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I've always wanted to visit the Florissant Fossil Quarry due to my interest in paleoentomology but for one reason or other, I was never able to make it out there. I was finally able to make a detour out during a roadtrip returning from a funeral last week. There were beautiful calm skies, which was lucky too since heavy rains were forecasted for the next 2 days. After a good 5 hours, this is what I had to show for my efforts: Most pieces will have unidentifiable organic smudges. Aside from that, small leaves are the most common readily recognizable fossils. I am a terrible botanist, if anyone has any IDs, that would be awesome.
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Hello everybody! I have another U.F.O here (Unidentified Florissant Object) and to be honest, this one has really stumped me! It isn't a carbon stain, it isn't one of those pumice chunks 'fireballs' that are common at Florissant, and it has a strange texture and shape. Weirdly preserved petrified wood? That is my best guess as of now... @piranha @Top Trilo @Tetradium The fossil is 1/2 an inch long. The first 2 pictures are the fossil by itself and the third I circled it. The rest are microscope pics of the texture. Pics 5,6, and 9 show the edges. 7 shows the top.
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Hello guys, I have been digging through my box of Florissant Formation shale and I came across this piece of plant matter. I want to say it's a piece of a fruit or flower, but I'm not positive. @piranha? The piece of shale is small, about 1.5 inches long. It looks similar to a petal from this Magnoliophyta flower from idigpaleo.org. I think I can spot some differences, though. I'm hoping it's identifiable, thanks for any help you can provide!
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Hello, Can anyone help identify this leaf with crenately lobed margins from the Florissant Formation? It sort of looks like a flower petal, even though that's probably a long shot. It's really prehistoric looking and it caught my eye! I haven't seen any leaves like it from the Florissant area. Thanks in advance for the help! Aforementioned leaf is approximately 7/12 inches long.
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Hey everyone, Asking about a piece of shale I just opened, there appears to be a little soft-bodied creature on it, however, it could just be an insect. The small piece measures exactly 1 and 3/8 of an inch. Is it a badly preserved beetle? Notice the small oval-shaped things lining the back. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
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Hello everyone, I was chipping through my bag of shale I brought back from Florissant Fossil Quarry (highly recommend!) and this fossil caught my eye. It's probably from some plant, could you give me an idea of what it is roughly?
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Hi everyone, I wanted to confirm the identity of one of the leaves I found in Florissant, CO back in 2017. At one point or another I saw the genus Cedrelospermum pop up on here or instagram associated with a leaf which caught my eye in its similarity to my own. I would be interested in seeing your opinions. compared to images I found elsewhere online
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Here's a collection of all the specimens from florissant i still need an I.D. for. This large leaf i need an I.D. for Small bug about 1 centimeter across Some sort of moth i have no clue what insect this is. Could this be a dragonfly wing about 2 centimeters long but still partially covered. Could this be a wing to the right of the leaf Last one some sort of flying bug. Plant and insect experts please help I know it may be difficult to narrow it down to a species but just knowing what kind of bug it is would help. Thank you.
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At Florissant Colorado (dated to the Eocene) my family and I found these fossils and I would like to I D them to know what I found. I didn’t have a 12 inch/30 centimeter ruler so I used my six inch to make a ruler on a piece of paper it is accurate I promise. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
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This was found near Douglas Pass In Colorado. The imprint is just under 3 inches point to point. I am having a hard time figuring this one out. The shale is from the same formation as Florissant Colorado from what I understand,
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I have been involved in a post "Florissant Fossil Quarry Fun". To make a long story short, I took the advice given to preserve my specimens from Florissant. Unfortunately some of my specimens had already broke. So I took out my razor blade and split them further. To my surprise, I think I found 2 insects!!! Your thoughts?
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Hello everyone, I've had a lifelong passion for fossils but I'm a relative newbie to collecting, having only done it for the last 3 years. Most of my previous fossil-collecting trips were in NC, where you find sharks teeth and shells by sifting through creeks or looking through mine deposits. I know very little about how people do it out west, which has turned out to be a big problem. On a recent vacation to Colorado, I looked around Florissant Fossil Beds and also ordered a shipment of fossils from the quarry. The shipments arrived about a week ago, and there's some pretty interesting imprints on the surface some of the rocks, namely possible Sequoia and Cedrelospermum, as well as another rounded leaf. I got an X-Acto 1 knife and started splitting yesterday. The problem is, even though I'm trying to follow the instructions of the sheet sent with the fossils, I haven't found many fossils, and worse yet I've accidentally lopped off the tops of the sequoia and Cedrelospermum leaves (it's nothing a little superglue can't fix, but still). The remaining parts of the leaves are also in a very precarious position: they are on very thin layers and I can't continue splitting the shale without possibly causing damage to them. I'll share pictures later. People who've successfully found fossils at Florissant, what are your secrets to finding things and not causing damage to fossils that are in the same rock that you're splitting?
