Search the Community

I cleaned this up, it’s 3/4” long by 1/4” wide. Not sure what it is?

I recently bought some Baltic amber and I was wondering if it is real . Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

A friend of mine asked me to identify this fossil and I'm not sure what it is. She doesn't remember where she found it but the general location is southern Illinois, could've been found max 45 minutes out from Maryville, IL.

Hi Guys! I finally cleaned up the last batch of rocks from my papa and grandma‘s estate. I know from my last post that I’m not supposed to get some of them wet but they were filthy so I had to clean them before bringing them into the house. Any feedback you have is appreciated. if you saw one of my previous posts, you’ll know that my grandparents collected rocks in Arizona, Wisconsin and Illinois. Most of these are probably from Arizona. I think the one piece of orangish petrified wood #3 is very cool. I would love to know if any of the other ones are petrified wood. To me it’s sort of looked like a pork tenderloin when I was cleaning it today! Maybe that’s just because I didn’t stop for lunch. Ha ha. It was so fun to spend time looking at each and every one. I have a critter living in one of them. Some sort of insect. I did my best trying to encourage him to get the heck out today using water and air but I might have to pull out the tweezers tomorrow! Thanks for looking and have a great week…

I stopped by a Mississippian aged road cut in Illinois today while driving on my way home. I found some crinoids, and I believe they are all Phanocrinus formosus from the Golconda Formation. I appreciate any input. I apologize, my camera cannot capture the best images of the smallest specimen.

Hello! My Papa gifted me more rocks from the collection he and my Gramma gathered over the years. Just thought I would share them with my buddies on the fossil forum. As you may (or may not) have seen in my post “Beautiful Mixed Rock/Geode,” he already gave me a magnificent piece earlier this summer. I just washed these new ones up so they are wet in some of the photos. I always thought rocks looked their prettiest that way and it allows you to see more detail but let me know if you do not agree. My grandparents lived in Illinois, Wisconsin, Arizona and Florida. In case that gives context. The things that I am most curious about are -The white piece on top of the rusty colored geode. I broke some of it off thinking it was a spider sack. I had to clean some off those off a couple rocks. -The silver fleck in the oval bumpy rock (mica?). It is hard to get a good picture. -The blue, green and bronze/gold in the one rock But, any info that you would like to share is great! I am a beginner and love help with identifying things. Hope you like the pics! It is a beautiful day in boring Illinois but rocks make it more fun. Hoping it is as beautiful where you are today.

I found this stem or branch of a fossil found it in Rockford il on a dried river, do you have any ideas on what it could be?

Last week I drove to Springfield, Illinois to visit some family I haven't seen in some time. Yesterday I had the whole day to myself, so I decided to venture off and drive 2 hours up to a popular fossiliferous roadcut around Oglesby, Illinois. Here is how it looked parked along the side of the road. I figured the site would be a bit overgrown and treacherous, but conditions weren't bad after getting past the first wall of foliage, besides the combination of heat and humidity. I decided to keep distance away from the weathering wall as much as possible. At certain spots, it looked very dangerous and very unstable. One slip or hit of a hammer could easily collapse a ton of rock. It was pretty easy to collect fossils and stay at a safer distance. There were a lot of nice brachiopods lose from weathering and from where others had been splitting rock. Lots of brachiopods infilled with crystal as well. Most of them where extremely fragile. With some care, you could extract some really nice specimens. A lot of the composita and productida brachiopods were infilled with crystal. I spent about 30 minutes flaking out this nice geodized productid brachiopod. Though most of my time was spent looking through the rubble. There was a ton of rock split up there, making it pretty easy for me to look through it all. Looking around after 15 minutes, I got excited. I thought I had found my first ever conulariid fossil! After a little spit shine and some magnification, I'm pretty confident it is indeed a conulariid fossil! Another 20 minutes passed, and my eye spotted some shiny tooth crown atop a rock. It looked to be some type of tooth. I usually don't like to hit rock with a tooth exposed like this because there is a good chance the tooth could shatter, or the rock could fracture in an unwanted way. The rock was too big and heavy, so I decided to chance it. Here it is under some magnification after trimming the rock. Most of the tooth is still buried in matrix, but I think it is likley this is a Peripristis tooth. Although that is just speculation until it gets cleaned up. This pretty small crusher toothplate was up next, sitting on top a decent sized rock. It looked like someone split it out and had just left it there. Maybe the covering stone just popped off and I got lucky though. My last find had me feeling accomplished. Finding a Peripristis tooth was the goal for this trip, and I did not leave disappointed. I have collected these teeth prior in Northwestern Missouri, but not here in Illinois. It's great to be able to collect one from elsewhere now. Unfortunately, some crown is missing off the tooth, but I am happy with the find. All said and done, this was a fun way to spend the afternoon.

Hello, just went to amazon Creek today. Convinced myself to go out even though it was snowing haha. Well worth the trip though. Got very lucky to find my first concentration of fossils. I believe I got some jelly fish and possibly some Tully monster parts? Let me know what you think! I believe the first 3 could be a Tully monster (beak and body parts). The next 3 I believe are jellyfish. The final 3 I am unsure about if anyone. If anyone has any ideas, let me know! These are all fragments too. I have some unopened ones I am going to soak then freeze. Will update when I get those results.

Hello, new to the hobby. Anyone from the Chicago area? Looking for someone to teach me how to find fossils. Went to Mazon Creek and found a couple things but would be nice to learn more.

Hello, I recently went to Mazon Creek for the first time. I have done some fossil hunting with my dad but really had no idea what we were doing. I found a couple other people searching for fossils and I joined them. Below is what I found. I know one is a Crinoid piece. The other two I am unsure if they are fossils. If anyone can give me some feedback, that would be great. As I said, I am new to the hobby so I was hoping to find others in the Mazon Creek area that would be interested in going on a trip there. If you are interested or have any advice you can give, that would be great.

Any ideas what this print might be? Has three toes and heel imprint. 3 inches wide x 2 inches. Thanks!