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  1. While the Megalodon tooth seems to exist as THE find for many fossil hunters and/or amateur marine paleontologists alike (and rightly so!) it's never been my own personal "holy grail." However. My partner, who graciously tags along and searches with me whenever I drag him out on hunts often hours (or even days) of driving away, is absolutely enamored by the idea of finding one of these guys. I've heard many good things about Ernst Quarries/Sharktooth Hill and the private land surrounding it in Kern County, but I've also heard incredible things about Florida creek hunting - mostly Peace River and some, unfortunately, Top-Secret spots. We luckily have the opportunity right now to go on one (or both if we play our (credit) cards right) of these trips and was hoping those more experienced in the culture of "Meg Madness" would be able to provide any advice, pointers, opinions, comments, concerns, etc.?
  2. Hi again. Last weekend I took a trip to Old Hunstanton to check out the amazing contrast of formation cliffs and with hopes of finding some nice fossils. The cliffs are made up of three layers the lowest rusty brown colour is the Carstone Formation of the Early Cretaceous Albion Stage. The band through the middle is a bright red colour known as the Hunstanton Formation also Early Cretaceous Albion Stage. The top layer is the white Ferriby Chalk Formation from the Late Cretaceous Cenomanian Stage. What a contrast! These cliffs feel much safer to walk below unlike Charmouth or Lyme Regis. The material is very solid and the white layer doesn't erode quickly. It wasn't the place for looking for fossils that the sea had washed out. It is also a very shelly beach, so my eye was struggling to pick out fossil shapes with all the broken shells everywhere. I did find some interesting looking things in the large chunks. This rock was a good meter across, so I couldn't collect it. It contains a lot of shells, belemnites and possibly sponges, but please correct me, as I don't really know a thing. Then this nice piece with lots of small pieces. Sorry I forgot to take a ruler with me. I did find some carriable promising rocks. I've brought this lot home with me for some practice prepping. Does anyone have any idea of what I might find in any of these rocks? Where would be a good place to start? I'm using a dremel 290. Thanks, Jes.
  3. Hi all! New here so apologies if this isn’t formatted correctly or anything. I’m new to this and really want to do a fossil hunt with my family, I live in the sea coast of New Hampshire and could travel about 2 hours in any direction, I also have a house in Warren Vermont and could do the same travel time from there. Does anyone have any tips on places? Preferably easier for a beginner fossil hunter. Any tips on what tools I would need would be greatly appreciated as well. Thank you!
  4. Instead of dealing with the Friday southbound traffic I decided to set a 5 AM alarm and hit the road early. The drive is about 105 mile/168km with light traffic and I arrived at dawn. With a somewhat decent bearing and familiarity of Mounds Reef, I decided to go off the map and fossil charts I had put together from my research. An additional 25 miles south lead me to Mt Elliott and a right turn onto BLM land. Mt. Elliott is the highest peak of the Book Cliff range @ 7142 feet/2177m with a 2200 foot prominence. Maybe one day I'll go up it. But not today...today is fossil finding and enjoying the desert beauty. Mt. Elliott before the sun has crested its peak. A good profile view of a cuesta - the slope with a long back and short face. The fossil concretions weather out of the face and roll down below waiting their turn for a hammer splitting migraine...ha ha! I grabbed a bucket and hammer and hiked a couple hundred yards to the cuesta face. I was still in the shade since the sun was still climbing. Hmmm...where are the concretions? Lots of shale chips everywhere, some limestone slabs and a few boulders -too big to crack open. I kept walking around and soon realized there were no concretions in this area. Grrrrr....! I did find a few small sections of the right material and found bivalves galore, including one I have yet to find. I kept 2 specimens and headed back to the car in the center of the pic. Downhill hike - easy peasey! And then back onto the highway and north 25 miles back to the productive sites I'd previously visited. Mt. Elliott with the sun right above its peak. There had been some rain recently and I didn't account for washes or creeks being wet or muddy or both. Oh well... whaddya do with a low clearance front wheel drive street vehicle to cross a wet, muddy creek with a nice drop going in and out. YOU SPEED UP! Actually, I got out, checked it, picked a line to follow, got back in and went for it. No hesitating, no stopping. Just GO! No prob! I