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I'm sorry if this is the wrong sub for this, but I wanted to show some of my finds. I went out to go collecting at an exposure I had passed many times while driving to other fossil sites but never visited before. When I went to the road cut back in September and November it wasn't too badly overgrown, but was separated into two parts by trees and talus cover. The southernmost part was mostly sandstone and siltstone from the layers lying above the coal-shale beds that were exposed further north on the road. For the most part the fossils from these layers were poorly preserved plants, though I did find a rare trigonotarbid from closer to the contact between this layer and the coal-shale one. Further north on the road from this part of the cut was the more interesting coal-shale layers, which housed many more floras, amounting to about six different species. These layers were characterized by a diverse array of plant life. Specimens from top to bottom: Hash of assorted fragments from Triphyllopteris lescuriana (?) from the sandstone beds above the coal. For the most part these rocks were not fossiliferous, but they do occasionally have large hash slabs such as these two specimens. Abdomen of the as yet unidentified trigonotarbid, possibly the first one recorded from this formation from the state of Maryland and the first one since the original found in 1930. It was interesting to find the ancient relative of the animals that infested some parts of the exposure (luckily I had a hammer to swipe all the wolf spiders away!) Rhodea vespertina.

Hello, I am a middle school teacher and have been collecting fossils and minerals for a number of years. Most of my collection is primarily Pennsylvanian and Mississippian fossils collected within a few hours of B'ham. I am eager to learn from this group in order to identify and catalog my specimens more accurately and also expand my collecting areas with groups outside central AL. I appreciate your patience in advance for some of the specimens I have questions about since I have not developed a great skill in prepping my finds as yet. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be part of this community.

This may be a long shot, but here are a couple of crinoids I picked up at a roadcut near St. Louis. They aren't in the best condition, but they were a nice surprise. The roadcut exposes a portion of the Valmeyeran series (Mississippian).

Made a trip back to my Oklahoma place this week and started going through a pile of limestone from the Oologah formation which I believe is Mississippian in age. The rocks were gathered near the Oologah lake in northeast Oklahoma. I have found many crinoid pieces over the years but never found any bodies. Are these worn and hidden crinoid traces?

A recent post from joshyoowy reminded me of something I found a few years ago. It is about 20cm (7 3/4 inches) across. Carboniferous (Visean). Looking forward to your input.

Hi all, I was going to wait to post this trip report after I had time to wade through the brachiopod literature and put a name on the brachiopods. But, if I do that, this will be a history report (if some of you are inclined to save me some time and know the identity, please chime in ). This is a trip taken to Sulphur, IN, on March 16, 2017. The fossils come from the Big Clifty Formation (sensu lato) and some specifically from the Indian Springs Shale member of the Big Clifty Formation. The cut exposes Late Mississippian: Early and Middle Chesterian deposits. I forgot to take photos of the exposure, but there are plenty on the web. Here are the fruits of this particular trip: Zaphrentites spinulosa (Cnidaria: Anthozoa: Rugosa) Connularia sp. fragment (Incertae sedis; Cnidaria: Scyphozoa?)

Since I was on spring break and finally had a Saturday off, I decided to drive a few hours south to a couple of the best Mississippian exposures in my area. I've been to these spots in the past and have always had a pretty decent haul. Here are some of my finds from my most recent trip, enjoy! Blastoids (complete with in situ shots) Brachiopods

Is this a gastropod shell? It's from the Pocono Group like most of my other finds.

Could this be petrified wood attached to chert/flint? AAA batteries for scale. Size--3" length 1 1/2 "height 1 3/8" thickness

I found this embedded in limestone at about 1100 feet above sea level on a small mountain near Huntsville AL. I need help identifying it.

This is a fragment of shark tooth (?) I collected yesterday. Hoping someone will recognize the unique texture and be able to associate it with a known taxon. This is from the Big Clifty Formation in Indiana (Mississippian: Chesterian). Ruler increments in photo are 0.5 mm.

