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Not sure what these are. I dredge for gold and pull fossils out all of the time. I kept these because they were interesting but am unsure if they are anything at all. Hopefully I can get some feedback here to get some answers.

Last weekend I finally made my way up to the famous St. Leon road cut. Also known as South Gate Hill in some literature. I made the 2.5 hour drive to Lawrenceburg Indiana after work last Friday and stayed overnight so that I could be up with the sun and on my way Saturday morning. The site itself is another 20-30 minutes from the hotel. By 6am I was out the door and on the road. After a quick gas station stop I found myself at the mile long road cut. Most people come here to hunt in the butter shale of the exposed Liberty Formation for Flexicalymene rollers. I was no exception. Trilobites are not common in my immediate area so they were top on my list of things to find here. The butter shale is easy to spot. A creamy light gray layer exposed at the top of the second tier. I made my way there and following the advice of @Nimravis (Who sadly couldn’t make the trip to hunt with me. Missed you Ralph!) I got down on my hands and knees and put my nose to the ground. Most of the trilobites found here are quite small. The ones that I found were maybe a centimeter. I was lucky enough to come away with 2 complete rollers and 1 that was complete minus a bit of damage to the cephalon. Plus other trilo-bits. Including the usual Isotelus chunks found throughout the Ordovician of the area. A pile of Isotelus fragments. After I adjusted my focus away from trilobites I was able to see that the site had plenty more on offer. Brachiopods are everywhere here. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. Sorry for the lack of scale. The plastic ruler in the below picture fell out of my pocket very early in the day. I never found it. I can provide estimated sizes if requested, and will certainly have scale in the photos of the specimens I took home. This block was about a meter long. I found some nice examples of horn coral here too. Orthoconic nautiloids can be found here as well. Those were all the pictures I took from the field. All the ones worth sharing anyway. I stayed till after lunch, but all the climbing around and lack of food (forgot my packed lunch at the hotel )forced me away. After a bite to eat I also hit up a road cut in Lawrenceburg that I had read about. It was only 5 minutes from the hotel so I decided to check it out. The exposure was impressive in size, but not nearly as fossiliferous as St. Leon. Mainly consisting of Strophomenid brachiopods and some chunky bryozoans. Still I came away with a few finds and was glad that I took the time to look it over. The St. Leon road cut lived up to the hype and was well worth the visit. I definitely will be back. I’ve been short on time this week and haven’t gotten my finds that I brought home cleaned up enough for their photo shoot, but I plan on adding pictures of them as soon as I can as there was much more to see than pictured here. I also had plans to drive over to the AA highway, but I ended up having to head home earlier than expected. Oh well… Maybe that will be my next trip worthy of a report.

Hello everyone! I’m Zach and am excited to have joined Fossil Forum! I do not have a ton of experience in the paleontology realm, though fossil hunting is my favorite hobby. I did go to college for planetary sciences and have some tangentially related knowledge, but I joined this community with the hopes of being able to better identify the lot of invertebrate fossils I find around my area. I’ve lurked on the site many times before and am always impressed by the wealth of knowledge here, so I look forward to learning from you all.

Just checking some IDs on some things I found today. Any help is appreciated! 1. Am I correct in saying this is part of a trilobite? 2. I'm not sure what I'm looking at here. Is that a brachiopod, some crinoids, and coral? Or something else? 3. Is this a crinoid stem? It's more white and not as segmented as the ones I normally find.

Could anyone tell me if these are Nodosaur fossils? I found them on my property in Muncie Indiana. Google lens binged it as Nodosaur and upon searching, I found a very good picture of a 110 million yr old dinosaur fossil of the nodosaur. The count, shape, and placement of the spikes seem to be exactly the same. Although I am not that knowledgeable and very new to this.

Hello everyone! Just yesterday by a river in south central Indiana I found this. It did not look like a normal rock so I decided to keep it. I think it is a bone, but I cannot tell what kind of bone it is or how old it is. Is it a bone and if so, what kind?

Hello! I have found what I believe to be shark tooth (I am unsure if it is) nearby a river in south central Indiana and need help identifying it. This is the first fossil I have ever found so I am pretty new to this. The photos are of the same tooth from different angles.

