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So finally getting around to doing this trip report now that I’ve got some ID’s in. Combining yesterday as well, since yesterday was kinda-sorta a dud, but not wholly. Went out to one of Peace River’s tributaries not expecting much beyond some orange teeth, and walked away with a ridiculous amount of cool finds. So to start off! My first ever River Meg! I say first ever as it’s my first that’s more than 75% complete - enough to be considered a tooth over a fragment. It’s most likely a posterior tooth, given the cusp and size! Next up is my first ever Tapir tooth - I believe it’s half the crown. Then my first and second ever Rhino teeth: Followed by what I believe is a fossilized bobcat premolar: Then my first and second ever thresher shark teeth: Then a symphyseal (Or pathological?) Lemon Shark tooth: And a symphyseal Hemipristis Serra: A partial horse tooth I’m pretty sure I broke into 3: A shark vert: A cetacean vert (Just the centrum): And this large burrfish/parrot fish mouth plate: Plus a whole bunch of other teeth I found. I will leave you all with this beautiful picture of the creek I took!

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!

Today I took a trip to a new outcrop of the Leighton Formation! My main interest in this new outcrop is to find the source of my original material. The first outcrop I visited actually turned out to be an erratic. When I first visited there in February the ground was completely frozen. I found a large piece of shale sticking out of the ground, which I proceeded to split, but the rock itself did not come out. This rock yielded about 50 pounds of material on the first trip. When I returned in June I excavated around the supposed outcrop, and found that it was in a fact an erratic rock. I also found three other large pieces that were also from the Leighton Formation. Since my first site turned out to be a dud, I am now trying to find new sites. This is the first of three possibly accessible sites to visit. I am mainly looking for the presence of thelodont scales - specifically, those that belong to the species Phlebolepis elegans. I am also looking for a few species that I don't have in my collection yet or I require for research: the tentaculite species T. elongatus, the trilobite species Acastae zerinae, two species in the genus Actinopteria, the undescribed Calymene species that has been mentioned in earlier posts, and eurypterid fragments. Today was an absolutely beautiful day to do it. It was cool and overcast in the morning, but then cleared up towards the end of the trip - perfect collecting conditions. Here are some pictures of the walk (in chronological order). Once at the outcrop, the Leighton shale member was quite obvious. It was one excellent outcrop, although I didn't find all the species I was looking for. I might have found thelodont scales, but I will not know for certain until I examine the material closely. The fauna of this formation was similar to that in the erratics I found, with a few marked differences. One is the abundance of the brachiopod species Chonetes bastini, it was the by far most common brachiopod. Also, the characteristic Salopina brachiopod fauna was barely represented in this outcrop - I might have got two specimens of them. Camarotoeichia leightoni was more common, but still relatively scarce compared to the C. bastini. Only the tentaculite species T. elongatus was in the outcrop, the other species of Tentaculite (which I have not identified), was completely absent. The bivalve species Modiolopsis leightoni was amazingly prolific. On to the geology of the site. Almost the entire outcrop was of made of a highly fractured gray shale that split extremely easily. In this slate, there were occasional pockets of a type of siltstone. The siltstone pockets usually contained a large amount of gastropods of the genus Australonema, with possible fish fragments. There were extremely fossiliferous layers every 5 - 10 centimeters. In between these layers there were still some fossils, but generally there were less molluscs or ostracods. Most of the C. bastini brachiopods were in between the fossiliferous layers. I only collected from one of the outcrops that was there, two others were situated to the left and right of this one. They had the same general geology and fauna - at least, according to my rather quick check. Below are a few pictures of the outcrop I collected at: the first is from the front of it, and the second is from behind it. Here are a few insitu photos of some of the fossils. The first is of what I guess is an A. zerinae trilobite cephalon, prep will reveal if it actually is. The second is of one of the highly fossiliferous layers I was talking about - notice the enormous profusion of ostracods, with a few brachiopods and mollusks. On the way back there were a few red shale pieces I took a look at. I think they are from the Hersey Formation, probably brought in by the tidal current. The first picture shows one of the rocks, and the second is of a brachiopod external mold peeking out. I hope to update this thread with further pictures of the fossils collected. To be continued.... Thanks for reading!

