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Hello all- Time to announce the 27th annual Tate Field Conference! Happening here in Casper, Wyoming on June 2-4. I would love to see some Forum members show up. Here is the info.... (We are going fully live, no online presentations or attendees). We hope you'll join us for the 27th Annual Tate Conference, "The Triassic: Gateway to the Mesozoic," June 2nd - 4th at the Tate Geological Museum. The conference features a day of speakers (Saturday June 3) and two days of field trips (June 2 and 4). Saturday evening includes a dinner and guest keynote speaker, Hans Sues of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He will be speaking on new and exciting finds from the Triassic of Germany. We also have great field trips planned: Friday June 2… 33-Mile Road This trip will take us to the Triassic deposits on 33-Mile Road northwest of Casper in the area of the Red Wall. A site was found here in on July 7 1977, which led to the discovery of the type specimen of Heptasuchus. Crews from the University of Wisconsin (and others) have been exploring this area more recently. Aaron Kufner of UW Madison will lead the portion of this trip to a site the UW teams found and have been collecting nearby. We may do some surface collecting at the Heptasuchus site (officially called the Clarke Locality) as well. This trip is on BLM land, and done with permission of the BLM. Personal collecting of vertebrate fossils is not allowed on BLM land, so all fossils (including fragments) collected will be collected for the University of Wisconsin collections. This is also a sage grouse lekking and nesting area. If we run into sage grouse nests, we are to keep our distance and report the nest. Sunday June 4… Little Red Creek This trip will be an exploration of the Alcova Limestone. The Alcova Limestone was possibly deposited in a lagoonal situation and has produced one taxon of fossil vertebrate, the sauropterygian, Corosaurus alcovensis. Remains of this animal are only found in Natrona County, southwest of Casper (so far). We will be exploring a new area that presumably has not been explored for Corosaurus bones, or at least not since the 1980’s. The bones occur in resistant limestone best found on talus slopes, so this trip will incur some more difficult walking on steep slopes. This trip is on BLM land, and done with permission of the BLM. Personal collecting of vertebrate fossils is not allowed on BLM land, so all fossils (including fragments) collected will be collected for the Tate Museum collections under permit number PA10-WY -191. You can learn more about the talks and register online (or download a registration form) here https://www.caspercollege.edu/tate.../events/conference/

It appears my Sunday fossil hunting this week has become a mini-field trip. If anyone who lives near Cincinnati, Ohio (USA) wants to join us - the more the merrier! The site is an hour east of Cincinnati Oho and is nicknamed "Ponderosa Ranch". See the latest Dry Dredgers field trip to this locality at http://www.drydredgers.org/fieldtrips/trip201405p1.htm. If you would like to join us (so far I have an RSVP from Fossil Claw and jgcox) please "PM" me or email me at billheim@cinci.rr.com and I'll hook you up. We will be surface collecting a road cut that exposes the basal Corryville Formation (Late Ordovician Cincinnatian Series) and the whole Bellevue formation looking for trilobites, edrioasteroids and oversized brachiopods. Bill

Hi all . . . . I have been recently looking throughout the web for a site to join and believe i have found it. I am not completely new to this field (very limited experience) and i have also worked opal mines and prospected with my father as a youngster for saphires and gold etc.which will help slightly i guess.I am interested in anything thats in the ground and love the hunt and the pleasure of finding something thats been the objective. I have been perusing the forums and topics and have found some very good reading to be had. I was interested in maybe going to the Mulbring quarry as i live on the central coast and after reading about the nice finds to be had out that way , i would love to check it out , funnily enough i turned off at sandy creek rd today as we went out to the boarding house dam for lunch and a walk , . . . beautiful area. Any way i just wanted to say hi to everyone and look forward to further good reading etc. Also if anyone can assist or point me in the right direction in the process of gaining access to the disused quarry . . . that would be great.As i understand it is on private property . . . and hopefully we can go for a day out and to have a search around and maybe get something to add to the other bits and pieces we cherish. Anyway . . ciao for now. Regards Gibson