Last Sunday I took the day to scout some former coal-mined land in western Indiana as well as revisit some sites I hadn’t been to in a few years. The mines at these sites were working the Springfield, Hymera, and Danville coals at various points in the mid-late 20th century. The land has been reclaimed to varying degrees, but I hoped that typical Mazon Creek-like fossil-bearing concretions could still be found, despite almost no information in the literature. Temperatures were a little chilly with the wind blowing as I arrived at the first site. There to greet me was a herd of cattle grazing on the property, including this friendly? individual. I looked at the ground as I walked along the road to the property and quickly saw some promising concretion-shaped rocks. In a very good sign, I also found a faint but distinctive fern that had already split. The finds weren’t frequent, but consistent enough to keep me searching. In addition to the cows, I was completely surprised to find my myself joined by a veritable army of black and yellow flat-backed millipedes that were marching along the ground everywhere I turned. I have never seen anything like it! Here are two of them making their way somewhere. Out in the pasture I came across this sizable cable, which I can only imagine is a remnant of the former mining activity. I ended up with about a gallon of concretions and I’m excited to see what they may hide within. I did find one additional already split fern as well. I then made a short drive to the second site I had in mind. This one also presented me with immediate encouragement, with this tiny Neuropteris pinnule showing up only a few feet from where I parked my car. Walking up and down a dirt/gravel road under construction, I found many potential concretions, including this faint Annularia and an interesting one with a productid brachiopod poking out. I collected a nice little pile of concretions from this site and made my way to the final location, where I had collected previously a few years back. Here I found at least a gallon of nice-shaped concretions, and also came across an already-split Macroneuropteris, my first mostly-complete one from here. It was a beautiful day to be outside and as a bonus I now have many concretions to start freeze-thawing- hopefully these promising shapes will pay off and I will have some new sites to start visiting regularly.

I've had these fossils for years now, but I never could figure out what they exactly were. The first image is of what looks like a fern and the second I'm not sure of (both found on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Illinois). The 4 following pictures are of 2 fossils found on the Ohio River near Louisville, Kentucky on the Indiana side of the river. One looks very clam like, while the other looks more like what I am assuming is a crinoid? I can make out a small stem and small circular patterns on the opposing end. The last 2 pictures I am the most unsure of. It looks similar to the jellyfish nodule fossils of Mazon creek. I found it in Northern Illinois in Cook County.

I recently acquired this little lot of Ordovician fossils but the info I received was somewhat lacking and mixed up. I hate to ask this because I feel like I should have gotten all the info to begin with, and having not gotten it, I figured I would have no trouble piecing it together. I think I have gotten past the spelling mistakes and such but I am stuck at this point.... Could anyone check to see if the info I have on these is correct, and maybe narrow down the locations, and tell me which subspecies of Vinlandostrophia is which? I wouldn't be surprised if the original collector is a member here and might recognize the fossils and the cat #s... The info as I have it is as follows: 1. Snail: Cyclonema sp. (what species? is it known?) Richmondian, Liberty Fm SW Ohio (what location?) 2. Coral (encrusting a brachiopod): Protaraea sp. (what species? I'll try for closer shots if needed but I am lacking my good camera + macro lens) Richmondian (uppermost), Whitewater Fm. SE Indiana (what location?) 3. Coral, Grewingkia sp. (canadensis?) Richmondian, Whitewater Fm. SE Indiana (same location as 2, I assume) 4. Orthocone, Treptoceras sp. Cincinnatian: Edenian, Kope Fm. SW Ohio (what location?) 5. Brach, Hebertella occidentalis Cincinnatian: Maysvillian Mt. Auburn Fm (member of Grant Lake Fm?) N. Kentucky (what location?) 6 and 7 are Vinlandostrophia ponderosa, one is supposedly subspecies ponderosa and the other auburnensis but not sure which is which. The info I received had Bellevue as the formation for the auburnensis but I gather that subspecies only occurs in the Mt Auburn mbr, no? (Location, N. Kentucky) The V. ponderosa ponderosa is said to be from the Corryville Mbr of Grant Lake Fm, N. Kentucky. Here are the Vinlandostrophias from multiple angles:

I recently found a fossil in my backyard and I’m not sure what it could be. I live in a place where the bedrock dates back to the Devonian. Hopefully this will be the only fossil id that I’ll ever do. Front Back Left Right Top Bottom If you notice in the front, top, and right images, there is a brachiopod mold, which means the fossil was either from the shoreline or from underwater. I also think that, at this point, the fossil comes from the lower Devonian.