Hi all. I will be in central Arizona from Christmas to beginning of February and am wondering if anyone would be interested is a bit of fossil hunting? Would be willing to hit anywhere within a day's drive of Phoenix. Trilobites are my favorite but not afraid to dig for anything Only place I've done in Arizona is near Payson. My biggest limitation is vehicular, only car I have there is a mustang so getting off road is by foot. I am going to look up the current Latham shale (California) access for 1 spot. Thanks

I went to big brook a couple weeks back and figured I’d share my finds. Most of the teeth were unfortunately broken but it’s still always fun to find them. The last Belemnite has something around it which was kind of cool and different. I wish it wasn’t three hours from home but I love getting to go look for shark teeth when I am able to though! It’s not much to look at but enjoy everyone!!

Location: Etobicoke creek, Toronto, CA Date collected: July 27th, 2019 Hello! I pulled in a whole bunch of fossils along the Etobicoke creek (a little bit further north compared to my last trip - almost same location though). LOTS of Orthoconic Nautiloids (as usual), a couple different bivalves and a few crinoid fragments. This is the nautiloid haul. The top right one doesn't look like much but there are about 5 or 6 nautiloids embedded in the matrix! I'm considering learning how to clean up the fossils so that I can show it off in all its glory! These are the bivalves and other stuff collected. These are two separate MASSIVE chunks of monster Nautiloids (~5cm in diameter) - hopefully I can clean this one up as it would make a veryyy nice shelf piece! Closeup on the full bivalve, I've never really found a complete bivalve with both shells in one clump like this before (correct me if its actually just a lame rock - I could be wrong). I thought this one was really interesting: notice the dark brown, lined layer just under the rocky outer layer? I've seen a good lot of Orthoconic Nautiloids but I haven't seen a layer like this before. Maybe its nothing but I thought it might be worth looking into - let me know if you guys have any info, or what you think! Anyways thats what I pulled in this past weekend! I'd say its a decent haul, not my nicest stuff but still a good lot. -Em

Hi Everyone, I am going to be going on vacation to Texas for the holidays this year. I will be spending time in San Antonio, the texas hill country, and Austin. My favorite kinds of fossils to look for are shark teeth, but I like all kinds. Any insights into fossil sites and what I can find in any of these places would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Matt

Hey there! I'm sorry its been so long since I've posted on here but suffice it to say I need your help. I'm planning a six to seven day fossil hunting trip in Pennsylvania (sometime in mid august) and I need your help verifying that the sites I've picked to visit from Robert Beards guide Rock Hounding Pennsylvania are still accessible to collecting as well as coverable given my time frame. The places I'm looking at hunting are sites 27. Beltzville State Park (Outcrops on shoreline), 28. Lehighton, Lehigh Canal (Former borrow pit and outcrop),30. Deer Lake (Borrow Pit), 33. Suedberg (Outcrop in former borrow pit), 35. Centralia (Former strip mine outcrop), 38. Rockville (Former quarry), 48. Walker Lake (Hillside and unpaved road), 51. PPL Montour Preserve (Hillside, Former borrow pit), 57. Uniontown (Former quarry). Any insights as to whether or not theses sites are still accessible to collecting, weather our not you believe covering all these sites within 6 to 7 days is possible, and any other tips and tidbits of information on the sites, and or planning a large trip like this etc, would be greatly appreciated! When I go I'm planning to take notes and pictures and then, when i get back, write a few essays illustrated with pics that I will post on here! Thank you in advance, Glenn aka Fossil123