I was looking for flint and when I broke this rock I saw this. I have tried to do some research on it without much luck. Found in Cedar County Missouri. According to the Missouri Geological website this county is about 90% Mississippian with a small amount of Ordovician. The protruding piece sticking out is 11/16ths" (1.8cm) in length and 1/2" (1.2cm) in width. The bottom piece is 1 1/4" (3.2cm) in length and 11/16ths" (1.8cm) in width. Thank You for any help that you might give. I do have other pictures. Don in MO

I like to hunt for rocks that might contain flint, and in doing so I find a few strange things. Strange to me anyway. I have already learned a bit and hope to learn more.

I found this recently in an Early Mississippian lag deposit amongst several other fossils, including shark's teeth, bones of unidentified critters, and phosphatized inverts. From my observations, I believe that the site represents an estuarine setting. I don't find any plant material here, but that doesn't mean that terrestrial critters might not show up. I have my own opinions about the piece, but let me know what you think! Early Mississippian Cumberland Plateau Size: approximately 1cm across

I have been staring at this thing for a while and looking at all of my Paleozoic vertebrate books, but I am officially stumped. It has the color and texture of the typical holocephalan/chondricthyan teeth that I find here, but the morphology is just not matching anything I have seen before. It is possible that it could be a part of a trilobite or some other invert, but I am not very well versed on my invertebrates. Further, the invertebrates are very rarely this color here. Bangor Limestone Mississippian (Late Carboniferous) East TN Size of about 0.75cm @JimB88 @Archie

I was looking through some specimens of insect trace fossils I had found in the Pocono Group when I came across this fossil (?). It shows a "limb", with three "toes". I'm kind of doubtful about it, but the possibility is there I guess and it'd be good to get some more info on it. It's not too big, only about four or so inches long. Here's a link to some regional tetrapod footprints, with some partial three toed ones on page 55: https://books.google.com/books?id=GOsoCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=pocono+formation+fish&source=bl&ots=UInPK6R-UN&sig=A8oQRNejkxiigBhDM_KwG3rPAwY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJsKvToOXRAhVp64MKHZV8Aj0Q6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=pocono formation fish&f=false Any info on what it is is helpful, thank you.

I have posted these pics earlier but I thought it might be better to just start a new thread for them. I found this in a section of the Purslane Sandstone, part of the Pocono Group in MD and was wondering if it was an arachnid. Sorry if the pics aren't the best, but I did them on my phone. I'll try to get natural light pics once it gets brighter out. Thanks for any help.

I was out collecting at an exposure of Pocono strata (Purslane member) in MD when I came across this piece. I didn't really know what it is, but it didn't look like any of the typical plants I've found at the site so I started browsing online to see what else was in the formation, but couldn't find anything that came across as being it. Any thoughts what it could be? Insect, plant, shell?

This tooth is by far one of the best Paleozoic crusher shark teeth that I have found. It measures nearly 2 inches across and is in perfect condition. It was found in the Borden Formation of Southeast Kentucky on a slab that have broken off from a currently unknown layer in the formation. It is amazing that other collectors did not see it sitting in plain site on the ground, but that's not my loss! I deliberated for a long time on two things, its ID and whether or not to prep more of it out. After a good bit of literature review and looking at my other specimens, I settled on an ID of Sandalodus sp., which is one of the larger sharks of this time period. This tooth is also unique because it comes from the Early Mississippian, which I do not get to collect very often. The tooth sat in storage for several months until I acquired a new pneumatic scribe for Paleontological use. This tooth is also the only Paleozoic vertebrate material I have ever found in sandstone, which is very odd because the Borden Formation is almost completely composed of limestone and shale. Anyways, here is the final result. It was a very quick prep due to how soft the matrix was. Sandalodus sp. Shark tooth Borden Formation, SE Kentucky Early Mississippian BEFORE PREP AFTER PREP

Can someone help me read this beautifully hand written note to describe these Blastiods please.