This was found on one of my recent hikes in a creek bed in south-central Indiana (Monroe County). Geodes are very common finds as well as crinoid columnals and horn coral but this is the first find of this type. So I would think it is some type of geodized fossil but would like the experts' opinions. The first 3 photos (taken in natural sunlight) are "side" views and the 4th shows the "bottom". What do you guys think? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Hello, I found this fossil this weekend on the bank of the Wabash River. Anyone have any ideas what it is? It was about the size of a dinner plate. Thank you.

I found this rock that appears to have hair through it. Not really sure.

Found in the basement of an abandoned home in South Bend, Indiana, surrounded by farm land. What could this be? (Photo taken ~10 years ago, apologizes for the less-than-great quality)

In the little bits of matrix I have from the Waldron Shale of the Illinois Basin of SW Indiana, I have recently found this specimen. I'm fairly sure it's a crinoid, may even be two or three in this piece, a sort of mini mortality plate. Anyone have any idea which genus of crinoid it could be please? A second calyx to the upper right of the first, perhaps? This looks like another calyx, located just under the first but aligned in the same direction :

I love this specimen. I though it might be Tentaculites at first, but I can find little reference to them in the Waldron Shale other than really old mentions of T. inornatus and T. niagarensis from the Rochester Shale of New York which is of about the same age and has many species that also occur in the Waldron. However, it may actually be a really weird bit of echinoderm stalk. It's very tiny and I'm not sure if it tapers or not as the matrix covers part of it and is stubbornly refusing to come off. It seems to be solid rather than hollow. Or maybe not. The shell may have come off a part of this to reveal calcite infilling of the interior? Any ideas, anyone?

A few years ago I picked up an old paleontological publication from a University of Chicago used book sale and one of the sites described looked interesting. I finally got around to visiting the site last week, a good 5+ hour drive. It was completely overgrown so had to hack my way to the exposure. Middle Mississippian rocks. After about three hours of careful work I came across some Griffithides skeletal elements buried in foraminifera matrix. I also found this nice calcite crystal that fluoresces pink under UV. The white crystals at the base phosphoresce for about 15 seconds. Found nearby was this turtle carapace. I'm not sure ,but I think it could be an Eastern box turtle shell.

I have found quite a lot of curved, calcite plates in my samples. Some are loose and others in the matrix from my Waldron Shale, S.W. Indiana samples. They are often quite plain and I was thinking athyrid, but the athyrids in the Waldron Shale seem to have rather thin shells and these are quite thick and chunky. I still think athyrid is most likely. Other, quite similar bits seem to have tubercles or spine bases on them. Trilobits? Echinoderm? Another lumpy one : Or be shaped like an echinoderm plate? The reverse : Any help greatly appreciated as always. Thank you looking! @Peat Burns Someone mentioned that you know a bit about the Waldron? Any input, please, Tony, old chap? Or the brachiopods from this formation, I'm drowning in the dark here.

Spent the day at the famous old cut in Sulphur, Indiana yesterday, and while I didn’t come away with a Mississippian shark tooth, I’m wondering if other parts of these animals preserved? This piece is shiny black like coal, about an inch long, is definitely fossilized, and was found in the Big Clifty formation. Anyone here an expert on Carboniferous sharks or has found anything similar?

Another mystery from the Waldron Shale of the Illinois Basin in Indiana. Any help or suggestions most gratefully received. The object appears to be hollow and sort of tubular. Scale is in mm. so it's pretty small.. Thank you.

Today a spent a little time collecting at a favorite spot in the Lawrenceburg, Indiana area, tomorrow I might hit the Lawrenceburg roadcut or AA Highway in Kentucky. Here are some pics of the area and the fossils that can be found, I only kept a select few. This location has a ton of bryozoan, as you an see from the pics below. CONTINUED ON NEXT POST-

I collected this Strophomena planumbona brachiopod recently in the Liberty Formation (Late Ordovician) near St. Leon, Indiana. What caught my eye are the "bumps" near the muscle scar. I've collected and seen a lot of Strophomena brachiopods, but can't recall having ever seen these before. What exactly are they? @Tidgy's Dad