think my Chevy may have collected a fossil...some ancient mud and rocks for sure. No damage, no worries, Let's go, Steve-O! Almost there! These 5 spots were the main destination for the day. My last trip here was a great success so I'm hoping for a repeat. First one on the left = Nada! Nothing! I looked all along the base and there was very little going on. So...I made the most of it anyway and hiked up it. Some cool desert flora along the way. The cactus is Opuntia polyacantha. A prickly pear with many thorns. Not your friend while hiking and not paying attention. I've had those 3 inch spines pierce my boots at night while doing astrophotography. YEOW! Okay enough flora...let's get to some concretions! Oh! here's a nice one. Darn! I forgot the dynamite. This one is over a ton and embedded into the hill. How big is it? Doing my best Sisyphus impression. Nice view from the top. At the bottom, a concretion inside a concretion. No, I did not break it open. But the closeup shows where some enthusiastic fossil hunters hit it a few times. On to the next formation. See any concretions? Me neither...that's because they're on the back side. Don't ask me why. I can only say I found more on the East side than the West. Now we're cooking! Escargot - slightly overdone. One of the largest, nicest gastropods I've seen. ...and the spoils of the day. I failed to take many pics while excavating as it got dirt on my phone, in the case and gloves had to come off every pic. So these are from in the garage just now. I wet the Ammo to display better. Hoping it preps out...this looks like the crumbly kind. It was huge...but only a partial when I found it. You can see the keel at the top. Another could have been... How it looked when I cracked it open . No other parts. A bivalve. And the last one I opened before leaving. Made the day. A double! And the best of the day! As cracked open. I took a late lunch break at 2 PM and realized I was beat. My feet and hands were sore and my back hurt from bending over all morning. But it was a good hurt. I'm looking forward to prepping this one. This is probably the last trip to this location this year. I've covered quite a bit of the real estate where the concretions are found near the gravel roads and there are dozens of square miles of concretion locations not accessible by vehicle. Only on foot. Bushwhacking trails with off road vehicles, dirt bikes, jeeps, etc...das ist verboten. Just down the road and west of this location is an area with Palm trees and Sequoias to be found. Til the next adventure. Steve
  5. Just like the title says, right now, as I type this, I'm out and about in southeast Utah under the rising moon and for real am hunting fossils. Gotta be so far out of the box that my sanity may be in question...again. Naahh...this is better than TV, which we turned off in '06 or '07. From April to October I'm out under the stars during the new Moon phase enjoying a little astrophotography and solitude in the desert. But the moon is huge and bright so no Astro tonight. I busted my rear all week at work and my wife hearing me whine offered some cheese to go with it. Actually, she said take Friday off and go have fun. You deserve it! You never take time off! Work will be there Monday! Do it! I checked with the department head today around noon to see if I could cut out early today and take off Friday . Being said Dept Head...I said to myself go boy you deserve it. I did. And I'm lichen it. Say... is that a fossil concretion on top of that boulder? You betcha! And there's more where that came from. Earlier today I drove past the road cut known for its " abundant gar fishes" fossils. I arrived around 4:30 and drove through the Mounds Reef for a dozen or so miles of groomed BLM gravel roads checking out some pinned spots along the way. A few were scenic cliffs with the concretions 60 feet below. Some of the concretions were over a meter in diameter. I kept driving to the next pin in Google maps to see where I wanted to stop and put boots on the ground. One promising spot already has boot prints on the ground ahead of me. Fresh, too. Sigh...another has prints and smashed concretions laying about. Okay, fair enough . This isn't some big secret honey hole. More like the wide open desert with plenty to go around. I found one not busted open and was rewarded with a small Ammonite. Yay! I found a couple more Ammos before sunset but was focusing on finding a productive concretion spot. On to the next and final spot. The exact same location as two weeks ago. I learned from a wise charter boat captain years ago...you don't leave fish to go look for fish. So here I am. Break is over moonlight is wasting. Crazy how bright the desert is right now. I hope I can sleep later. Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode...when Steve stays hydrated all day despite the fossil fever in full swing.
