May 4th, 2013 this saturday to collect fossils for a fossil park my wife and I built in Louisiana for the purpose of getting kids interested. Any tips or tag alongs would be welcome. Where is pit 11,?

Carboniferous Ferns of Pennsylvania Nancy and I displayed some of our fern fossils from St. Clair at the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society Fossil Fair this weekend (Apr 6-7/2013) in Plymouth Meeting, PA. For the backgrounds, we used illustrations of Carboniferous swamps we bought online - there are several artists who illustrate paleozoic scenes. Our most impressive fossil was a large piece covered with bright orange fern leaves. We also included Calamites bark and Annularia leaves, sphenophyllum (which are "non-fern shaped" leaves), and pieces that had multiple species (alethopteris, neuropteris, pecopteris, cyclopteris, etc.) and a distinctive fern seed. Some of our finds have as many as half a dozen species on one specimen. We greatly enjoy attending the DVPS meetings each month in Philadelphia, their field trips, and events. Here are some photos of our Fossil Fair display:

On our 4th visit to St. Clair, we set a goal to find some of those iconic "scale trees" we keep reading about - the now extinct lycopsid trees with the pock-marked "scaled" trunk and roots. The bark is pock marked with scars left by the leaf stalks and rootlets when they fall off. Did we find Scale Trees? Boy, did we ever! In addition to the samples we collected, Nancy and I found some incredibly cool samples embedded in large boulders, on the floor of the quarry, even on the trail - these are either fragile or positioned on boulders so they can't be extracted without shattering them, so they are there for any visitors to photograph and enjoy! We have had wildlife encounters on every visit - a 6 to 8 foot long black snake coiled near a water pool on the trail, fresh black bear tracks on the trail and scat (and a sighting by MZKLEEN the same day we were there), and on this trip a very large spider on the trail (see image). Fossils On Boulders! - The first "embedded" scale tree fossil (Stigmaria - root with rootlets clearly visible) was located on top of a huge boulder - Nancy discovered it and excitedly called me over to see it. It was bright yellow and very well defined as you can see from the picture. I had to climb on other boulders to reach this one, and took a photo with my rock hammer to show the size and scale (Image 1). It was extremely well preserved but it is exposed to the elements and the top of the boulder is very brittle so it is impossible to extract - if someone tries, it will almost certainly be destroyed. The second sample I discovered on a boulder at the other end of the quarry (Image 2 - you can see my boot on the boulder), and Nan discovered a third which I photographed to show the surrounding woods (Image 3). Finding these and just looking at them was thrilling, like touching history. We hope other collectors leave these as monuments for everyone to enjoy (and don't destroy them by trying to whack off some fragments). NEW QUESTION: Most of the fossil samples we see online show the scale tree bark with "leaf scars" but very seldom show the leaves attached. How do we know when the samples are roots and rootlets, or branches and leaves? Some of the Stigmaria we collected look like branches or small trunks with leaves but most people are telling me that these are all roots. Would appreciate clarification. What do the scale tree branches with leaves attached look like? We also saw extremely large trunks of Calamites and Lepidodendron beginning to show through the floor of the quarry near the boulders - this is very dramatic and as more shale wears away the erosion will reveal more of these really large trunks (this is up the slope directly above bottom area with all the large boulders, behind the large boulder covered with white crystals). It was really cool to find these white and golden yellow-tinged scale tree fossils in plain sight on large boulders - it really brought these trees to life, showing the leaf scars and rootlets that look like thorns spreading directly out from the trunk). Ironically, we didn't notice these scale trees on our first three visits - we did collect a few Calamites and Siggularia bark pieces then, but nothing special. Making Scale Trees (Lepidodendron) our TARGET forced us to focus on this and suddenly, we noticed that they were concentrated in certain areas that we never noticed before. Nancy found the last embedded scale tree (Stigmaria) fossil right on floor of the quarry trail - it was going to be destroyed by traffic so I checked it out and saw that it appeared to be loose and to my surprise, it popped out in two pieces - this is a cool piece because the pattern is white like most St. Clair ferns. The first photo (4a) shows the fossil embedded in the trail - it doesn't look like much and is actually hard to see (Nancy's keen eyes spotted it right away) - the second photo (4b) shows the recovered fossil. Collected Samples - We excavated some samples to bring home, and also found some nice samples that other collectors had discarded from fossil pits - you can see how interesting the patterns are. The roots with rootlets attached are not easy to find - as you can see, all of our samples have rootlets attached) - they make nice displays (Images 5, 6 and 7). The two fossils in Image 7 were revealed after segmenting a piece of shale. Annularia and Calamites - The last Image shows a single rock specimen that shows up in two different colors. It looks like two separate pieces but they are actually attached - the top part shows Annularia including a unique fossil that is a cross-section showing the stem in the center and the leaves radiating out like a star, and lots of smaller fronds. The bottom section shows pieces of the Calamites bark associated with Annularia. This makes for a nice display piece. We will display these fossils and also use them as illustrations for future articles and maybe a book - we also reinforced our strategy of setting specific goals for each trip, such as looking for a specific type of fossil species, or category, or even just agreeing to aim for a large size display fossil. This determines how we approach each site, where we explore, and even how we excavate. After 4 visits to St. Clair, we still find it to be new and exciting even as it gets more familiar on each trip - we're sure that you probably feel the same way about your favorite sites, especially if they are close to your home.

