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FYI @Ptychodus04 @RJB I have some Herkimer Green River Formation fish I just dug up last month and they look really nice but half of them are covered in the sedimentary limestone. There's a bunch that are halfway covered. The matrix is real sticky and just doesn't want to come off. I tried pulling off chunks with some dental tools but had to quickly stop as that was damaging the fossil. Every time I pull up a chunk it takes the fossil with it. I'm thinking about getting a nice air scribe. I found a nice Chicago Pneumatic CP-9361 but have heard that these scribes can be tough on fossils. All these fish are from the split fish layers and I've heard this layer can be challenging to work with. Should I pickup the CP-9361 or go for another scribe such as an AERO/ARO? I can't seem to find an AERO/ARO anywhere. Paleotools sells a modified ARO but those are about $650 and that's a bit past my budget. What are your thoughts? I was also going to get a decent sized air compressor that goes up to 125 PSI. Thanks everyone. Here's a picture with some of the fish. The bottom right fish are good but the rest need to be prepared out.

Hey guys!! My UPS box of everything I brought back from my pay-to-dig trip in Wyoming came in today!! Here's what I ended up with fully unboxed. I brought home a bunch of half fish to work on my preparing skills before I tackle the complete ones. The last two big pieces at the end measure 24x18 approx and have 6 or 7 fish on them. I'll take more pictures of them tonight as I un(bubble)wrap them.

The Green River Formation is one of the most well-known fossil sites in the world, occupying present-day Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. This Lagerstätte has been noted for its well-preserved fish fossils, as well as numerous invertebrates, plants, and sometimes even reptiles and birds. Green River fossils are Eocene-aged, at 53.5 to 48.5 million years old. Thankfully, not only are Green River fossils attractive, they also remain affordable to the casual collector. Allow me to present my humble collection. Crocodile tooth Borealosuchus sp. Southwest Wyoming Water bird tracks (possibly sandpipers or plovers) Presbyorniformipes feduccii Vernal, Utah Bird feather Aves indet. Southwest Wyoming Crane flies & Mosquitoes Pronophlebia rediviva & Culex sp. Parachute Creek Member; Douglas Pass, Colorado

When I was at the Tucson fossil show I picked up several slabs of unprepared Green River fish from the 18-inch layer. I've been working on this Knightia and have a few questions. I only have hand tools so I have been carefully removing matrix using some pin vises with various needle tools I picked up from PaleoTools. Here's how it looks so far: First question: If you look in the areas of the anal fin and the dorsal fin, there appear to be random swatches of organic material not associated with the body. Perhaps these are regions that "blew up" as the fish was decomposing. Should I be removing these and trying to restore the original outline of the fish or should I leave them alone? For example, here's a closeup of the dorsal area: Next question. It's been difficult to remove all the last bits of matrix with needle tools. The photo below shows the bits of matrix remaining in areas around the backbone. I don't think I can do much more on it with needles. Would it help if I were to invest in something like a Paasche AECR air abrasive tool or should I stop here. I would need a compressor, blast cabinet, and all the paraphernalia if I were to do this, but if it would help I might consider it.

Hi. Good afternoon to everyone! In one lot, the seller is selling these two fossil fish. Please, then I have two questions: 01 - Any makeup or paint here? It's real? 02 - Which one is Knightia eocaena and which one is Knightia alta? Or are the two of a specie? Thanks for all the comments! Fish 01 Fish 02

Splitting some dried limestone this past weekend and out popped the largest Knightia I’ve ever collected. The rock split down the middle but I’ll use some EC-9000 industrial sealant to link the two pieces back together. Should turn out nice. Thinking of framing this one up in a shadow box. Used a dental pick to carefully expose the fins that were buried in sedimentary rock.

I was fortunate to be the winning bidder on a rolling auction lot of two Knightia eocaena, one prepped and one unprepped, generously offered by @FossilDudeCO to benefit this awesome forum. It took me awhile, but I finally finished the prepping of the unprepped fish, and I wanted to share it here. These rolling auctions are nearly always great bargains, and the best part is they all help to keep the lights on here at TFF. Here's a link to the original posting for these Knightia. Here's how it began: And here's the result of my novice efforts (this was my second attempt at prepping a fish from the 18-inch layer): I'm happy with the way it came out and I'm proud to give it a little space on my crowded shelves. Thanks, Blake! I didn't keep track of the time it took, probably about 15 hours, more or less, with my "primitive" tools. I started with a dental pick, but this fish was already so close to the surface I didn't need to remove a whole lot of matrix. Most of the prep was done with a sewing needle held in a mechanical pencil, at first, and then in a pin vise of sorts. Actually it was an X-acto knife handle. I took lots of photos along the way, with the idea that I might turn them into an animation someday, but getting everything to line up properly might be more work than I want to tackle. I greatly enjoyed the whole prep process, and I'm looking forward to another project. I'm sure it's much slower than and air abrasive system, and not quite as "finished", but I do prefer the peace and quiet of the pick and needle. I wouldn't want to tackle a monster fish that way though! Mike