  6. This trip was planned for last weekend but my wife was scheduled to fly home and the kiddos were working or busy so I get the pleasure of picking her up. The foul weather extended the flight plans from mid morning to 5 pm. I could have had my cake and eaten it too. Oh well, I picked the better choice . So this morning I got up at 5 AM, grabbed my gear and nutritive goodies and hit the road. South by South East to Price, UT- 129 miles/207 km from home. A beautiful day was forecast, but I was quite surprised at the temperature drop as I went over Solider Summit pass. 32F read the dash light. Enough about the weather...it did indeed bloom into a beautiful late summer day. Blue skies, 80F. I flubbed a few turns onto BLM land and had to U-turn it back 2 miles to get to one of my Google Maps pinned favorites. In reality, it wouldn't have made a difference. I checked the map with my destination pins and one fav was 22 miles from the first one and the last one was 50 miles from the first. It looks way smaller online than in reality. duhh! My favorite new Spanish word is "Cuesta" . pronounced coo-esta. Wiki says-A cuesta (from Spanish cuesta "slope") is a hill or ridge with a gentle slope on one side, and a steep slope on the other. To me it looks like a perfect surfing wave, nice face in the front and lot of water behind it to power it along. Here's one in the distance. Imagine 50 miles of these beautiful land waves spitting out lovely fossil filled concretions right down the the face of the wave. Kinda like the shores of England. You can see the two lines. It's the cuesta in the distance, not the gully wash below my car on the left foreground. I parked there and hiked down the gully across the wash keeping an eye on the banks and wash debris. Nothing. Then about 200 meters to the base of the closest cuesta for some scouting. That took about Five Minutes. First brown concretion I came upon at the cuesta base got a taste of hammer. Bam! Fossil Bomb! Bivalves, Gastropods and my target fossil Ammonites! Double bivalve is number one find of the day. Same concretion rewards me with my first ammo. The two species reputed to be in these concretions and stratigraphy are prionocyclus hyatti and prionocyclus wyomingensis. This one is the former in robust form. I actually kissed this one I was so stoked. lol. After that I started scouting for concretions and well...let's just say there is no shortage. I then surveyed the immediate landscape and decided to go south first to walk the base and ridge of this rather short cuesta and try to determine the best source. After too long of a hike I found the distribution to about the same. So instead of north I hiked up the face of the slope and checked out the layers. The top had no particular showing of concretions eroding out so that put them coming out a little lower down. The top had shale or sandstone looking material all over the edge. Nothing was showing so I flipped a few of the larger layered slabs. Sure enough the underside had something completely different. So please throw in your best ID names at will. There was a shaley patch on top of these things like smashed potato chips/crisps which brushed off easily revealing the forest of something unfamiliar to me. Crinoids? maybe, IDK. A marine coral? maybe, IDK. Something else? Well I should do my homework. The slab panel and a closeup of the left section. Any ideas? Or expert ID? Cretaceous is the period. Here's the result of one concretion revealing its innards. At least 5 species. And a little friend/distraction. Bottom of the card. Closeup of previous concretion contents. The concretions were sometimes extremely crumbly with most every fossil breaking with the exception mostly with the bivalves. Ammos broke about the same ratio as the gastropods. A small pile of concretions to break open. There were a few other side adventures while scouting the cuesta but I'll end with the very last concretion I struck open. It made my day! One hit on the widest circumference. CRACK! It split open just as you see it. To wind up the commentary, I had Pete and Repeat in the boat with me again. Just like my second trip to Kemmerer, WY, fossil quarry. If you're not familiar with Pete and Repeat, it's a simple annoying joke. I say: Pete and Repeat were in a boat, Pete fell overboard. Who was left? You say: Repeat. I say: Pete and Repeat were in a boat, Pete fell overboard. Who was left? You: either say Repeat again and I repeat the joke or you get it and roll your eyes. Connect the joke to my two fossil hunting trips. Higher altitude, warming sun, dehydration, too much fossil enthusiasm = I gas out by 1:30 PM and running on stubborn and will power, I make it back to the car. Same this trip as the 2nd Kemmerer trip. Except there was an audience at Kemmerer. Just me and lizards this trip. My intention was to fill a bucket or milk crate with fossils; reality-a partial fill. Left the mystery marine fossil above my base camp. Will need to go back with cooler weather and carrying more H2O with electrolytes and not one Diet Dew with Pineapple juice mixed to carry to the digging site...NOT in the vehicle which may as well had been on Mars. I had 3 gallons of ice water, two Capri Suns, a 16 oz water bottle and another Diet Dew or three for the ride home. Plus lunch. Barely made it to the vehicle with a couple stops to cover the 300 yards. Two pounds lighter than yesterday. More pics if interested. PS -Roger (Ludwigia) pack your bags, book a flight. This destination is at 6,000'ASL, flat ground for the most part, multiple trips to the vehicle with the finds, free transportation from the airport & fossil site plus room and board! I'll be going back a number of times this season and post winter snow melt which is usually minimal down south in Utah. The name of the area is Mounds Reef if anyone is curious about it. Not the specific hunting sites, just a big chunk of desert real estate. Approx. 100 sq miles of not much but cuestas, yeah!