This trip report complements MZKLEEN's report - we were there the same day except we mostly collected orange and yellow fern leaves. We did not see or hear the bear although we saw the signs the bear was in the area while we were there. This was a 90 minute drive for us so when we heard about the possibility it might be converted to a landfill, we made this a priority visit. St. Clair is an abandoned strip mine that looks like a broad saucer shaped depression with smooth shale covering the floor, surrounded all around by wooded hills. It's a fairly long walk through the woods to get there, but extremely scenic. Some of our photos show the layout and fossils scattered on the ground which is impressive and a little startling the first time you see this. Note: I added a few more pictures and here is some additional ID info: Most of the orange leaves are Alethopteris, some neuropteris and others here and there. The clover shaped leaves are Sphenophyllum (we also found Annularia and Calamites trunk fossils but most of these non-ferns are colored except for No. 5b below). The bark photo that I added is Sigillaria - a really interesting pattern, must have been impressive looking. The golden yellow image (just added) is Sphenopteris. There is also a reddish-orange sprig added to show that some of the specimens are almost red in color. The last image is a "stick" or stem found by Nan in a nicely articulated form. We had 3 goals for our trip: 1) collect a large specimen we could display on the wall or like a sculpture, 2) find some out of the ordinary fossils, and 3) see if there might be some insects along with the plant fossils. Goal 1: We explored places that didn't look like previous collectors had been there and excavated a very large rock that included a peek-a-boo glimpse of a layer covered with orange and yellow ferns. It took some effort to chisel away the layers of non-fossiliferous shale to free the fossil portion but when the shale fell away with the last chisel blow, wow, our eyes grew as big as saucers. The specimen turned out to be a large piece of shale 25 x 15 inches and several inches thick, covered with beautifully arranged, nicely articulated orange and yellow fossil leaves including many different types. Hiking back to the car was a challenge, given the awkward shape, jagged edges and weight of the sample but we accomplished our goal. A closeup of a small portion is included here and you can see how dense the fossils are! We also collected smaller pieces and one very nice one foot long sample covered with orange leaves. Goal 2: Nancy has a keen eye for out of the ordinary patterns and designs - she is expert at finding sphenophyllum, annularia, calamite bark and so on - we accomplished this goal also and learned a LOT about the plants and trees that exited during this period. Goal 3: No insects, but we still believe there must be some insects here, somewhere, since so many of the leaves are in perfect shape - not dried, curled or rotten - they look like they were buried in a mudslide or something, since there is almost no deterioration. This suggests there must have been some insects trapped somewhere. We plan to return soon to continue our exploration. There is a lot here to learn about and find. Hopefully we'll find more cool fossils (and no bears with cubs!). UPDATE: We revisited the site Aug. 4. You can read see our 2nd Visit trip report in a separate "orange fossil" post (no bears this time). We also posted some of our unusual finds in Fossil ID under "St. Clair 2nd Visit - Pennsylvanian Plant Fossils and Seeds" - many of the "unknowns" turned out to be fossils we did not see on our first visit. We pretty much doubled the number of species from this site, in our second visit, showing the diversity at this site. We think we accomplished a lot in 2 half-day visits.