(Note: this was originally posted under fossil trips) Hey there! I'm sorry its been so long since I've posted on here but suffice it to say I need your help. I'm planning a six to seven day fossil hunting trip in Pennsylvania (sometime in mid august) and I need your help verifying that the sites I've picked to visit from Robert Beards guide Rock Hounding Pennsylvania are still accessible to collecting as well as coverable given my time frame. The places I'm looking at hunting are sites 27. Beltzville State Park (Outcrops on shoreline), 28. Lehighton, Lehigh Canal (Former borrow pit and outcrop),30. Deer Lake (Borrow Pit), 33. Suedberg (Outcrop in former borrow pit), 35. Centralia (Former strip mine outcrop), 38. Rockville (Former quarry), 48. Walker Lake (Hillside and unpaved road), 51. PPL Montour Preserve (Hillside, Former borrow pit), 57. Uniontown (Former quarry). Any insights as to whether or not theses sites are still accessible to collecting, weather our not you believe covering all these sites within 6 to 7 days is possible, and any other tips and tidbits of information on the sites, and or planning a large trip like this etc, would be greatly appreciated! When I go I'm planning to take notes and pictures and then, when i get back, write a few essays illustrated with pics that I will post on here! Thank you in advance, and thank you to Fossil-Hound for directing me on were to properly post this! Glenn aka Fossil123

Today I traveled to Holden Beach, North Carolina. I was told that there were shells everywhere, so I assumed that I would find some fossil shark teeth. Unfortunately, I saw no teeth, no fossils worth keeping, and no shells of large proportion. I searched about one mile of beach, and within it I tried to cover as much space as possible. I even searched every shell bed I came across. My advice to anyone hoping to find shark teeth in North Carolina: don't visit Holden Beach. On a happier note, I'm going to Sunset later this week, and I am hopeful that I will find teeth or some other sort of fossil from an aquatic creature.

On the winter solstice, we took the family out for a 7-mile winter hike. Luckily it was winter in name only, as the temps got up to almost 50 degrees. We found a nice trail near Roanoke, Virginia, that took us into the Appalachians. As the kids are still excited about our giant fossil hunting trip out west this summer, I decided to pick a location where I knew there were fossils to be found. All I know is that these were Paleozoic formations, where 450mya it was swampy mud flats. So I could tell them we wouldn't be finding dinosaurs, but we might find some shells. So they enjoyed the hike, and spent tons of time looking around for fossils when our climbing reached the tops of the ridgeline. Then we had to tell them they'd be carrying these rocks with them for the next 6 miles.... 1st kid's finds: (large flat-ish shells) (these seemed to be the most common finds) (trace fossils?) (crinoid stems? - Near the 1" mark, top/bottom)

DEER LAKE TRIP REPORT - MAJOR HIGHWAY CONSTRUCTION Deer Lake was our first fossil trip this year. If you haven't been there recently, the Deer Lake fossil site is totally transformed. There is major highway construction that wraps around the site and has exposed tons of Devonian rubble. It looks like an on ramp is being constructed there the way it curves around the site. Most of the areas that were previously posted are now part of the construction. There are walls of Devonian exposure, huge piles of rubble, lots of new exposures. However, in this Mahantango formation, most of the death assemblages are from the late Devonian and are confined to a thin upper layer which seems to be about less than a meter thick - the assemblages we found were in the same layer throughout the site, but hard to locate if you don't know the layer. Everything else is needle in a haystack collecting, sorting through lots of rock and inspecting the newly exposed boulders and rockfaces. We went on a weekend when there was no construction and there were no signs posted - I have a feeling that there will be no access signs at some point. We saw a few student fossil hunters combing the sides of the highway beds. This exposure is very temporary, and it's not clear what will be left to fossil-hunt after the highway is completed. We're familiar with the site and were very pleased with our finds - This is Nan examining some of the construction rubble, in front of one of the exposed faces. The accompanying photo shows all of the fossils we collected - first examination revealed trilobites (Dipleura), brachiopods, bivalve internals, gastropods, a few cephalopods - the larger rocks in the back were not chiseled open because they looked promising and I wanted to take more care and open those at home. Here are some closeups of finds from our Deer Lake trip - notable details include the large Dipleura segments. There is a nice gastropod in the lower left corner of the shell assemblage - this is one of several well articulated gastropods we found. The bivalve internal shows fine details and also two of the bivalves have the pedicle preserved.