Well I haven't had much time to go fossil hunting since we made an offer on our home. We are moving in on Saturday. I'm so excited. Two weeks ago my wife allowed me to take an excursion for fish fossils in Wyoming with her cousin Luke. Little did the twelve year old boy know what he was getting into. This would be his first fossil hunting experience but he also experienced the following: first off roading experience, first taste of beef jerky, first time to Wyoming, and first time to a Sonic drive through. Being in the middle of Wyoming I diligently followed Google Maps which led us off roading. I have done some crazy stuff in my lifetime (i.e. sky diving) and have been really worried. This was one of those times. The off roading experience started us off on a dirt road with deep tracks from tires with chains for getting through snow. At one point I had to keep my left wheel in the middle of the road and my right wheel was off road with the right side of the vehicle slamming into rocks and sage brush. Thankfully we made it out. The quarry was amazing. Here are a bunch of pictures going back to our trip to my parents cabin in Island Park near Yellowstone and the new home. Heading out for date night at a nearby ski resort in Utah. Here we are at the Sundance ski resort for an outdoor play. My wife insisted we take a selfie. You can tell that I'm not a big fan of selfies. This is Bear World located in Rexburg, Idaho. We stopped here on our way up to Island Park. Bear World is a zoo for wild animals native to North America. Cute little fawn. American Bison. This Black Bear decided he didn't want to move so we had to wait for a few minutes. Big Grizzly Bear waking up after an afternoon nap. This is my brother Spencer holding my daughter Clara. He has a little son and I can tell he really wants a daughter. The Caldera pots of Yellowstone. The sulfuric smell was horrible but the sight was interesting and pleasantly warm. This may look like an inviting hot tub but is dangerously hot. Having our picture taken near the falls. Old Faithful My dad and I went to his secret spot near the cabin for some fishing on Saturday morning. I ended up catching thirty rainbow trout but only kept three. My father caught a bunch but only kept a few. We had enough fish to feed our families for lunch (keep in mind not everybody had trout as there were hamburgers). Clara loves the great outdoors. My mother really enjoyed spending time with her only granddaughter. My four young nephews really adored her as well. I had to share this one. A few weeks ago I came home to see my young daughter smiling up at me. That made up for the long day I had at work. This is where I decided it was time to turn the Subaru back. That hill was rather steep with loose gravel and even with X-mode and Incline mode set I couldn't make it up and the other side of the hill didn't look promising. Almost ran down into this deep crevice. It's a good thing I was going really slow. As you can see there are no roads up here. Luke is being a good sport, but he was a bit nervous about the whole ordeal as was I. Thankfully we made it out. We ended taking another dirt road and coming to this sign. Definitely turning back this time. Bad road! This was the "bad road." Doesn't look to rough but over the bend it could "evolve" into something nasty. Despite the rough start Luke is still looking forward to getting at those fossil fish. Almost there! That sign notes that off roading is illegal. I'll keep that in mind for next time as I was unaware. I notified Luke that he couldn't keep anything over 100k. And we are here! Within the hour discovered this massive Mioplosus that shattered upon extraction. I had no clue it was in the limestone. The stuff is so brittle it just popped right out in pieces. I left it out in the open for the brave preparer who would try his hand at this heart breaker. I keep forgetting to take pictures of fossil extractions on site. Managed to snap this photo while heading out. The car definitely needs a good washing inside and out. The serenity of Wyoming. A heard of Antelope running up the gorge. Here is Luke's amused face. The preservation on this Knightia oceana pair isn't great but what's interesting is that they are inverted against each other. Another pair. The bottom fish is well preserved. Close up. Another K. oceana. This is a K. oceana but looks like a miniature Piranha. Excellent preservation. Another K. oceana. A K. oceana and what I believe is a Diplomystus bottom right that needs some preparation. This will be the location for a new fossil preparation bench. The space looks small on camera but is surprisingly large at 7ft wide by 3 ft deep. Lots of fossil fish. More fish. One of the plates had seven K. oceana but I had to cut that one down (too big). I'm not sure what species the fish is bottom right but it's about the size of a dinner plate. Here is a decent Mipolosus that should prep out well. @Ptychodus04 this is the specimen I told you about. What would you recommend for this fish in terms of exposing it. Any other feedback from TFF members is welcome. The big plate sized fish. K. oceana K. oceana A plate of K. oceana. This is a beautiful Priscacara. @sseth father helped me to extract it and he said that this was one of four found that day. Unfortunately it was already split from the first hammer hit but I do have the other half. @Ptychodus04 recently you worked on a GRF fish that needed to be glued back together. Mind if I send you this project? I'll pay you or add some new features to the website. I'm a bit worried about messing this one up. The spikes look really neat and I do have the complete half that goes with it. Should turn out to be a rather neat looking fossil. This Diplomystus was a trip maker. It's not that large but has fine detail. I applied an air scribe from the rock quarry to the back portion as the tail was covered in limestone sediment. This one is currently on display at my office at work. All of my coworkers are green with envy. Measuring out the work bench. Picked up a large shelf for storing fossils on in the garage. Here is the backyard. The neighborhood is built against a mountain so the backyard is a hill with terraces. I'll plant a garden and trees on the terraces. I can't wait to move in this Saturday. View of Utah Lake from the backyard. Right next to the lake is the city of Lehi. These sunflowers grow well in the desert region of Utah and require very little water. @SailingAlongToo here are some pictures for you. I ordered these fine paintings from the Annapolis Marine Art Gallery in Annapolis. They weren't cheap but should look really nice. This painting is the HMS Surprise the British frigate featured in Master and Commander. This is Beyond the Mark and one of the most famous paintings by Willard Bond. The painting depicts the abstractness of a regatta race. Mr. Bond frequented Maryland to witness these ships racing each other. He is considered to be one of the greatest ship painters of our modern day. This is one of my favorites and depicts a sail boat returning home from a day in the bay. In the background is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge linking the western shore to the eastern shore. At one point in time the bay bridge was the largest man made bridge in the USA. To this day it's one of the older bridges in the country and was built in 1952. I have fond memories of this area from my Calvert Cliff days. I also spent countless weekends in Annapolis. If you ever get a chance to visit the east coast the Chesapeake Bay is a must see. Neat picture of Lone Peak mountain right outside my wife's parents home. It was overcast that day and the clouds sat right on top of the mountain. Close up of the Mioplosus. Another shot of the backyard from the top. I'm in love.