  7. When I first found out what Horn Coral is, I thought - "hokey"...who wants a rock Bugles corn chip fossil? Bad call on my part. I looked up Rugose Corals. Britannica says - Horn corals, which are named for the hornlike shape of the individual structures built by the coral animal, were either solitary or colonial forms. Of the many forms known, some are important as index, or guide, fossils for specific spans of geologic time and serve to correlate sometimes widely separated rock units. Now who wants a rock Bugles corn chip fossil? I do! I do! Especially after going to the Red Horn Coral site and finding a few surface pieces. And though Trip One on Saturday was a fossil bust. Trip Three on Sunday had plenty of success potential. Only 44 miles to the southwest and I'm there. Most all of Utah's BLM land road are well groomed gravel. 25-40 mph is doable on smooth straight sections. Anything over 40 is asking for some off road sagebrush bashing. The sketchy part is satellite mapping is fairly 2D and 3D mode is more like a guideline of what the road actually is. This trip involved some research and scoring on a family visiting the west desert looking for these exact fossils. No reinventing the wheel this trip. I basically drove straight to the site..in my Chevy Impala which again would have high centered the important stuff underneath the chassis if I had not driven off center to avoid some sketchy spots. Found a place to park, got my bearings, put on the backpack, grabbed a hammer and went up hill. Horned Toad Lizards and Cacti- that's what our desert is about. And I love 'em both! First ridges of limestone = blank, nothing. hmmmm...have faith brother , have faith. I knew I was in the right spot; within 100 a yard diameter area from where the video I watched was filmed. Just keep looking. Next exposed limestone ridge - BAM! homerun! The rest of the adventure was meat, potatoes, gravy, ice cream and cake! WooHooo! I think there were 4 corals in this pic. Pretty soon I realized I was spotting corals every 5 yards or less and just taking pictures That was good enough for me in that moment. But the best was yet to come. Here is one of my fav small barrel cactus Escobaria vivipara - The Beehive or hedgehog cactus. I have several in my front yard cactus garden. This is large one. Open range cattle grazing keeps about any cactus or plant from lasting very long, Unless it's next to a boulder or on a steep slope. Cows will squish all else. Moving on to Horn Coral. One observation emerged during the search and finding. There were no weathered out specimens that I could find. Maybe a few hidden in the gravel or dirt. My thoughts boiled down to my visual evidence and lack thereof. Theory - As the corals weather out of the matrix they are at the same time weathered to bits. Nothing whole was escaping time and erosion in this desert. The photos I took seemed to support it. Here we go...pics! No gang sign or arthritic pose. I'm trying to point at 3 coral at once. A broken off specimen. A honker! Covered in lichen. Weathering out of the matrix. Severe weathering. A favorite specimen in situ. Note the broken one bottom right. I think the rock fractured and the seam was filled with calcite over time leaving the two pieces offset a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong. I licked it to give it a shine. Another Horned Toad Lizard. Wonder where the dinos went? Right here in my hand - I see an Ankylosaurus in miniature. lol! Okay...Horned Toad, move along nothing to see here, these aren't the Horn Corals you're looking for. Move on. Now to the best of the best, IMHO. I found what I think is an immature or other species of Horn Coral colony. And to top it all off...right before I collected my little treasure trove of specimens, I looked down and saw a mature colony of Horn Corals all buddied up next to each other. AMAZING! to me anyway. And right next to it ANOTHER colony or probably part of the other and ANOTHER just in front of it. All were in bedrock and not collectable, IMO within BLM collecting rules of NO mechanical equipment can be used. Like backhoes or power saws. Just manually powered tools or hands to collect. So the beds/colonies stayed in situ and came home as photographs. This one looks like a smaller loose rock...but no...it's attached to the ridge solidly. When I looked at the images zoomed in the larger colony showed corals on both the left and right side disappearing into the matrix. So more of the colony is unexposed if I'm right. It was the thrill of day and I was reluctant to leave. My keepers are in a milk crate waiting for the prepping to happen. Plus the sledge hammer head. I did a test on one small coral sample with the Dremel 290 - it works! There on the far left. The one on the right broke into 3 pieces and it's getting CA'ed back together. GRF fish in the back under a layer of matrix and some stuff from a quarry in North Carolina collected years ago. A vertebrae - shark or fish?, A bryozoan - I think? and a small Echinoid with the same Bryozoan on it. That's all folks! Til next adventure. Tomorrow is looking like a rain day for Utah...unless I go way west.