Nancy and I revisited St. Clair (the large depression south of Burma Road) on Aug. 4. Only two other collecting teams were there - some young people who were excavating and found a lot of nice pieces, and a middle aged couple. The bear and her cub were not in sight - probably cooling off in a stream somewhere. It was 91 degrees and higher in the pit but afternoon clouds and a strong breeze made the weather comfortable. We continue to improve our excavation techniques, which are nothing fancy - just a rock hammer and chisels, but we work to extract larger (1 to 2 feet) sheets intact, which we fragment into large thin pieces. Techniques we've seen other people use include "mining" fossils in large pits, and carving out large round slabs. Some people are excavating under trees which is not cool - we hard that's what got the site closed to fossil collectors several years ago. This was a successful trip. We only spent half a day there, but met our goals. Last trip, I brought back a 2 ft. long section covered with orange and yellow fern fossils. This trip I was able to secure most of the other half of that section which is equally impressive (see photo below), plus we collected some white fossils in large (9 inches to 1 foot or longer) sections suitable for display on a shelf or on the wall. I worked to get some sections that are thin and light enough to frame but getting larger pieces intact is an art. My impression is that a lot of people seem to be using hammers and just hammering away at the substrate. This produces piles of tiny fragments and partial fossils which are discarded. This also explains why there are so many small pieces scattered everywhere. We sorted through the throwaways in the pits - if you look closely and know what to look for you can find some scarce specimens that include sections of bark from Calamites, Siggularia as well as bright white, orange and yellow ferns, groups of fossils that are a bit harder to find such as Annularia, etc. A general observation - there is a LOT of shale to excavate and explore, including many pits started by other collectors. Some look hard to extract but are easier than they look, but it requires a hammer and chisel and some careful cutting around the periphery to get out larger pieces - and often you have to remove some overburden that covers the fossil layers. Some pieces look smooth or round but some strategic hits with a chisel will segment them into small manageable sheets that sometimes come out larger than expected. It takes more time but you get more intact fossils. Also, many times I'll pull out a large sheet of shale thinking it looks totally empty or with only a few fossils visible, and will chisel it into increasingly smaller sheets with no results, then when I chisel open the very last layer, I'm rewarded with a really nice dense fossil mix. Nancy continues to use her keen eye to find unusual shapes and patterns - some of which are included in the Fossil ID section. She mentioned finding a "feathery" fern that she discarded because it looked too fuzzy - and later going through a fern book we saw that this was a feathery fern called Odontopteris. Which just goes to show that it pays to bring home stuff that looks interesting. I also found two very large neuropteris leaves - about 9 to 12 inches - but they didn't survive the segmenting process. We keep forgetting that many large fossil trees had very large leaves but they are hard to find the way most people work on smaller pieces. We don't want to move up to commercial-size excavations which defeats the purpose of this being a hobby, but we do want to keep working with our hammers and chisels to remove display size pieces. Didn't have much time to shoot photos but a few images are included here. Number 4 shows an Alethopteris and Annularia on the same fossil, which is a nice mix. The next images show "display pieces" from our trip, and a yellow fern. You can see more in our post in the Fossil ID section.

