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Well, I’m finally getting to dig into my truckload of fossils from my Wyoming trip with @RJB so it’s my turn to open up a prep thread. I spent a couple hours today poking around to find the perfect fish to start with. The 18” layer never disappoints. This good sized Diplomystus has 2 Knightia on top of it. I’m going to try to save both but I’m concerned that the right hand one is covering most of the Diplo’s skull. If that’s the case, the little guy will have to go! This is after about 90 minutes of scribe work.

Looking to ID this Green River fossil leaf if anyone has an ideas?

Back in about 1992 or 93and for many years later and still to this day I took the whole family fossil hunting. I always made it a priority to take the family on a fossil vacation. I use to do 7 out of state trips for fossil hunting every year with one of those for the family and always in the last week of june or first week of July. Always had to wait for the kids to get out of school. Used to do trips that last up to 3 weeks. Ha! Now a 4 or 5 day trip is about all I can do. The misses doesn't go with me nowadays but I cant help it, I need to get out even if I cant do much because of this stroke. Ive gone on 2 fossil hunting trips already this year and still have 2 more to go. One to the Fox Hills Formation in South Dakota for more of those super nice and high quality ammonites and then my last one to Washington to get more crab concretions and to aquire more of those rare and most beautiful agitized Aturia!!! I used to keep everything but nowadays I only want quality and to grow the collection. Trimmin down some fish slabs Abssolutely LOVE this place!!! This creek changed paleo history!!! Was told that there would be a dusting of snow and a bit chilly. It got down to -12 degrees and got 4 inches of snow that buried everything!!! and yeah, we camped in that weather. I didnt see it then but now I can see that I was one of the tuffest dudes alive!!!! This was after the -12 degree night and I had to trim all the fish slabs. once in the truck with the heater on my fingers and toes were numb and then came that god awfull stinging when they thawed out. Lots of pain but came home with lots of fish! This is back when I thought split fish were cool. Not so anymore. Just too spoiled now but sure had a heck of alot of fun back in the day!

Well,, it was just a couple of weeks ago when I was out on a fishing trip to the Green River Formation. We were invited back to the almost unknown 'Phareodus' layers!!! Very tuff layers for sure. We had to use special chisles for these layers along with the normal thin shims used for the 18 inch layers. We didnt end up with very many Phare's, only 2 but the boys did get some purty good B-Grade Phare's!!! What we did find was quite a few small diplo's and small Mio's in some very very nice high quality preservation. The one thing was,,, just how many small good preservation Mio's does one see? These are almost rare. What struck me also was the difference in the layers here! From one layer to the next can be completely different! Some of it was super nasty rock and had travertine on it. You find a fish in this travertine you simply toss it aside. That hurt! When the sun went away we had to go dig the 'mini' layers. The mini layers are very much like the split fish layers but you can get some really good hard layers there and you can also find some big fish there too along with the 1000's of little Knightia's. But the sun came back and again we dug the Phare layer. The boys also did some night fishing with lights in the famous 18 inch layers but only lasted about 3 hours. Still, some nice little prisci's for their efforts. It was also very cold! First morning was 32 dgrees. Tons of wind too and the second day destroyed out tent!!!!! Im gettin old and can do without the cold and wind, but for those of who know, after almost 14 months with this stroke I was for the first time able to actually do some work and for some hours. Quite happy to say the least about that!!! and even though I payed for that the next day, for me, it was Fantastic. And today, just one day after getting back I was able to unload almost all the fish, get them squared up with a square and pencil and now having a very deserved whisky and writing this! Wooooooooop Woooooooop!!!! I will pay for this tomorrow but I dont care. Ive always love getting out and fossil hunting and camping and its now finally gettting a tad bit easier. Here is my little set up before it got desroyed the next day!!! Here is a large Phareodus with some of the head missing from the 'mini' layers. The very first rock my middle son lifted. This fish is upside down. Had to build a wind block so we could have a fire for cooking baked taters with onion garlic and a slice of bacon. Makes for one heck of a baked tater!!! and some New Yorks too!!! The boys working the famous 18 inch layer. You can see in the lower left of this photo the small pad of the unknown Phareodus layer. Here is a small but very high quality Mioplosis from one of the 'Phareodus' layers! Im super excited to get these!!! To say the least!!! This fish, Diplomystus is one of the most awesome ive seen. Just fatter than a pig!!! Sad to have the tail end missing!!! This fish came from the 'mini' layers. If this had a tail I would have paid some serious moneys for it!!! Just check out the anal fin!!!