My collection is quite meager compared to everyone else's, and most were bought, but I was excited to show it off anyway. I received two riker cases yesterday (though one was missing two pins, so I haven't put it together yet) to put my shells in from my Walton on the Naze finds. I'll need a deeper case for some of the other shells that aren't displayed. Other than the shells and the two corals on the sides of the knightia fish, the rest have been purchased.

I've been working through a number of Green River fish I caught from the split fish layer (now called the sandwich layer) at the Warfield Fossil Quarry about 10 years ago. They have been stored away and I'm just now cleaning them up for display. Here are two slabs that are the part and counterpart of a Knightia eocaena. I split it out at the quarry, brought both halves home, sawed them into two rectangular slabs, then wrapped them up individually in two sheets of bubble wrap and put them away for all those years. After pulling them out of storage today and running some water over them to wash off the dust, I noticed this strange purplish-blue band running diagonally through the fish. It has very sharply defined edges and runs all the way through both slabs (you can see it on the sides and backs of both slabs). I've never seen anything like this before. Does anyone have any ideas what might have caused it?

On June 3rd and 4th I ditched my regular hunting grounds for the opportunity to meet up with a forum member @Seve78 at one of the Pay to Dig quarries in Kemmerer, Wyoming. Tom chose to spend Saturday at Warfield Quarry and Sunday with me at American Fossil (AKA Fish Dig) which is run by our very own TFF member @sseth Tom was an absolute pleasure to dig with and he filled his suitcase with literally tons of treasures to take home, I would meet up again in a heartbeat! I arrived at 9:30am on Saturday and spent about 4 hours helping to prep the site for Tom on Sunday. I split down some of the larger blocks that had been pulled from the wall to allow them to dry. For those of you that have not been to Kemmerer for fish yet, the rock has to be AS DRY AS POSSIBLE, or else it is just a mushy mess that WILL NOT split! Dry rocks are near impossible to achieve with just 1 day of digging! Upon Tom's arrival at around 8:00am of Sunday we got to work! Here is Tom starting his search through some of the rock that had been pulled! Here is a picture of the area I was working. I brought my long chisels and a couple of short ones for good measure. Along with 3 hammers and nippers for trimming down my finds. Both halves of a nice multi plate presented themselves for me about 3 hours in! Once all the rock had been pulled it was time to trim them up for transport. Trusty old table saw, the fastest way in the west to lose a finger! My haul after just 6 hours of total digging time was pretty impressive. All trimmed up and laid out on the table ready to go home, these finds were all delivered to the Morrison Museum of Natural History in Morrison, CO. I wanted them to have some fish for their collections and left everything as found so they could try their hands at prep! The big fish on the front of the table is a 90% complete Phareodus. This is a relatively small one, they could reach up to about 25 inches in length! I left this one with Patrick to give to Seth, maybe he can make something of it! My find of the day though was also my smallest...a Juvenile Amphiplaga brachyptera... This is the RAREST fish the Pay to Dig quarries will let you keep, and only my second one ever found in 4 years of digging Green River fishies. They do not present in the 18" layer I usually dig, only the split fish layers. I found a full grown adult measuring in at just over 5 inches and now this juvenile to add to my collection. I don't usually post much for FOTM, but this guy is headed that way! Whether he wins or not though, he has made me one happy digger! If anyone else is down for a meet-up shoot me a PM! I will be heading back to Seth's quarry on June 24-25 and always love to meet fellow TFF members! Hope you all enjoyed my trip report, see you soon! -Blake As I was leaving the quarry, we had some furry guests waiting in line for their turn to dig up some fishies!

