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After my first glimpse of The Lost World of Fossil Lake by Lance Grande (if you don’t have it, get it at any price!), I was hooked on Green River fossils. Here is the first one I prepared myself. I bought it directly from one of several “storied” Wyoming quarries. It is from the 18-inch layer and is not found by splitting the fish but by detecting the raised surface of the skull and vertebrae. Then one must somehow scrape away the relatively soft matrix to expose the fossil below (perhaps 1 to 5mm deep). The tools I used are pine vises that held sewing needles. If I could safely scrape away layers, I used an eyeglass screwdriver in the pin vise, but pins work for precise work. I visualized the fossil as I worked with a stereoscopic microscope on a boom so it can hover over the fossil without touching it. Here is the progression of pictures I took back in 2017. This is a 4.75 inch Cockerellites liops. I am told in the quarry they are called “footballs”, are beautiful fish armed with strong spines to prevent predator attack from behind. It took me about two months on and off- it is seriously laborious but somewhat calming or maybe even meditative. After months with a fossil like this, you become attached to it. Before starting If anyone knows how to do this more quickly with the same or better quality, please comment.

Hi everyone, My third trip to Kemmerer, Wyoming is in one week. I’m going to be digging in the Green River information. Last trip, I came home with a whole Mioplosus labracoides. This time, we have two friends from Japan digging with us. My goal for this trip is to find ANY decent fossil to show my Japanese friends who are digging with us. I don’t care what we find, as long as we all have fun. The only problem is, their suitcases are full. They can’t bring fossils back to Japan with them because they don’t have room in their suitcases. As a result, I will add them to my collection if need be and label them as the discoverer. I will keep you all posted. Jared

Day 5 in South Dakota was a total bust for my son and me. The section of the quarry we worked has large ironstone and clay boulders, but also has large bones. We sat next to a jacketed femur and worked back the wall face. We didnt find more than a few small bits at the end of the day, but I said that something big was there. Big rocks = big bones. Sure enough, Walter sat down in our spot 3 days later and immediately uncovered a ceratopsian dentary! By this point were were already on to our next destination in Kemmerer, Wyoming. 3 days of splitting shale for fish, hoping for that elusive stingray! Like last year, day one was kind of slow. We were also much more picky in what we packed in the truck. No more partial fish this time, I wasnt going to fill my back set area with slabs unless they were quality. Day 2 produced a lot more volume of finds, and the biggest and best find was a huge palm leaf! The only problem is that it has no coloration to it. I'm still happy with it! My plan was to glue this to a piece of plywood to help stabilize it for the 1100 mile drive home. It had a block of matrix left on the back, so on the morning of day 3 I carefully split that chunk off. Now I had to change my plan! It revealed a large fish on the back of the slab! Most likely a Phareodus, and looks in beautiful condition. Of course, the fault crack runs straight down the spine, but I used paraloid to help glue the fault line and give it some more stability. Since I couldnt glue it down, I cut 2 pieces of plywood, wrapped the slab in a piece of packing blanket, and then used ratchet straps to hold everything tight for the ride home. After 3 days we did have quite a lot of material to haul home, but I had enough boxes for it all, and so far everything seems to have arrived some safe. I havent opened up the palm/pharo yet. fingers crossed. We still didnt find our stingray this year. I guess we'll just have to keep trying. Edit to add, I almost forgot to mention that I got the chance to meet up with @Ptychodus04 in Kemmerer. We were both in the area for fish at the same week, but in different quarries. We had a chance to meet up for dinner with crew (I'm sorry, I'm terrible with names). It was great to meet you Kris, I hope you had a fabulous hunt! On the trip home, I made a detour to visit the Dinosaur National Monument. It wasnt originally planned, but when I noticed how close we were to Vernal, UT, I coudnt pass it up. Covid prevented me from visiting on my last trip to Utah, but no this time. If youve never been, I highly recommend a visit! Its a truly incredible sight to see so many articulated bones in one place, still in the matrix as discovered. Even more impressive is that a lot of specimens actually have already been removed, and the site was originally so much bigger.