FYI @Ptychodus04 @Kittenmittens @mamlambo @Fossilis Willis @Malcolmt @DevonianDigger Well managed to get out last Friday to dig up some Green River fish from the split fish layers. These layers aren't nice and hard like the 18 inch, nor are the rarer fish as obtainable (they don't preserve as well), but you can still find some pretty cool stuff. A family next to me found a foot long Phareodus in perfect condition with a dark red color (forgot to take a picture of that). I don't think they realize just how lucky they are because those are not easy to find. The night before it rained a ton so I had a hard time getting to the quarry. The oily lime based rock wouldn't split properly until about noon but I hauled some decent Knightia's out. These aren't your prized, rare, fish but they are still a blast to dig up. Pulled out about fifty and worked all day. With all the mud and rain I seriously didn't think anyone would show up but Friday was very busy. About fifty in total came. The morning was tough. Lots of muddy rock to split and it just didn't want to split evenly. Everything would crumble on me. As you can see in the picture below things were muddy and wet. This Knightia has some pretty nice curves. Another curvaceous fossil. I'm in love. The split fish come in their varieties. Usually I only keep the ones that are completely filled in then put a sealant over them. This one looks alright considering it's a bit patchy. This one will be fun to prepare with my new CP9361 and some very careful handling of the scribe. This is one of my A grade Knightia's from the trip. Great color. The tail can be teased out a bit more. I really like how the vertebrae pop out in a 3D manner. Keep on fossiling!

Didn't pay much attention when I picked this up, just noticed it was interesting. It was a surface find and I guessed I would figure it out later. Any ideas? Found this somewhere south of Wamsutter, WY.

I am headed to Kemmerer with my son to look for fossils. I am aware of the quarries in Kemmerer and want to know if there is anything that we should not miss on our road trip or around the area. We have 5 days to explore. Thank you!

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.

Hi all, I have been searching through posts in the forum about various types of abrasives, and I can't seem to find a comment anywhere where someone breaks down the pros/cons of the different forms of abrasive and their microns. Of course I realize everyone has their own preferences, I am just confused as to the objective benefits of what looks like the three main types of abrasives: dolomite, aluminum oxide, and just plain baking soda (besides the fact that baking soda is more delicate.) The Paasche Air Eraser comes with 240 micron aluminum oxide, but that seems to be a little extreme for fossil preparation, is there an appropriate time and place in which I could use that? What would be the max (or even a general range) micron of either dolomite or aluminum oxide that one would recommend I use for 1. Green River fish, 2. trilobites, 3. ammonites, or 4. just general fossil clean-up?

Are these replica or genuine fossil? They look like the same.

I purchased a fossil collection several years ago that contained a beautifully preserved bird leg with some feathers preserved. It is was collected in the Green River Formation of Southwestern Wyoming. I know very little about fossil birds and am hoping someone on the Forum might be able to narrow the ID down to what family of bird it might be. Any Help will be greatly appreciated.

I bought a small set of paints recently in a medium I had never used before, gouache. It's a lot like watercolor, but more opaque. I've always liked the look of watercolor but I've been more comfortable with acrylics. I thought I'd give the gouache paints a try, and I think I'm going to like them. Here's a Knightia I painted today, with an attached fossil Knightia. At least I think it's a Knightia. It's not preserved terribly well. I'm planning on painting some more knightia, probably a school of them, then a Diplomystus and maybe move on from there. It should be interesting.

Just curious. I keep seeing these hand mined boney crab fossils from the green river formation from Chinese sellers on an auction site. I have also seen them listed as from Madagascar. They don't look like green river fossils. Just wondering if they are real and where they actually come from.

I bought this 18 inch layer in March of 2016 from Blake. @FossilDudeCO Finally felt comfortable enough with the air scribe and micro air abrader to tackle it. looks like I might have found a bit of coprolite in there too. Needs a little bit more final clean up work but I am pretty happy with the way it turned out for my first one.

My wife and I took a wonderful trip to the American Quarry near Kemmerer, Wyoming this September. One of the most unusual finds we made was this teeny tiny Priscacara baby. I do love finding the big fish, but this tiny little guy has a lot of attitude. He was by far the smallest fish we found on the trip. edit - for those of you not familiar with US coins - fish is approx. 15 mm nose to tail.