Made my first trip up to Wyoming to visit the fish quarry this weekend. Everything went well, but the rocks are still a bit wet. We spent most of the time removing junk to get to our good productive layers! The main mission of the trip was not to dig, but to see how the winter had treated us! Below is a picture of the quarry Our digging platform for the split fish is right behind that truck and trailer. We moved the trailer up this year to house our finds and our gear! Of course....being such a gorgeous day and only about 16°C or 17°C we couldn't help but dig up some fish! After just a couple of hours of digging we had a pile of nice fish to bring back home and after trimming them up you can see our spoils! The real catch of the day though took us by surprise! It was a perfectly preserved bug!! Not uncommon in the Green River layers, but one like this has never been seen before! It is headed over to Fossil Butte to be examined by the Curator there and hopefully he has some fun news for us! If you look close you can see one wing spread out, all the legs preserved and even big, long, gorgeous antenna! This is one primo bug! Hope you guys enjoyed my report (I know it is short) but keep your eyes peeled for more Green River Adventures! -Blake

I just couldn't resist purchasing this Knightia, from the Green River Formation in Wyoming from a local craigslist seller. Yes I do troll craigslist a lot looking for all the coolest gadgetry. Well the lady I bought it from said it was gifted to her and that she had no clue what it was and didn't want it. She sold it to me for $10. I plan on taking a trip to the Green River Formation but just in case I don't make it out I decided to get this 7" beauty.

I just had to show this one off! I saved the Notogoneous from a terrible fate of never being prepped! My buddy thought he was missing part of his head after he roughed it out so he set it aside. Notogoneous is my favourite fish so I took a gamble and had it prepped out, to my surprise it was all there with a wide open mouth! Notogoneous: 24 1/8 inches (61.28cm) Diplomystus: 15 inches (38.10cm) Knightia: 7 inches (17.78cm) Cockerellites (Priscacara): 5 3/4 inches (14.60cm) Entire panel measures 63 1/2 inches (156.21cm) wide by 22 inches (55.88cm) tall.

I picked up this treasure in Tucson, because I have always wanted one, and had never been able to afford on till then. Species: Mioplosus and Knightia Location: Green River, Wyoming continued....

Another one from my collection. 49 fish visible with 4 different species. It is 65x48inches.

I am new to this forum, and I was pleasantly surprised with the friendly and immediate, helpful, educated responses I received when I asked for help ID-ing dromaeosur teeth! Thank you Troodon and Runner64 for your help! This seems like an active, educated forum where lovers of prehistoric life can gather to discuss fossils, and the like. So, I would like to show off my fossil collection, and discuss things about the small amount of material I have in my personal collection! Feel free to show me your collections as well, I would love to see them! So without further ado, on to my fossils!

Greetings! I found this the other day. They just don't look right to me. They're awfully dark, and seem to have eyes even. I'm not thinking of buying, just testing my judgement. Real of Fake? Unfortunately this is the only photo I have.