What a trip my son and I had this year! We started out in the Hell Creek fm of South Dakota. This was a special trip through Paleo Adventures for his "veteran" guests who have already spent a few years with him and could operate without supervision. We started out hunting a new ranch. This property is virgin ground with LOTS of acreage that needed exploration. The group was split into 3 teams, each taking a different area. Our team was further split into pairs. So, it was my son and me, exploring for new outcrops. The sun was intense, the temperature hot, and hours of hiking and staring intently at the ground for float and possibly something sticking out of a wall. Eventually we worked our way down into a draw and found an ironstone layer. Closer inspection revealed a large amount of fossil material. There were bits of turtle shell, croc scutes and small bone bits all throughout. The only complete bone was this distal caudal vert my son found. The sight was thus named "Mitchells Micro Site". We bagged a selection for further study, marked the location and continued on. From the draw, we worked our way up to the main butte. Another pair was investigating the east side, so we began working the west side. Only a few minutes later I spotted a small sun faded bit of float. I began looking up the slope and saw another, and another. As I climbed the side it was obvious that I was on a hot trail, and then I found it, a bone sticking out of the wall, just below the surface. Sadly, the only thing left was about the last 8 inches of the bone (like Edmontosaur), and its full of root rot so the prep is going to be ugly. Just around the corner I followed more float down the slope and found an Ed vert centrum in the wash. The processes are gone, but surprisingly the broken edge seen in the pic, was laying on the surface up-slope, so its reattached and the prep has begun. Walter's team found a large surface exposure, about half a mile away and determined that my Ed finds, and another team's finds were all the same horizon of large multitaxic bone bed. My son ended up finding a nannotyranus tooth in the large exposure site, the only tooth found there that day. And then a call came across the radio "we've got 11 vertebrae in the wall and they just keep popping out". Of course, everyone went to check it out! It appears to be a juvenile Ed. with caudal verts exposed so far, but Walter is hopeful the most of it is still in the ground. Even though it was already late in the afternoon, I'm sure we would have stayed on the site much longer but a wicked looking storm was building fast and moving our way. So the race was on to recover what was exposed so far and get out while the getting was good. We barely got out too. As soon as we got to the pavement, I could see a lowering coming down from the storm, and it wasnt much longer someone said they could see it sucking dirt up. The last place I want to be during a tornado is in the middle of the prairie and stuck in bentonite. So that was the end of the first day. We headed back to town tired, sweaty, but ecstatic after an incredibly successful day.

Hi everyone, So, I’m going back to Kemmerer, Wyoming for the third time on August 12, 2021. My entire family will be going as well as two friends from Japan. I’m going, courtesy of fishdig.com. I know the two from Japan will have a great time. I’m sure I’ll have a good time also. I wonder what I’ll find this time. Last time, I found an awesome Mioplosus labracoides. Picture attached. Jared

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on 1. air scribes you’ve found are good for fossil prep, and 2. All the parts needed for Scribes. I’m not quite sure all the parts needed for a scribe, I know you need the scribe itself and an air compressor, but I don’t know beyond that. P.s; the fossils I’ll be working on will be Green River fish, for the most part.

Hello everyone I'm currently cataloguing my fossil collection and have came across some green river fossils with no real ID. I would greatly appreciate any advice from the green river buffs out. First up are some insects. Both labeled as from the Parachute creek member in Garfield County. Size is around 1cm each.

I've got a few Green River fish to prep and am having difficulty with the fins. I've prepped invertebrates before but haven't hit on the technique for these fish yet. I have a Paleo-Aro airscribe and an abrasive blaster, sodium bicarb and dolomite. The Paleo-aro seems too robust for the delicate fin rays and tends to damage a lot of them. I'm thinking of getting a micro jack but not sure of which # would be appropriate. I almost have my air-blaster up and running again. Is using sodium bicarb at a low pressure the answer? I know a couple of people who only use manual picks and have amazing results but, it is very painstaking. I've tried dental picks and am damaging more than exposing. Are dental picks too flexible? Is there anything just as thin but more rigid? Any assistance will be much appreciated. Thanks. Tom

Hiya everyone my friend has sent me sone green river fishes I’m guessing there knightia he’s glued some pieces together because they have started to flake but I’ve noticed a little thing on the back plate and revealed it a help would be great to ID

True or fake? And what species is it? I have this rare fish from the US Eocene. It has color and a lacquer applied. The rock is authentic and I have passed a flame over the fish and it does not melt, it is not resin. But I still have doubts.