  8. As the title says...almost 3 trips...1.5 on Saturday and a Bonus trip Sunday (separate thread ). The first two attempted trips were busts as far as fossil go but good adventures in the west desert of Utah anyway. Trip One: Fossil hunting target - Horn Coral. Location: The Lakeside Mountain range with Black Mountain being the highest peak there. Distance from home 85 miles give or take. After reading up on the location I quickly realized the directions to find said Horn Coral involves a lot of real estate. Here's the through the windshield shot where I pull off the pavement and follow the right in the fork. Directions are vague after that. Says...drive towards the mountains as far as you can, park the car and start walking up the slopes looking for weathered out coral. OooKaaay...let's see how that goes. Not taking any chances I pulled over at the lowest slope on the left middle and parked. I walked up the slope keeping by eyes peeled for gray funnel shaped rocks. Nice hike to the limestone ridges. Nice scenery. No coral here. Next! I continued mountain wards in that little car you see in the pic...a 2008 Chevy Impala Cop Car. I stopped at every road cut, ditch, ditch bank, ravine, debris flow, exposed rocks, etc. Speed Goat says, nothing to see here, keep moving along pardner. I did. Pronghorn Antelope for those who aren't familiar with this critter. Upward and onward. Found some Bee Plant, stopped the car, popped the truck and black bagged to those guys. Bee Plant, besides being pretty was one of the choice sources for the Anasazi tribes to create black on their white clay slipped pottery. The heat fires the boiled down sap and liquid from the entire plant to may a molasses looking paint. The carbon is left on the pot after firing. I make replica Anasazi pottery in my spare time. Keep moving, Steve-o, the Horn Coral is calling! Off I up further up the hill. And at one point not very far up the hill my Cop car, 2WD, spins a little gravel and I found myself in high center terrain and had to drive left or right of the road grooves with less than a foot of error on either side because of the ditches on both side for snow runoff in the spring. So now I have to figure out how to turn around. That was tricky, about a 6 point turn. Then a two seater OHV drove up and we chatted. First thing the guy says...This road is not real easy for a sedan to go on. I replied that I was just going up a little ways and turning around. So back down I went to explore lower terrain I passed coming up. Lots of little stops here and there. No fossils found on the way down so they must be higher up. Next time, I says to myself, Take on of the Subie Outbacks in the garage. We bought two old Subies for our college kids to drive in snow safely. And two are home commuting to school. Oh well. Here was a neat find. Weighs 6 pounds. Needs a handle. Guess I'll craft one for it. Back to the Chevy and on to the next destination. Trip Two: Thumb Ridge. Off of I-80 West just 25 miles from the first stop which was 85 miles from home. So an easy peasey cruise west. This spot is reputed to hold ammonites so I saved it for my last stop on Saturday. Oh, and later I found from another source about the Horn Coral that I didn't find is that it is indeed up higher between 5800 and 6500 feet. I only made it to 5200' when the hill went too steep for 2WD low center vehicles. The next stop was tricky...my GPS was having struggles getting high res images and cutting out...waahh! So I kept driving to where I think the right turn it. The right turn has a new business with a private property sign on it. A gypsum mining outfit of some sort. So I keep going north and am approaching a security gate for another facility and just before I got to the gate...about 500 yards...I U-turned and went to a similar ridge just south of it for Plan B. Had I gone 450 yards I would have seen the detour road to Thumb Ridge...grrrrr. Next time, always a next time. The ammonites aren't going anywhere. The Plan B ridge was volcanic, Utah and much of the West was busy in the past. Basalt boulder were everywhere and I'm thinking not a fossil location, but a neat hiking spot anyway. There were open pit gravel quarries and saw this multi-ton blob of basalt cobbles covered in calcite like old dried glue. And that was that. I was ready to call it good for the day. Once I got to the highway my GPS service connected and I zoomed in on the map. There was the detour road right near the security gate. Tomorrow is another day full of opportunity. And it surely was.