Are y'all getting tired of GRF fish prep threads yet? Well, too bad here's another one. This Diplomystus is working its way through the rotation on the prep bench. I now have a tall bench with a standard desk height left hand return table for my prep area. The magnifying lens lamp can swivel between the 2. This allows me more flexibility to lean in over a larger piece to prep areas that are hard to reach on the higher bench. Also, this allows me more room to have multiple projects going at the same time. Next step is to build a stand for the blast cabinet on the right hand side of the bench to complete the "U" shape work area. OK, back on topic. Here's how the fishy arrived And here's the fish after 6 hours under the scribe. It has some interesting taphonomy. The Caudal fin is folded over and many of the bones are displaced making for a rather interesting specimen of advanced decay!

My wife and I just got back from a week’s driving tour through Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. We stopped in at American Fossil Quarry outside of Kemmerer, Wyoming, for a few hours to dig for Green River fish. It was a productive day, and we both bagged some nice finds. Seth, the owner of the quarry and a TFF member, wasn’t there that day, but his assistant, Nick, was very helpful in getting us started. I brought a bag full of tools which were mostly unnecessary. As Nick pointed out, all you really need is a brick hammer and a thin chisel, both of which they provide. I noted that since this was the end of the season and the chisels had undoubtedly seen hard use all summer, they had pretty blunt tips. I had brought my own set from Geo-Tools (http://www.geo-tools.com/fossil-rock-chisels/custom-thin-rock-splitting-chisels) and found the 1/16-inch chisel with a single bevel was particularly useful. My wife used the chisel they supplied and was quite successful. The floor of the quarry was covered with a fine powder of shale. We worked for 3 hours before the wind picked up and started blowing the powder around so much we decided to call it a day. Nick loaded our fossils onto a cart and took me over to a line of saws that can be used to get rid of the excess matrix and trim the specimens down to a reasonable size. After a quick tutorial I was happily working on my own trimming down all my specimens. I noted the saw was a Chicago Electric 10”, 2.5 HP tile saw like they sell at Harbor Freight: https://www.harborfreight.com/10-in-25-hp-tilebrick-saw-69275.html. But the blade was definitely much better than you can get at Harbor Freight. It was a 10” blade designed for dry cutting without the need for water. I was very impressed with the saw and wouldn’t hesitate to buy one from HF if I had enough need for it. But I’d look elsewhere for a top-quality blade. About 10 years ago we had visited the Warfield quarry across the road, and they had us digging right up against the rock wall where you could either split loose shale or extract your own shale right from the wall (which was a bit of a chore even at my then-younger age). At American Fossil Quarry, they extract the shale for you with a giant excavator and lay it out in rows of piles for you to access. Probably a lot safer than being right up against a crumbly rock wall. You don’t get the chance to record exact location and orientation of the fossils in-situ, but unless you are a professional paleontologist you won’t care. As Nick said, this is a commercial quarry, not a scientific expedition. The fun is in finding the fossils, of which we found plenty, even in the space of only 3 hours. I’d strongly encourage anyone to stop in at this quarry. The dirt road is reasonable for the family car right up to the descent at the quarry entrance. It’s then a bit of an adventure if you don’t have 4WD (which we fortunately did), but at the bottom there were even large travel trailers that had made it down safely. Be sure to mention that you are a member of The Fossil Forum and they will give you a 10% discount. Here are some photos of a few of our finds. My ID’s on them are tentative, so if anyone has any corrections, please let me know. Full collection after trimming: Mioplosus labracoides: Diplomystus dentatus: Small Diplomystus: Diplomystus needing more prep:

Hey everyone! I recently started planning a trip out west for next summer and was thinking of going to the Green River formation. One of those "keep all you find" digs. Thought it would be cool to see some fossils from there that some of you may have found. Or even some you could have purchased. Thanks!

I’m now prepping what appears to be a Knightia that I received from @RJB. Apparently, this fish came from the diamond layer of the GRF. Here’s what it look ones like to start:

Could anyone PM me somewhere where I could purchase unprepared Green River fish? Thanks in advance

I recently purchased this Green River Knightia plate at an incredibly cheap price. I got it because of what I was pretty sure was some coprolite on the back. I am sure you know more about this stuff than I do- so was I right? Also is that bone infront of the fish? Thanks!

Acquired two new ones today, nothing heart-stopping but just nice to have (and a change from trilobites). * A 6ish cm Knightia eocaena * A plump, mature Platyceras from Sylvania, Ohio (close to golf ball sized).