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Insect- real fossil or painted on
peperomia posted a topic in Is It Real? How to Recognize Fossil Fabrications
This was purchased in Colorado, about an hour away from Florissant which is known for insect fossils. It's about 10 mm long. What do you guys think? Real, fake, a mix of both? Thanks!- 10 replies
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All, My son found this orb-weaver spider at the Florissant Fossil Quarry in Colorado last month. It's about 1.5" (4cm) between the tips of the longest legs. There are short thorns on the abdomen, and possibly on the bases of the legs as well. Overall, it's very much like the golden orb-weavers whose webs I have the occasional misfortune of walking into in my garden. Can anybody tell me what genus, or perhaps even species this may be?
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The Florissant Fossil Quarry in Florissant, Colorado, has been on my list of places to visit. It is just outside the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument west of Colorado Springs. As much as I would have liked to go dig at the quarry, I knew that wouldn’t happen this year. So I decided to order some shale from the quarry and have it shipped to me. Even at $7.50 per pound plus shipping it was less expensive to buy the shale than to spend a week on the road getting there and back from California. After emailing Nancy Anderson at the quarry to work out the details, I mailed off my check for 20 pounds of shale and received two boxes by priority mail about a week later. I have only just started going through it but I thought I would give you this early update. The quarry is known for its plant and insect fossils, with an occasional fish or bird. These fossils come from the Eocene epoch, about 34 million years ago. The quarry’s website doesn’t go into stratigraphy but according to the National Monument website the fossils in the quarry come from the Lower Shale Unit of the Florissant Formation, which does not appear in the park itself. First thing I did was weigh the boxes and as expected, I got what I ordered plus maybe a little bit more. Here is what one of the boxes looks like when opened. Only a small portion of the shale is spread out on the blue tarp, there is much more still in the bag. Here’s the instruction sheet that came in the box. They recommend preserving it with a mix of 1 part Elmer’s glue to 2 parts water, then coating with clear Krylon. The shale is easily fractured so I definitely want to protect it, but if anyone has better recommendations, let me know. Here’s a typical piece. The thin bands of shale are separated by an occasional layer of what one reference calls tufaceous siltstone. There are no identifiable fossils in the siltstone, they are all in the thin layers of shale. I decided to throw together a fixture to help hold the shale while I was splitting it. I just took a few boards I had laying around and using clamps and screws, created a corner against which I could set the rock in place. I have a thin spring steel chisel I originally bought to split Green River fish that works pretty well for the first round of splits. Close-up of fixture. I soon realized I need to use a microscope and needle probes to really find things and clean them up. Here is my microscope setup. A lot of the shale has unidentifiable bits and pieces of organic material, but I’ve already started discovering a few interesting things. Here are a couple of partial leaf fossils. Here is another well-defined leaf that looks something like a willow. Here’s the most interesting thing I’ve found so far. It looks like some sort of winged insect. It is pretty small and I would have never discovered it without the microscope and needle probes. Close-up of head. Note the two compound eyes. I’ve only been through a couple of pounds of rock, still plenty more to go. I will keep you posted if I find anything interesting.
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Another Florissant find. This looks a bit like cedar cones to me. What would the polka dotted thing be though ?
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Back from vacation with this find from Florissant. It seems a possible match for the one on display at the monument.
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My wife and I are headed to a wedding in Denver this weekend. I know its short notice but any locals have any suggestions or hot spots for some petrified wood or some fossils? I am already planning a trip to Florissant for the pay dig shale splitting for a few hours. And I have found a lot of possible petrified wood spots but don't know how much time I have to be scouting uncharted territories. And of course I am not going to say no to any good fossil spots either. I do have tumblers and rock saws so the petrified wood is really on my radar. I do have the Rockhounding Colorado book too but thought I would reach out to the locals on this one. Thanks! Chris
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Hello forum, I'm brand spankin' new to fossil hunting and looking to get started. I'm going to the Florissant formation near Colorado Springs on my first trip and look forward to speaking with you and sharing my experiences (limited as I'm sure they will be). I was planning to go to a pay site but it's closed for the year. That's okay, I like a challenge. Any locations/advise would be greatly appreciated.
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This week I am visiting family in Colorado. A few days ago I took a lovely trip to Florissant Fossil Beds. They had lots of interesting stuff at the visitor center. I found a privately owned quarry nearby in which they let people break open shale and search for fossils for a small fee. I didn't find much, but it was very fun! The pics shown are a leaf and a small insect. The wings were unfortunately chipped off when I found it. I also visited Dinosaur Ridge nearby and bought an Elasmosaurus tooth from the shop. I then saw the fossils displayed at the School of Mines geology museum. Very cool.
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Found this guy last night splitting some shale I had laying around. Found on a piece about the size of a quarter!