  9. Rexofspades

    My Birthday Calvert trip

    Hi Everybody, Last week, I decided to go to the cliffs for my birthday, and I resolved to get up earlier in the morning to get something I had not found before. My equipment was the standard loadout, sifter, shovel, waders, sunshirt and hat. Along with a one strap bag that I would wear for the 1st and last time. (The strap would slide in front of my chest and neck everytime I leaned over and ducked down. it also broke halfway through my hike) When I arrived I didn't find much to write home about save for a whole shark vert. But when I waded out into the decently clear water I managed to find a vert and a couple ribs. After a couple hours and a ton of smalls, the tide came up. I noticed how high it got and realized it would be a slog to wade back, so I elected to wait an hour before the long haul back. I noticed a bunch of wildlife while I was out, I saw frogs, a weaver spider, herons and a Bald eagle with some osprey. On my way back, I felt discouraged by how choppy the water was and the lack of stuff I was finding ( Pro tip: the choppy water will help you find more stuff after it passes). That and the strap falling off of my bag was annoying. But midway through my Slog, I saw it: out of the corner of my eye I saw something bluish Grey and bigger than a shell. "There's no way" I said as I leaned over and saw the fragment of a tooth bigger than any other I found so far. I was tired, exhausted, and shaking. But here it was, my White whale, the tooth I was looking for after 3 years in the palm of my hand. It just turned dark as I arrived to my car. I think I pushed past being tired. My gear was soaked, I was soaked, but I did it. I Finally got my Meg. Breakdown of the finds below: 297 specimens in total. Starting with teeth, I think this is Hammerhead. Next up is the Meg. Measures 1.74 on the diagonal. Which I estimate would be a 2 inch tooth if whole. I'm excited bc this tooth is unmistakably a megatooth, there's nothing else it could be! Rib bones, this one looks interesting to me bc there looks to be a possible blood vessel groove, and a dissension on the middle right. Could that be a muscle attachment scar? Longer rib Whale vert
  10. Just wondering if anyone has any advice for fossil hunting on Elmley hill (Sheppey)? And if you need prior permission to fossil hunt in that location?
  11. Going for my first fossil hunt at some point this year to a small quarry. I believe it’s mainly small sea life and some shark teeth. What tools would you recommend I take? Thanks
  12. Hello! Does anyone know any good locations for hunting for dinosaur teeth and bones in the Morrison formation formation specifically in the Colorado and Wyoming area and any good locations for the Hell creek formation in South Dakota. I understand fossil hunters are reluctant to share this information but any information helps!
  13. Steven Dearnaley

    Fossil Hunting in Hungary??

    Hi, all, my seven year old has recently got the fossil bug. We live in Budapest. Does anyone know of any sites we can visit to hunt for fossils, please?
  14. We are taking our camper from Ohio to the west and will be stopping in Nebraska and the Black hills. Can anyone suggest a place we can hunt dinosaur fossils and keep what we find? We can pay, but not much. We would also love to hunt for arrowheads. Also looking for somewhere to help a team that are digging. We are both ill and this will be our last chance. Thank you so much. Kathy
  15. For the Germans out there: what is an area in Germany that is particularly suitable for finding fossils? Or that you were lucky in finding fossils? I'm new to this so I don't really know how to search for the rocks in the area or what type of rocks are suitable for finding fossils. I live in Darmstadt, Hessen and would like to take a trip to a place in Germany to search for fossils this winter. Also, if someone knows this additional information too, where can I search for nice pieces of minerals in Germany? Thank you!
  16. Is it worth cleaning these up at all? *Beginner with Fossil prep- I have a dremmel
  17. A cool piece frozen in time from the day they were buried together. Also a decent size Inoceramus shell for the area and always fun to find an ammonite. This piece is from Boulder, Colorado.
  18. Hi everyone! Last week we went on a weekend trip with our fossil club the BVP to go on a fossil hunt to the jurassic clay cliffs "Falaises de Vaches Noires" between Houlgate & Villers-Sur-Mer in Normandy, France. https://www.paleontica.org/locations/fossil/68 The famous cliffs of Vaches Noires date back to the Jurassic period, and span both the Callovian & Oxfordian stages (166 - 157 mya) and the Cretaceous period spanning the Cenomanian (100 - 94 mya). Back in the jurassic this area was a rich marine environment and fossils that can be found here are many species of bivalves (like Gryphaea, Lopha & Myophorella), ammonites, gastropods, belemnites, brachiopods, crinoïds, sponges and other invertebrates. The cliffs are also known for marine reptile material and even dinosaur material, though these finds are rather rare but you'll see some nice pieces in the museum pics later. We arrived Thursday afternoon (november 3th) and stayed to Sunday (november 6th). We were very happy to join this trip organized by our club since it is probably the last year that fossil searching is allowed in this amazing location. We were with around 27 people I believe and met each morning at the entrance of the beach at Houlgate. We searched the cliffs for 2 days and went to the local museum "paleospace" on sunday. The weather was amazing for the 2 days of searching, it was even sunny the first day! The first few hours we mainly searched among the rocks on the beach which were littered with large Gryphaea fossils and other bivalves like Lopha gregarea. After our lunch break we moved on to search more near the clay to find smaller fossils. On our second day we again searched the clay, went through some interesting places in the sand which were littered with oysters, gastropods and had some ammonite and crinoïd fossils and we ended the day at the cenomanian rocks in search for some fossil urchins. The Cenomanian rocks on the beach A piece a chalcedony A partial ammonite Me very happy with my first complete ammonite, which I found next to me while having lunch One of the mystery fossils which nobody could really determine (we brought it home along another we found) The tubes seem to be pyritised. I believe it to be some kind of Echinoderm and someone suggested it might be a Crinoïd with a parasite on it. But eventually our top finding (and the best of the entire trip) was spotted by my girlfriend Elise and is this gorgeous fish (probably Lepidotes sp.)
