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Hello! Just wanted to post a few of my recent find from the Gilboa and Schoharie areas - would love to learn more about them, and appreciate any info! In the image of the light yellowish color rock, I am curious if that may or may not be stromatolites, or just a layer of chert? That was found in Schoharie near the quarry - Thank you! From Gilboa area

Hello all! Excited to be part of the forum and share some of the finds I have come across soon I am looking to get out this long weekend to Gilboa and wondering where there might be some good access points to the Schoharie Creek there? I saw in a previous post a few years ago that access on Stryker Rd was temporarily closed, and curious if that is still the case, and if that is the same place that on Google maps looks like a parking lot near the bridge by the dam? If so, wondering where some other points would be good to look for plant fossils as I have yet to discover any of those yet in my travels. Many thanks in advance and hope you all have a great weekend and best of luck hunting! - Sarah

On Tuesday this week, myself and some of my family spontaneously decided to get out and drive to some interesting places in New York state to enjoy the day. We visited some beautiful locations like these two waterfalls: On our journey, we ended up around Gilboa, which is the location where one of the earliest known fossil forests was discovered with amazing plant and animal life, some of these fossils are exhibited outside near the town hall. This, being one of the many locations I had wanted to visit for years, was an opportunity I could not pass up, so while driving through the town we stopped by to take a look at these amazing pieces of history and get a few pictures: These are just some of the fossils displayed there, I have also really wanted to get to fossil hunt for some of the plant remains from this formation in Schohaire creek nearby, but unfortunately due to the very spontaneous nature of all of this I was not ready with the locations I had noted down where we could have done so and I did not get to collect anything from there on that day. We did, however, still have a little bit of time before it would get dark and I made the suggestion that we go collect some fossils at another, familiar location as it isn't often that I get to be around these places. So that is what we did, setting out for a quick hunt in the lower Devonian Kalkberg formation at a site only around 30 minutes away. Overall we probably got to hunt for around an hour, but it was a surprisingly productive time. Last time I visited here, I wasn't able to find that many of certain organisms I was interested in like the beautiful Leptaena sp. but this time, we found an abundance of these fossils, along with many other nice specimens. Here are some of my favorite finds from the trip: A few of those Leptaena sp. I wanted to get This one was my favorite, not the most complete but quite large and has very nice surface detail. A small but detailed spiriferid with some nice bryozoa: The largest spiriferid I've found here, needs some prep but a very nice fossil still: This one was a big surprise for me, I kept it because of the nice spiriferid on there but upon getting home I noticed a shiny dark patch below, turns out it was a Linguliform brachiopod, something I had never seen from the formation before. It's not complete, I wish we had noticed while we were there and potentially found the other side, but this is still a find I am very excited about. This also made me wonder something, most brachiopods preserve with a matte, sometimes slightly shiny texture to their shell, while all of the Linguliforms I have seen have a very glossy surface to them. Is this difference caused by differing shell composition? It is quite interesting and something that seems to occur throughout geological time, in many formations with varying preservation. @Tidgy's Dad maybe you know something about this? Some pretty nice orthids: This one was quite big, and appears pretty complete, I would like to get it prepped some day, I think it may turn out quite nice: Another strophomenid similar to Leptaena but with much shallower rippling along its surface, I was wondering if this may be another genus, looking in my field guide I see that Strophonella and Rystistrophia both also have concentric wrinkles, although I am not sure which if any of them this one may be: A coral? not really sure what this branching fossil is, but it seems quite interesting, not anything I've seen here before. A pair of nice solitary rugose corals: This one doesn't show up too well on camera but it's a pretty large platyceratid gastropod, I have a few from this location but this one has some very interesting wrinkles to the shell, quite different from all my other ones. This is another large fossil, I think it may be a gastropod also? it has a similar dark shell to most of the gastropods I've found here, plus it seems like it may be curving in a helical pattern out of the matrix slightly, but I may be wrong. And to finish, here are some nice hashplates I collected from the site: Thanks for looking!

Gilboa, NY no longer the oldest Forest. It is now in Cairo, NY about 40km away https://m.phys.org/news/2019-12-scientists-uncover-world-oldest-forest.html

I collected this in Schoharie Creek near Middleburg, NY. It was half of a very large rock with some exposed fossils. I have been using Muriatic Acid at a 50/50 with water and then power washing the residue off. I still have a ways to go, but found some interesting things. Any ideas on this exposed part?

This was collected in the Schoharie Creek bed approx. 5 minutes downstream from the Gilboa fossil forest in Schoharie County NY. The fossil was originally encased in limestone, I used 50% solution of Muriatic acid and water for preparation. I tried to look up some information but couldn't find anything exact, any help would be appreciated.

