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Hello all, Me and my friend would like to start practicing chemical preparation. Neither of us have done that before. We were mainly wondering what types of commercially available fossils are fit to practice this on? I know of limestone fossils like Keichousaurus, but that seems quite expensive for a first try. Neither of us lives close enough to a fossil location to reallistically obtain this way. So I tried to make a list of items that are not too hard to find unprepared. My friend has quite a bit of experience with working with chemicals, but doesn't know what chemicals would work with what rocks. It has also never been my strong side. Do you think chemical preparation would work on any of these fossils? -Schlaifhausen ammonites blocks -Khouribga fossils (don't think I've ever seen chemical preparation on this) -Spirifers from Barvaux, Belgium (been here a couple of times so have quite a few of those) Would love to hear more suggestions if anyone has any? We do not have the room to afford the other tools for mechanical prep, hence why we want to try it this way.

Hello Everyone, My friends and I are visiting New Orleans this weekend and I was wondering if there are any places nearby that we could find any shark teeth? Thank you you for any help!

Do any of you know if is real or not? I only know that they should are from whaioming “diplomistus, knoghtia and myoplosus” from the eocene epoch. That’s right? Thank you!!!!

So finally getting around to posting my finds from my last trip 2 weeks ago. All of this comes from a 12 foot by 8 foot section of gravel, which is… pretty mind blowing to me. To start off the finds… Tortoise! I grabbed 1 chunk of shell - there were multiple others that were equally as big and I just didn’t have the room for all of them. Found 30 tortoise spurs and 2 claws as well: (Also included with the claws are an earbone and a deer distal phalanx/claw core) Next up… 9 Glyptodon osteoderms, including 1 spike osteoderm and 2 juvenile osteoderms: Other armadillo stuff - 1 Holmesina sp. osteoderm, 1 P. Leiseyi, and 6 D. Bellus: 32 Gar fish scales: A gorgeous and large snake vert, as well as the Puma concolor thoracic vert that I had posted for ID: 4 Equus horse teeth: 2 Deer teeth, a Peccary tooth, a rodent jaw, a Cormohipparion ingenuum upper premolar, a raccoon canine, and a racoon jaw with 2 teeth: And finally, a gorgeous Meg, 2 tapir teeth, a tapir incisor, a wrasse mouth plate, and an unerupted piece of mammoth molar: Overall a pretty awesome haul!

I found this strange fossil near Sand Springs on the Arkansas River of Northeast Oklahoma back in 2013 or so. I was told by multiple sources that it appears to be a chunk of seabed. Is this from the Devonian/Mississippian period? Can anyone ID any of the fossils on this piece? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! I have a few other specimens I would love to identify as well! :)) ~Noah Benzing

I have numbered UNDER the teeth if that helps me to identify them.

Hello! Is it possible to exclude Myliobatis and maybe possible to identify genus? Length: ~ 1 cm. Age: Eocene, Ypresian. Location: Western Ukraine. Thanks!

Dear Fellow Forum Goers, Have you found that over your lifetime, the fossil collecting grounds you've so frequently enjoyed and have come to love have degraded? Lately, I have been ruminating on the fact that the popularization of fossil collecting in New Jersey (my local collecting ground) has brought many wonderful things (many new collectors, support for paleontology across the board, and - maybe - additional funding to paleontology communities, institutions, and organizations), but has also engendered / worsened a host of deleterious processes, such as the picking-over of common collecting areas, egregious collecting practices, and some level of local environmental degradation due to an unsustainable amount of collecting (in my case, stream ecosystems, predominantly, are being affected). I suspect I am not alone in feeling this way. It is very easy for human activity to eliminate something good (e.g., human hunting and mega-fauna, overfishing, slash-and-burn agriculture); this seems no different for fossil collecting, but this degradation in fossil collecting seems to have become more noticeable in the last few years, especially given the incentives that the Internet and social media place on people to post amazing or numerous fossil finds. There is something nauseating about knowing that what were once treasured places for you to go will now either be cordoned off to collecting or will be squeezed so thin of fossils that you are left wondering whether it was really a good idea to post that trip report or picture on Instagram or video on YouTube. Main Idea -->: I am interested in hearing about your stories and perspectives on this topic, i.e. fossil collecting grounds you've gone to that have become so miserable due to over-collecting, poor collecting practices, environmental degradation, human development, or other restrictions. For me, I've found that Instagram (30%), YouTube (15%), the Fossil Forum (5%), and Facebook (50%) have all contributed in some way to the degradation of the common stream systems (I put % weights next to these corresponding to my estimates of their impact). This degradation takes the form of too many people collecting in the streams. Some of these people dig in areas they shouldn't, such as the stream embankments, and this increases the risk of certain areas having fossil collecting banned. Many of these people litter the gravel bars with their sifted spoils, which prevents other collectors who want to surface scan from reaping the benefits of a good rain, which is the only reliable form of natural erosion for the NJ Cretaceous stream beds. Kind Regards, Trevor

Hopefully a better pic

#3

I have numbered under the teeth of that helps me to identify them.