  19. I was really enjoying hiking around different spots in Boulder, Colorado and eventually I came across a beautiful outcrop of the Niobrara Formation. I thought it was so cool that there were shell imprints in the rock and nobody had ever taught me about the Geology of the area and it was really fascinating to see for myself that the whole area was once under the sea. I stumbled upon a massive Inoceramus and I knew I had to haul it home. Not bad at all for a first fossil hunt I don't think I ever found a Inoceramus as impressive as my first. Begginers luck.
  20. fossilhunter21

    Fossil hunting trip!

    Me and my family just finished up our first fossil hunt! We are still at the ranch, but are leaving in the morning. We all are sad to have to leave the ranch. We all had fun exploring and doing different thimgs, (though some of us a lot less than others) and really enjoyed talking with, Rick and, Jean. They are really nice people. And it is a really nice place to stay. Unfortunately the guide, and everyone else cancled, so we were fossil hunting alone. WE left home at 2 AM on saturday, and arrived in Omaha, NE around 11 AM. We stopped in Omaha to visit with some family, and stayed overnight at an airbnb. The scenery is pretty cool where we stayed! We were very glad that the airbnb was near the top of the hill, instead of at the bottom. Sunday we left the airbnb around 6 AM, and stopped for lunch at a park sometime around 11:00? I don't know, never been good with rembering stuff like that. Here is a photo of the river running through the park we we visited for a lunch break: After lunch we quickly hit the road again. And FINALLY at 3 in the afternoon we arrived! It is truly amazing out here. Indiana is extremely boring compared to the western part of Nebraska! We spent some time enjoying the sunset, and stars before finally calling it a night. You can see so much more stuff in the sky at night here than Indiana. That is to be expected, as we are not really close to any big towns. Monday we went to Crawford, and got some groceries. The grocery stores are very different than the ones in Indiana. Then we visited the University of Nebraska State Museum's Trailside Museum of Natural History. They have some pretty interesting fossils. And it was not very expensive to get in. We then wondered around Fort Robinson, before taking the Smiley Canyon Scenic Drive. It is a scenic drive, where you are supposed to be able to see Bison. And we did see some Bison, but they were too far away to get good pictures, Unfortunately. Here are some pictures I took along the scenic drive: We then went to a rock shop, and I got what appears to be a pretty complete unprepared oreodont skull. I am looking forward to taking a better look at it when I get home, but for now it is all wrapped up. We then went back to the ranch, and had dinner, and went to sleep. TUESDAY we got up early, and, Jean took us out to a part the badlands she owns, and kind of showed us around. We then went fossil hunting on our own, and I found an oreodont jaw at almost the very second that we stopped where we were going to hunt. I was very excited! Then for a while all we were finding were snails and bone pieces and things like that. AND THEN I found a mostly complete tortoise! A little after I had found it we went back to the ranch and rested and then came back out in the evening. Unfortunately I did not dig deep enough, so I left some of the tortoise in the hole, and the supplies we had were not good enough, so the plaster jacket did almost nothing, and the tortoise sorta fell apart when we got back... My chest started to hurt right after we went fossil hunting for the first time on tuesday. After we came back from fossil hunting in the evening my chest hurt VERY badly. I would rather be sick than have that kind of pain. If I moved it made it worse, and laying down made it worse. Eventually I was able to lay down, and get some sleep, but it still hurt. I know why I was in so much pain. It is because of my pectus evacatum. It makes one side of my chest sink in, and if my heart beats too hard, then it starts to hurt. But usually it just hurts for a few seconds On wednesday we decided to not go fossil hunting, as my body obviously needed a break. We went to The Mammoth Site, and looked around at all the cool stuff they had. It is a pretty interesting place. We then went to JH Keith Cascade Falls Picnic Area, and got into the water, but it was kind of chilly, so I did not go swimming. We then stopped at a food store that looked interesting, and got some goodies. Then we went to Walmart to get some supplies, and food. We then headed back to the ranch to get some more rest. Thursday, Jean took us out to a new location, and again, almost as soon as we stopped where we wanted to hunt, I found something, but this time it was a skull. It is fairly weathered, but it has both uppers and lowers. Then a little while after I found that skull, I found another skull, this one being not as weathered, but I don't know how much is there. I then decided to work plaster jacketing the first skull, and got it out of the ground. But there was not enough time, or plaster to plaster jacket the second skull. So we went back to the ranch, and then went to a hardware store, and Dollar General, to get some more supplies. Unfortunately DG did not have what I wanted, but it was not something I really needed. We