Hi Folks, Would appreciate any ideas on this one. My first thought is trace fossil since it branches in so many different ways. It is, however, black and the rest of the rock is brown which makes me think plant or vine type material. Was found near Schoharie Creek in Gilboa NY. Middle Devonian, Gilboa Fm and where I was is full of both seafloor fossil hash (with brachiopods, crinoids, and trilobites) and Wattieza stem hash. What do you think?

My wife and I are on a short trip through south eastern New York State, in the Catskill Mountain region. We had a more adventurous trip in mind but after some recent car trouble we didn't feel quite as adventurous as we did a week ago. We stopped today at a site on Schoharie Creek, a bit south of Gilboa. The heat and humidity kept us from spending more than a half hour at the site today, but we plan on going back tomorrow morning when it will be somewhat cooler. The river tumbled stones were mostly eroded, and I didn't bring my hammer down to the beach crowded with swimmers, but we did make one find worthy of bringing back to the motel. Leila usually makes the best finds when we're just scanning the ground, and she came up with this worn but still attractive horn coral. I love the way it's still attached to the matrix. It almost looks like it's been prepped: The same rock also shows off some nice specimens of what appear to be tube worms. Despite the heat we're enjoying our trip so far, and we're very happy with our motel except for one disturbing problem. Clinging to the door inside our lovely room is a five-foot-long mirror, and I am periodically startled by the strange old man peering at me. What's he doing in my room?! Mike

I looked at the weather and my schedule and realized that today was really the only good day in a while to get out. It was very foggy until I drove into the valley area and then the sun came out at about 10:45 am when I pulled in. The water was really low and I think they are working on the dam again. Anyway, I walked for a bit splitting rocks and did not find much but plant hash and seafloor hash. I switched sides of the river by jumping on rocks ( the water was really low) and then found this really cool Eospermatopteris branch. I've never seen anything that large before and, no joke, I heard something in the air behind me and saw a Bald Eagle fly over me head right after I found it. Luckily, I was able to chip it out complete and take it home. It was a really nice day and I wandered around splitting rock but not finding anything else of note. I was also being pretty picky and only looking for identifiable new fossils. So there you have it. The first pic is in situ, next one at home in crappy light and lastly the area I was in

Hi Folks, Was wondering if you could help me ID these two fossils. Both were found in Schoharie creek and are Devonian from, I think, the Gilboa formation. The first I think is a bryozoa but someone mentioned it could be a gyracanth fin spine due to the bone-like texture. I could the best photos I could using a tripod and a nikon 3300D

Hi Folks, Found this fossil yesterday. It is Devonian from the Gilboa formation in New York. It might not even be a fossil but I was thinking a trace fossil or a squished plant. Any insight would be appreciated.

Hi Folks, I did not take a true before picture so I am sorry, but here is my work on a branching stem. The sandstone matrix is very hard and breaks very randomly. In this case, I think due to winter freezing and thawing with moisture, there was a natural crack where the rock split and another that can't be seen in the photo that greatly aided the prep. I used a dremel with a carbide burr to ensure the crack would end where I wanted to and not spread into the already exposed fossil. I also have the counterpart to this fossil so I wanted to see what I could get. The first photo is the fossil with the removed pieces put back on. Second is the revealed branch, and third is a close up of the other fossil that showed up in the split. Some kind of textured bark impression or larger branch.

Hi everyone, I found this strange fossil in the 385 million year old scoharie formation. I was wondering if any fossil plant experts could give a more precise ID on this thing (genera would be nice. Could it be Wattieza?) I used a penny for scale. The fossil is quite large... Thanks in advance, Regards

Hi Everyone, I recently spent some time in New York, and being the fossil fanatic I am, couldn't resist visiting the Gilboa area to see what I could find. Gilboa is famous for its 380-385 million year old fossil forest. During the short hike, I collected various specimens, none of which I could identify (not being an expert or anything even close). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Regards P.S many photo so may have to post them in comments.

Hi Everyone, During a recent trip to Giboa NY, i found this unusually large leaf-like fossils. Giboa fossils are from the Mid-Devonian, 380-385 million years old. Any ideas as to what it is? Thanks in advance, Regards

Hi everyone, I'm going to by heading down to New York in a few weeks, and I was wondering if there were any places I could go to do some fossil hunting. I don't care much for mollusc/brachiopod fossils, but would love to find devonian plant fossils in the Gilboa area of Scoharie County. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Was just wondering if there were any film documentaries done on Gilboa, NY and the fossils around that area? After a recent trip there I started to google video info on the area but came up with only one short youtube video. I've seen some of the Discovery and History Channel docs but nothing strictly on Gilboa, at least in the length of a feature. If not specifically Gilboa, are there any that specifically focus on NY state/surrounding states? - Mike