These fossils are from our second visit to St. Clair (Aug 4) - several are fossils we haven't seen before so we appreciate help with IDs. Special thanks to Fossildude19 for the excellent starting points. Note: some of the images are out of order when you look at the photos below, because I am renaming and reposting them as they are being identified: 1 - Pecopteris Squamosa - This is small and the leaves are very close together and parallel - based on Lesquereux - amazing that some of the best fern identification sources are from 1879! 2 - Calamites Stem Fragment - A thin Calamites branch. 3 - Unidentified Plant - Nancy calls this a "flower" - of course it isn't, but it seems to be a different shape from others we collected at St. Clair. 4 - Alethopteris and Annularia - Included this because it makes for a nice artistic layout. 5a-5b - Asterophyllites equisetiformis - This interesting pattern appears over a large area several meters square in one part of the St. Clair site, and covers the surface of a very large flat boulder in one area of the site. (source: 6 - Siggilaria - This is our second Siggilaria trunk impression. Some of the trunk and branch fossils (Calamites, Siggilaria) are very exotic and interesting to collect. 7a-7c - Trigonocarpus (Seeds of the Alethopteris Fern) - The same shape appears in three different samples collected on our two trips and according to our friends on the site and reference materials, they appear to be Trigonocarpus seeds, which is very exciting because we keep reading about seed ferns but these are our first fossil seeds. One reference describes Trigonocarpus as the seeds of Alethopteris (which is the most common fern found at St. Clair) - other sources give these the nickname "fossil pecans" because of their physical resemblance. 8a-8b and 9a - Cyclopteris - Fan Shaped Leaves - Some of the reference books show round fan shaped versions of some common ferns but this looks like something separate so we're going with Cyclopteris. We'll try to find a separate, more articulated sample on a future trip. 10 - Unidentified Fern. 11 - Assume this is Sphenopteris. 12 - Assume this is Neuropteris - Where Neuropteris sometimes has rounded leaves (??) 13 - Sphenophyllum - Including just for fun. I'll update the names in this list as the IDs are confirmed. One of our goals continues to be, finding scarce specimens we haven't come across yet, as well as articulated fossils, designs and larger pieces for display. As you can see, we're already making great headway identifying these. Thanks to everyone who helped us ID our finds in the past 2 months, and especially for helping with these...we're really surprised how many different species there are at this single site, all very close together.

Here are the first fossil ID mysteries from our recent half day trip to St. Clair. We will post what we did in the trip report section when we have time. In the meantime, these are some things that popped out at us that we'd like to ID... First Sample: St. Clair Fern Sample - Closeup - Pennsylvanian. This is part of a large piece almost 2 feet long that we excavated from an obscure location. I managed to carry out (that was grueling but well worth it) - the jumble of bright orange fern leaves makes an amazing impression. We believe this is neuropteris. Plant Samples 1a to 4c: Sphenophyllum - small leaves are reminiscent of clover - not "fern-like" - very distinctive. Sample 5b is just to show that we did find one that was golden yellow in color. Unidentified Sample 1a and 1b: These look like the tops of grass but too soon geologically for that. Any ideas? Unidentified Sample 2a: Is this the trunk of Sigillaria? Unidentified Sample 3a: What are these lines? Any ideas? We also collected different types of ferns in our samples - white, yellow, orange - very cool which is what St. Clair is known for. Will post some of these in our trip report. We looked in some bark samples for insects - thinking maybe something bored into the bark. No luck there. Surprised that more insects don't come out of the Pennsylvanian sites. Should be some insects mixed with all these ferns or in the trees, don't you think? Also, we were wondering what caused so many plants to survive as fossils so well preserved and intact, all flat, not much decomposition or rotting, etc. Maybe a massive collapse of a cliff or mudslide?

We collected these Neuropteris fern leaves and stems, and Annularia (Calamite tree) leaves at McIntyre Mountain in June 2012. This site is at the very top of the mountain, where the coal pits have been reclaimed and converted to a forested park. The veins of the leaves show up very clearly in the closeup photos.

Here is a good cross section of my "Mazon Creek" fossils, if you find yourself second guessing the "Mazon Creek" please post. I purchased these, I did not find them myself, so they could be mislabeled. I am self taught, so I could very well have all of my ID's wrong. This will have to be a 4 part message, due to the fact I can only upload 8 pics at one time.