then went back to the ranch, and were too tired to do any more fossil hunting that day. Friday we headed out early again, and I worked on the second skull, and while working on that, I explored some more of the area and discovered a couple more skulls, though none of them are in amazing shape. I unfortunately had nothing with me to mark the best one. I tried to mark it with some rocks, but unfortunately I was not able to refind it when I had all my tools. I was able to finish up the second skull, jacket a really worn down one with duct tape and foil. I also was able to remove an oreodont lower jaw, maybe part of the skull cap, and a bone or two, they appear to be from the same specimen. Again we were too tired to go out in the evening, so we rested. SATURDAY (today) we went rock hunting, not really something I am interested in, but the rest were interested, and they found some interesting rocks. I did not really collect any rocks. I found a bullet though. I have no clue what it came from or how old it is, but to me it looks modern. We then headed back to the ranch to have lunch, and get everything ready, and packed up, as we are leaving in the morning Sorry that I took so few photos! I just am not great with remembering to take them. I need to work on that. I will try to post some pics of my finds soon! Thanks for looking! -Micah
  21. My wife and I recently went looking for fossils, both outside of Drumheller and on the banks of the Red Deer river in Alberta, Canada. The idea of finding a fossil has always been so exciting to me, but until recently I thought it was something only palaeontologists could do. When we found out that we were allowed to surface collect we decided to give it a go! Anyways... Here are some of the things we found. I am not confident that any of them are fossils, but I would be so stoked if at least one of them was. - The first three images are of a rock we found on the banks of the Red Deer River. There was a lot of sand stone in the area, but I don't think that this particular piece is sand stone. As you can see in the third image, it is layered. To me, it looks like at least one shellfish, potentially three. It's hard to see in the photos, but there are rays that look far to ordered to be random, and I think it strongly resembles a clam shell or limpid. - The next image is of a rock found in the same area with what I think looks like a piece of shell in it. - The fifth image is of a rock my wife found in the badlands outside of Drumheller. Not really sure what to make of that one TBH... - The sixths and seventh images are of what I think is a little piece of bone. This was also found in the badlands, and it was encased in some sandstone that I was easily able to break off with my fingers. it is very porous and at first I thought it was a stick, but the pores remind me of bone. Anyways... I really appreciate anyone who took the time to read the ramblings of a complete beginner, and your input is greatly appreciated.
  22. Hey everyone! Me and my family are thinking about taking a trip to the White River Formation. But we were wondering what some good places are to go fossil hunting? Thank you, -Micah
  23. Yesterday I scouted Calvert Cliffs Beach to see if my friends would be able to join me on a fossil hunt there. As this was only my third lifetime hunt, I'd only been to Matoaka prior, and wanted to see if the path to the Calvert Beach was accessible enough for a friend using a cane and someone more out of shape than I am. That said, I'm not fit myself, so the 3.6-mile hike to and from the beach was not easy. However, it was gorgeous! As many people will tell you online, the cliffs at Calvert Beach are not legally accessible; the state park service has closed off access to them due to frequent landslides and therefore little beach space left beneath them to evade a fall. The cliffs there are taller than at Matoaka, making them even more dangerous, and the tide comes in closer to the beach. The remaining fossil hunting space is thus rather limited for hunting, but if you're dedicated and go during the off-season, I'm sure your luck will be better than mine! I was in the water from about 11-3, sifting in the tidal line of shell material and along sunken trees that may have trapped fossils. Attached are a couple photos of my tooth finds, and a picture of the cliff area too. Feel free to ID the teeth; I'm not great at it yet, especially when they're small! I was surprised by the tan tooth since most teeth I've found thus far have been black. Also not entirely sure what the curved tooth came from, though my guesses were either a H. serra symphyseal or a tooth from a sand tiger shark. Overall, I think I like Matoaka better, but it's hard to say from just one visit. Going to take my friends back to Matoaka or to a new location next weekend. I'll scout out Flag Ponds in December I think, then I've got a fossil club trip in January. Really really really having fun!
  24. Hi All! Any advice on getting permission to explore a quarry? I’m trying to plan out some trips into the field for later in the fall or next spring if I can get some time off. My top pick by distance and what I’ve heard people talk about here are the Geer Road/Deep Springs Road Quarry. Does anyone know who could be contacted about permission to look for critters for an afternoon there? Thanks! Noah
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