So the other night I was at home rowing and watching YouTube videos on fossils and I came across one from a young lady from England- I do not recall her name and am not sure if she is on the forum. I have seen several of her videos and enjoyed them, but this one really caught my attention. She was cleaning fossils that she had collected and she was using a mop bucket. As I was watching this, I thought to myself, what a great idea she has. After I was done rowing, I searched the internet to see if I could find this great new piece of equipment for cleaning the fossils that I collect. After a couple of minutes, I discovered it is the O-Cedar Microfiber Easywring Spin Mop and Bucket System, I know, it’s a mouthful. I found one today at a local home improvement store and purchased it for $33.00. The way this thing works is that after you fill it up with water, you put your dirty fossils in the spin apparatus. Dirty Concretions- Spin apparatus- You then push down on the pedal, which makes it spin in the water. And you have clean concretions in no time. This will be great for Mazon Creek concretions, fossils that I collect in Southern Indiana, etc. And the openings in the spin apparatus is small enough to capture some smaller fossils. See the Scale cube for size. Thanks again @Misha I told you that your scale cubes would be used.

As y'all know, I love photographing my fossils almost as much as I love finding them. So of course, I have to do a Year in Review of my best fossil finds! I seem to be averaging about 150 best finds a year....not too shabby methinks! Hope y'all all had a great fossiliferous 2022 and that 2023 is EVEN BETTER

Can y'all help identify these?

Many of the folks here know that I used to be a fossil dealer. I quit about 21 years ago one day when I realized it had become a job. Well, just the other day while I was looking for my Eurypterid stuff, I ran into this box literally full of fossilized teeth and some other things. Here is a short 3 minute video of that find. Enjoy https://youtu.be/4fZgEW3QGEs

I found this clam buried in mud along Joshua’s Creek in Oakville, near Lake Ontario, the hotspot of Ordovician fossils. Measurements are 7cm by 6cm. I’m particularly intrigued by the growth rings, since they protrude out rather visibly and considering I’ve never seen this in any other kind of fossil or living clam species. Can anyone help with identifying what species of fossil clam this is?

I find skulls one of the most interesting pieces of fossil you can ever own. So here I'd love to see all of your fossil skulls, or parts of one. Here is my Pleistocene era skull of a Ursus arctos. An ice age brown bear. Very very uncommon find.

I have tried to buy fossils from japanese sites online but everytime they come back and say the product is prohibited from international shipping due to the fossil being considered a 'living' animal so cant be shipped despite being dead for millions of years? Has anyone else experienced this? Also has anyone here successfully bought fossils from japan?

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a trip report! Been out plenty, just never sat down to make one, and by the time I was ready, I had already sorted away the finds. Decided to keep out my best finds from my last 2 trips, so… The first trip I had gone out looking for new spots. Found one, but hadn’t spent a ton of time there before I had to leave. The hour or two I did spend there resulted in a Holmesina claw, N. Aztecus p2, a partial posterior Meg, and a canid jaw, which while matching coyote, is heavily fossilized and could be any number of similarly sized canids, especially given the other finds in the same place dating the area to early Pleistocene at the latest. The next trip I was planning to continue hunting the new spot and check out more spots farther upstream, but it rained heavily 2 days before, and the water hadn’t dropped enough for me to even hunt the new spot, let alone look for more. So I stopped at an old spot that had been resulting in little gravel and not producing small shark teeth and not much else… I was then very excited when I found a dire wolf p2 in my first 10min there, followed by deer teeth, a horse incisor, tortoise claw cores, a large mammal vert, and plenty more. I will definitely be returning on my next outing, though probably going to continue searching for new spots. Hopefully the water has dropped enough by then… Anyway, the real reason people read these, the finds! Holemsina back foot claw core and the 2 tortoise claw cores I found: The myriad of armadillo osteoderms… Top row is Pachyarmatherium (found my 2nd and third normal Pachy osteoderms finally - I had only been finding edge ones before!) and then a single Holmesina, the rest are all Dasypus Bellus: Gator teeth, 2 posterior partial Megs, 2 deer teeth, a partial tapir, and a complete tapir tooth: The smallest tortoise spur I’ve found at 1cm on the dot: And finally my fav finds, a horse incisor, N. aztecus p3, the canid jaw with a p4, and the dire wolf p2:

As many of you know, my home on Sanibel was severely impacted by Hurricane Ian, especially by the storm surge of 12-15 feet. I was fortunate that the living areas escaped major damage. I have a 13 foot carport as the 1st level, and 90 % of its contents were destroyed or washed away. This included one of my kayaks, found badly damaged 15 feet up in a tree 6 weeks after the surge hit. Also in the carport, was a 20 drawer display cabinet containing lots of excellent fossils, which I could not fit inside the house. I have searched for that cabinet for 2 months, walking thru the much and mire of hurricane debris. Yesterday afternoon, about 3 hours before dinner and a play, a friend called my wife, saying there was a cabinet, like mine, dumped at the side of our street, 5 houses down, waiting for trash removal. I was up at 1st light, and indeed verified this was my fossil cabinet. It was full of sand, mud, fossils and broken beyond repair. The cabinet must have rolled in its journey thru the surge, since it contained a lot of palm fronds and large seeds from a Bismarkia palm and at least one panel was breached, allowing some loss of contents. I ripped the cabinet apart with pry bar and hammer in search of fossils. I recovered about 35-40% of the original contents... My glass in half full. This is a GREAT Christmas present.... I finished about an hour ago... Some of the recoveries.... That is a small Baleen whale mandible tip. I am really pleased to get it back...Jack

Today I drove out about 50 miles to attend an auction that is held a few times a year. This auction usually has Native American artifacts, Chinese artifacts, old fishing equipment, fossils and other odds and ends. The auction starts at 10:30 am and runs several hours. Today I left at 2:30 pm and there was still about 150 lots to auction out of the original 450 or so lots that the day began with. Today there may have been about 50 people in attendance and by the time I left, there were maybe 20 people left. There is no charge to enter and no additional fee is charged to you if you happen to win a bid. In addition, they provide a ton of donuts for breakfast and make sandwiches for lunch, all of the food is provided free of charge. They only thing that you are charged is $1.00 if you want a pop or water. I see many people that come and never bid, but do eat the food. Lol As with all auctions, you have to keep an eye on what is be auctioned at the time and you have to make sure that you don’t get caught up in the moment and bid more than you were thinking about paying. Here are some of the fossils that were up for auction. Most of these came from an older collector that had passed away and his niece was getting rid of some of the stuff. It was a Potpourri of things that included dinosaur pieces ( no teeth), Oligocene fossils, tracks, casts and other stuff. The main problem with these collections is that there is no information on the fossil or the location that they came from. A “lot” consists of what ever is in the flat. There were 3 Riker mounts of Mazon Creek fossils, none of which I bid on. The cool thing about this next Riker mount is that it contained a fossil that was collected and mounted by my fossil mentor Walter. Megalodon teeth are always sold separately, these 2 below were not very good at all and I do not believe that they hit a minimum that some other seller had set for them. This happens quite often on certain pieces and they will end up at the auction again. Some people think that there fossils are worth more than they are. They need to understand that it is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. When some pieces do have ID’s, they are incorrect, such as these poorly preserved prints that are in Permian Coconino sandstone and are not dinosaur. Dino eggs that they said are real, but I did not look at them or bid. If they were real, the winner got a great deal. Dino stuff and some broken fish plates. A Dino centrum, there were a few. I was bidding on this next piece, but backed away after I saw that a guy who I had been talking to was also bidding, he did the same to me later. This next piece was a nice partial Rhino skull from the Oligocene (USA), location unknown. Some misc Dino bones and other things. This lot contained some poorly preserved Oligocene rhino jaws, a partial squirrel skull, fossil dung beetle balls and fossil locust / insect cocoons, most likely from Wyoming. As mentioned above-?dung beetle ball and insect cocoons. Misc stuff- Green River fish Santana formation fish Dino stuff and fossil Dino casts- I won this lot. This was something that I really did not need, but after sitting for a while, it feels good to bid. An Oreodont skull- I won this piece also. Here are the things that I picked up- A really decent Merycoidon gracilis Oreodont skull. I will prep it up a little more and I got it for a song. Believe it or not, this fake trilobite cast went for almost double of what I paid for the above skull and more than I paid for the Dino stuff below. And the above cast went for more than I paid for the below “lot” Dinosaur pieces that I won. Thanks to Frank @Troodon for helping with some ids, even though I had limited information on the pieces. Centrum from most likely a herbivore. Part of a Dino vertebra. This lot is continued on the next post.

Hi all. I very recently got back into paleontology and archeology. I would absolutely love to be able to look for my own fossils, but I’m having a very hard time finding up-to-date information on any public fossil site in the state of Delaware. I heard about the Canal and Pollock farm, but I can’t find any directions to the farm, and I heard the canal no longer has accessible fossils. any help regarding the subject would be greatly appreciated.

So...I have some questions about sclerotic rings. In addition to supporting large eyes, resisting pressure, etc. how do they work? I ask as I see four basic forms across species, extant and extinct. the first is a fixed ring fused to the frontal and zygomatics. the second looks to be a fused or partially fused ring that is around the iris the third is a ring of small plates held together by connective tissue and the fourth looks like a camera iris Where my confusion arises is with the third and fourth and some birds and fossils. Do these function as part of the actual muscles of the iris sliding/flexing the sclera, or are they purely support for the overall structure? For those unfamiliar: