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I've really enjoyed collecting and looking at forams under the microscope since I heard about them about 2 years ago. Identifying them can be very challenging for a novice like myself, so I thought I would look into getting the machines to help me. I've been a software engineer for the last 20 years so I felt comfortable diving in to some code. I tried writing my own image recognition model, using existing models (VGG16, VGG19, Res-Net50) but finally decided to use the code from a paper by Hsiang et al [2019] (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019PA003612). The dataset was from http://endlessforams.org/ and contained planktic forams. I had to just crop them so only the foram was in the frame, not the border and text. Luckily a python script could do this for the ~30 000 images or it would have taken me ages!! After updating the python code to work with the latest Tensorflow, I trained it on the dataset and created a web interface for it with great results! I would find images online that it hadn't seen before and it got the correct species each time I tried. I would love to train it on some other species of forams, maybe some benthic (bottom dwelling) ones. I think it might also work on shark teeth, that would be really cool and I am sure there are many, many images that can be used to train it on. I made a video showing the process and how it identifies it in real time: I ran out of microfossil holders so 3D printed my own:

Afternoon, Was looking through some drill cuttings from the Oldsmar formation ~2600 feet bls and am wondering if the majority of these are similar to Ranikothalia from looking through some papers from Yucatan. These are all Eocene in age; any help would be appreciated and I will add more images as we bring in more cuttings. The more spherical images are from higher up around ~2100 in the glauconite layer. Sorry for low quality it's a cheap microscope. Thanks, Ekker

A few months ago I had the opportunity to collect a bunch of matrix from the Cretaceous aged (Campanian) Ozan Formation of North Texas in the "red beds". The larger fraction is rich in sharks teeth and other small macro fauna. After breaking down the matrix, I have put it through a number of sieves to facilitate picking and sorting. I have available lots of very fine matrix that made it through my 60 mesh sieve (so it is all smaller than 250 microns or ~0.25 mm). In this fraction I see lots of forams, some ostracods, and some other very small fossils. I am not really equipped to pick and analyze this small of material (and I have gallons of it) so: If anyone would like some, just let me know (PM me) and I will be happy to send you some. Again, this is very fine, I have not seen any sharks teeth in this size range but there are other identifiable fossils. In the US, I will be happy to send you a bag of it; if you are overseas, I may want some help with shipping costs or maybe we can do a swap of other matrix. If you have any questions, just let me know. Here is a quick picture of forams and some items I have picked out of the matrix offered (sorry for the lack of scale, but everything fit through 60 mesh).

Hi, by way of introduction, I'm a retired geologist, started off as a micropaleontologist working on the forams of the chalk of the UK and North Sea. I spend time as a Stratigrapher and then most of my career as an Exploration Manager in the Tertiary Basins of SE Asia. Currently trying to resurrect and repair my fossil collection after many decades in storage!

I've had these few pieces in one of my drawers for years and I got looking at them again today. Three of them are clearly some form of Fusulinid or other Foram, the other I think is oolite. I don't remember where I got them but suffice it to say I didn't collect them myself. I guess I don't expect much info to come in about these, but in the off-chance that anyone recognizes the material I'd appreciate knowing about it. They each seem to be quite distinctive so there is hope. The only Fusulinid I know of in B.C. is Yabeina from the Cache Creek area (Marble Canyon), which I've read about in books about BC geology, but I've never collected at that spot so I wouldn't know how to recognize it, if any of my pieces are from there. Otherwise my best guess is they're from somewhere in the US where these things are more readily available.

I contacted a few scientist trying to figure out some of the marine fossils that I had found and many them appeared to be shocked at how many these had color in them. Is it really rare to find marine fossils beyond 2.5 millions years old with color??....OMG, just had another freaking earthquake!!!!!!!

Hello fellow fossil lovers!!! I currently live in AK where I'm a core logger at a gold mine.My true love is forams and micropaleontology. I grew up in Ohio and remember falling in love with invert fossils and the paleoenvironments that sustained such incredible life. Now,I try to stop at every road cut I can find and add to my collection(much to my wife's dismay). I look forward to nerding out with you guys,and checking out all the new finds!

Hi all, We do qute a bit of microfossil study of what is usually specimens dissolved out of a limestone matrix. But these were obtained in a most unusual way. There are areas in north eastern Arizona near Show Low that are in the Twowells tongue of the Dakota formation. On one of our recent expeditions, we found a low hill composed not of the usual sandstone and shales, but of limestone. We found on top scored of giant ant hills several feet in diameter. The ants had dug down deep in to the earth and pulled out not only the usual gravels, but quite a few fossils too! We spent hours going over the abandoned ant hills with magnifier and tweezers and even took home bags of the scrapings from the sides for later examination. We found tons of tiny complete sharks teeth, ray/skate teeth, fish bone, black sideritized gastropods and brachs, and some really interesting forams. Tons of them. They look like chains of spheres, and internally they are rolled up like dough in crescent roll. Here is an image with close up camera and a mm scale. I know nothing about forams. Can any one tell me anything at all about these interesting finds?

Part 2 Fossil mounts cont. I cut the ID lables to fit the coin holder I am going to use and glue it in the box using a glue stick. Let the glue dry, and coat the numbered area of the lable with a 50/50 mixture of white glue and water. Do not put it on thick, a thin coating will do. When this dries the holders will be ready to use. The blank area at the top is for location information. E) Magnifiers: You can use a hand lens of 20x to view the prepared sample but this will get real tedious if you are doing much looking. There are several other relatively cheap options. USB stand alone cameras. These you plug into your computer and get a real time picture on the screen of what you are looking at with the use of the included software. These cost from $20 to $50 depending on which one you buy. I have included 2 that I have, they take decent pictures and aren't hard to use. They are basically small digital cameras. I have included some pix from them also. PIX: Another type of USB camera I use is used in conjunction with a binocular microscope. This obviously is not as cheap but still not too bad, about $220 for a 5.1 M camera. A 1.3M is about $100, and on up to higher resolutions. You can buy a serviceable binocular microscope for as little as $140. I found a nice new Russian made one for $250. F) Sorting tools: I purchase various sorting trays from dollar stores and use different ones depending on the color of the matrix I am looking through. Dark for light and light for dark. Any smooth very shallow sided container can be used. See pix. To sort out the micros in the trays I make my own disecting needles from dowel rods and sewing needles of various sizes. Make a hole in the end of the dowel rod and glue in a needle. When you find something you want to keep you can use a fine tip artists brush or make your own by cutting out most of the hairs from a small model brush. Leave only a couple hairs. Moisten the brush tip (I use spit ) and apply a little moisture to one of the boxes in your coin case. Use the disecting needle to isolate the fossil in the dish and touch the moist brush tip to the fossil, like magic it will stick, and transfer it carefully to the moistened spot on the case. The fossil will stick to the case. It can still be moved until the glue dries. If you need to remove it at a later date a little water on the brush applied to the fossil will break it lose. Lable the slide and have fun. There are lots of web sites out there to help with identification. The best one I know of for foraminifera is Foraminifera.eu. I hope this helps someone, feel free to contact I you have any questions. If I don't have the answer I'm sure someone else on th FF will .

This is just a guide to people who want to collect microfossils and don't want to spend a lot of money. This topic includes foraminifera,conodonts,ostracods,scolecodonts,and misc. mini fossils mainly too small to see without magnification. It will not be all encompassing, mostly for the beginners. A) Collecting; If you happen to live in an area that has a lot of shale/clay then you are in luck. The Ordovician and the Devonian both have lots of microfossils. Just gather up a bag of clay from between the rock layers. Soak the clay in a big bowl , crush it up with your hands, and slowly decant the clay (pour it off slowly), refill the bowl and repeat until the water turns clear. This may take numerous washings. What you have will have micros in it most likely. Dry the residue, if it is clean,it will not clump together if it sticks together too much, wash it some more. Then sieve the residue through at least 2 sieves one with door screen size openings and the other fine mesh (women's hose, or if you're Joe Namenth, your own hose ) Then look at the smaller material with at least 20x magnification and see what you find. The areas with sandy materials just usually have to be dried and sieved (Cenezoic, Cretaceous stuff) Cretaceous marls can be treated like clays for the most part. I don't usually deal with hard rocks, they require an acid to break down, too much work and mess for me. Materials: Sieves Fossil mounts Magnifiers Sorting tools C) Sieves can be as cheap or as expensive as you are willing to spend. The ones I will show you how to make will cost under$10. They are made from cardboard cylinders and needle point hoops and mesh. Most of which can be found in your local hobby store. The pix tell the story. I use door screen for the coarse sieve and hose/mosquito netting for the fine. You can buy a 4" plastic with brass mesh 5 piece sieve set from geologic/materials testing supply stores on line, about $40-50 a set. The advantage to these is you can wash the matrix directly through the sieves saving time. D) Fossil storage You can buy microfossil storage slides on the net from scientific supply houses for $4-7 each. The ones I use cost about a $1, and you can customize them to what you collect. I but plastic coin holders from hobby shops 2x3" and 11/2" square. I print my own lable inserts I printed using Excell to get the size needed. You may use my included for if you wish and it will print clear enough for you. If you figure out how to make money off this idea I want a cut. End of part 1