I bought this prepare your own fossil fish either knightia or diplomystus so I could prepare something for the first time which is why it looks like this don’t judge. I was wondering two things actually, one is it a knightia or diplo? And two are all green river fish this hard? I know I didn’t do a good prep job but was the fish poorly preserved as well? It was paper thin in some places and the fish doesn’t look whole it looks like its bones got moved after it died. Oh it’s also about 3 inches from the mouth to the “end” of the tail

Hello all, I have been long searching for an exceptionally high/museum quality aspiration example from Green River. I recently have found myself with the opportunity to acquire this specimen. I've been told that there is a small amount of restoration on the tail of the Priscacara but I don't know exactly how much/what it entails yet. I'd ideally prefer a specimen with 0% restoration but I don't know how realistic that is. For scale, the diplo is 18" long, I'm told. It's obviously pretty cool that this is a Priscacara aspiration as my understanding is that this is pretty uncommon. I'd be very curious to hear your feedback on this piece in general, your thoughts on the restoration, and to hear your suggestions on whether or not this is the "right" piece to add to my collection (last part is a personal decision, I know...). I don't mind waiting to find the perfect piece... but I also don't know how realistic it is to find one much better as this one seems pretty nice to my eye. I wish the tail were poking out a bit farther but hey I guess I give the diplo credit for getting it that far down before expiring... Really appreciate your thoughts.

My wife and I went on a 7500+ mile ramble to break out of our COVID doldrums. Due to the virus we had to change up many of our original plans... which conversely added a number of additional fossil hunting locals as they allowed us to mostly avoid our fellow humans and maintain social distancing by many many miles. As part of our trip preparations my wife sewed us a number of masks, including a whole series of fossil hunting masks for me. Originally we were supposed to stay in Chicago, but we elected to avoid staying in the city, so we only got to do a drive by We started the trip with a bonus dig, meeting up with fellow forum member @minnbuckeye for a guided Ordovician hunt in Fennimore, Wisconsin (THANKS MIKE!) Unfortunately I neglected to take pics of the site so I will only be able to share a farm pic we passed on the way. Mike was a gracious host who kicked off the visit with a gift of several fossil samples from his home turf As with all of the fossils from this trip, all finds are as they arrived back home, no prep. Some of our finds from Fennimore:

I still have about 30 more to finish preparing, but so far, here are the best two I have prepped from my 2019 Green River run:

Last year, to celebrate finishing my undergraduate degree, my girlfriend and I went on a long (9,000+ mile) road trip around the western US and at long last (a little over a year since their discovery) the last of the fossils we found are out of the refrigerator and I’ve finally gotten all of them photographed. Here are some of the highlights and best fossils we found. A rough map of the route of the trip While the trip wasn’t entirely fossil centric we wanted to hunt at a few cool spots along the way. We chose to visit 5 fossil locations, the first of which was Clarkia Fossil Bowl in Idaho, a fantastic location for Miocene age leaves (Langhian Stage, ~15Mya) tucked behind a motocross track. These poor fossils have been through it all in the year between when they were found and when I finally got them dry. They’ve been soaked several times, gone mouldy twice, frozen at least once and flown across the Atlantic Ocean, all before spending the last 8 months in the refrigerator. Amazingly all but two of them survived perfectly including one of my favourite finds, a tiny flower. A maple leaf (genus Acer) still partly covered in matrix but with the stem intact. At some point I hope to get this one prepared. The best leaf find of the trip, with beautiful red coloration and mottling from fungus. A partial leaf, with beautiful vein preservation. The next spot was the American Fossil quarry in Kemmerer Wyoming to look for Eocene fish (Green River Formation, Ypresian Stage, ~53-48Mya). Splitting though the material left out by the quarry we found a few fish, primarily Knightia and Diplomystus. The best Knightia, including the best fish of the day with its head still partly covered. Some of the Diplomystus. The first needs some repair as it broke through the tail. The second has a counterpart as well and I’m hoping to frame it soon. And a mystery fish, I don’t know what species this is, it could just be Knightia or Diplomystus but it doesn’t look like the others we found. The star find came close to the end of the time at the quarry, a section of a puddle layer packed full of Knightia, at least a dozen fish piled on top of each other. The quarry manager was kind enough to let me take the blocks without splitting them thinner since the material is full of fractures and likely would not have survived. The layer as it split in the quarry (US size 13 hiking boot acting as a rough scale). The three pieces I managed to recover. The blocks are currently in a storage unit in Washington until I can figure out how to get them prepared. I am hoping the first two pieces can be reunited and the part and counterpart can be mounted side by side but I’m unsure about how to accomplish this. If anyone who prepares Green River fish has any ideas please let me know. The third locality we visited was Westgard pass in Inyo California, hunting for Cambrian archaeocyathids (Poleta Formation, Cambrian Stage 3, ~ 520Mya). We were only there a short time as there was a lot of driving to do that day, but I still managed to find one example in cross section. My girlfriend was more lucky, finding four examples. These are our favourites, particularly the third, which exhibits some dimensionality in addition to the cross-section. I’m absolutely thrilled to find anything Cambrian, and to make things even better the fossil locality is just down the road from the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to living trees more than 4,000 years old and one of my favourite spots on the whole trip. We also visited Capitola Beach to search for rolled cetacean bone. I found two examples with one clearly showing the cancellous internal bone texture. To cap off the trip I wanted to do a fossil hunt in my home state of Washington. Since I still don’t know where to go to look for the elusive Pulalius crab, we decided to search the West Twin River site for shrimp concretions (Pysht Fomration, Oligocene, ~22-33Mya). We found over a dozen of these containing partial shrimp. I think they are all Callianopsis clallamensis since this is a common species at this locality. The first concretion that I found after identifying the right material. Another shrimp nodule containing a large section of claw. The head of a shrimp. Two non-crustaceans, a gastropod internal mould and a beautiful white bivalve in a small concretion. A mystery concretion with something eroding out from both ends. And last, one of the strangest concretions I have ever seen. The outside is hardened but the inside is a soft clay consistency with several bits of shrimp shell, completely the opposite of the hard in the middle concretions I’m used to. In all, it was a fantastic trip. I would love to go back to all the sites we visited, and there is so much more to explore next time I’m stateside. I’m looking forward to getting out hunting again. Stay tuned for the next big trip to celebrate finishing our masters. Benton

I purchased these 2 fossils a few years back at a show in California. I am trying to identify them......Thanks, Augie

Here is a large partial fish I found a few weeks ago. Not sure, but suspecting maybe Phareodus?? Any thoughts? Thanks, Mike

Hi all, I recently acquired this large Diplomystus fish from holdinghistory, not cleaned any of this materiel before so it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve, still lots to do but Im enjoying cleaning this. Thanks for looking Regards Neil.

I'm brand new to Fossil Forum, and can't afford the big splashy wall display fossils, so my "collection" is modest, but it's a start. I have three of these fern plates from St. Clair, PA, and two diplomystus fish fossils from the Green River formation in Wyoming.

My son and I just got home last night from a 2 week fossil hunting trip. We loaded up the trailer and made our way up north to the Hell Creek formation in South Dakota. This was the 11th year since we started digging with Walter Stein of PaleoAdventures. We spent 4 days in the field at his Tooth Draw quarry. This started out pretty slow for us, with an Edmontosaurus neural arch with processes but was missing the centrum. My son found an unknown plate. Highly fractured but it looks to have 3 original sides. The underside is still encased in matrix so we wont know more until its prepped out while might take a while. The finds got better in last 2 days. We found a few big BOBs, lots of Trike spitter teeth, and then a nice limb bone, possibly from a crocodile. The last day gave up a wonderful complete Thescelosaurus vert with all processes. It may not be clear in the pic, but its all there in the matrix. Then came a Nanotyrannus tooth, a partial mammal jaw, a possible piece of turtle plastrom and a final tooth with could be nano or could be raptor. It will have to be cleaned to examine it better for a good ID. Sorry, I dont have a field pic of that one. The weather didnt get better though. Our last day it in the mid 90s, zero clouds and 40mph winds funneling down the draw and sandblasting us all day long. But with great finds, you couldnt pry us out of there.

Hi, I’m considering buying this, and was wondering if this is a feather, it’s not listed as a feather but I’m curious if it is.

I found this a couple of summers ago at the American Quarry in Kemmerer. Just cleaned it up. It doesn’t look exactly like a Knightia. Might it be something else?