My kid and I headed north to see my family and friends in Cincinnati over TG weekend. And as they all have come to expect, I have a habit of slipping away at some point each trip to conduct sorties and surgical strikes on various fossiliferous exposures. This time, I was able to talk my friend Joe into getting up early and coming with me. Joe and I have been through a lot over the years. We've been friends since I let him cheat off my homework in 3rd grade, circa 1978. I stepped in a few times when kids tried to mess with him in grade school. We conspired to torment substitute teachers together. We've served as best man for each other over the years, and I was a pallbearer at his dad's funeral. The decades have a way of binding buddies together through thick and thin. In that spirit, I endeavored to take Joe to a slam dunk site, help him get acclimated to the presentation of fossils, and then turn him loose on the sweetest stretch of the exposure. So at 5 a.m. I kicked his door in and whisked him off to the Mississippian aged Indian Creek Shale of southern Indiana a little west of Louisville. With a bit of a car ride ahead of us, we had fun recounting the various misdeeds of our misspent youth, throwing around horribly inappropriate humor, and somehow, in the end, solving the world's problems. OK, we are there now. Time to grab some tools and start climbing.

I found this at a roadcut I visited a few weeks ago.

We made a couple trips to Beltzville State Park in PA this past week. We had heard about brachiopods on the lake's beach from Robert Beard's Rockhounding Pennsylvania and New Jersey guide. The park is the site of dam and an artificial lake build by the Army Corps of Engineers with a stony bottom. A small, sandy beach sits along part of the lake with rocks get scattered from water action. The rest of the lake shore is red, orange, brown and gray mississippian sedimentary rock. I wasn't expecting much as it is a well-known spot in a state park that permits collecting and even provides ID sheets. Figured it would be pretty well picked-over. But, we went to investigate. You never know until you look, right? The first time out was a short, spur-of-the-moment trip with my husband to poke around while we waited for something we were planning to do later in the day. We walked over to the beach and found our first crinoid in about 5 minutes. Another hour of poking around revealed crinoid stems, brachiopods, bryozoans, corals, and bits of trilobites scattered along the shore for easy pickings. The water was crystal clear as deep as I dared wade in the sundress I'd worn for the planned, cleaner agenda for the day. I picked up a couple lying at my feet in the warm, still water. I decided then and there that it would be great fun to go snorkeling for fossils here. A week later, over Labor Day weekend, we returned with the kids. We walked as far towards the dam as the beach would allow, and discovered the real spot for fossil finds. Probably one pebble in four had something in it. Not all of it was worth taking home, but there was plenty to examine. My first glance down at the pebbles at land's end, I spotted a beautiful brachiopod. I picked it up and tossed it carefully to my daughter, parked a couple feet away and already holding a fistful. She caught it, admired it and tossed it back. I fumbled it, dropped it on the beach and lost it forever. Doh! So, if you see a lovely, round brachiopod on Beltzville's shore, think of me! There was more where that came from though, and we looked for a couple hours. When my daughter had had enough, I donned my swim suit and snorkel mask and went exploring in the area less traveled: under water! I only swam at a depth of arm's length. The boats and jet skis in the center of the lake that day stirred the water so that any deeper it was impossible to see the bottom. At this depth I could see the texture of the muck-coated rocks. The undersides of the rocks were clean, so turning the stones over carefully made for even better viewing. I turned up a pair of trilobites in only a few minutes! Unfortunately, that was about the only thing I found that way worth taking home. But, the fish were fun to watch. I expect that on a quieter day, when when the water is clearer, I may have better luck. All told, we brought home some nice shell impressions, crinoids, colony and solitary corals, bryozoans, and a couple that I did not recognize and were not on the sheet. The adventure will have to continue on the the ID forum. For now, though, here are a few scenes from the week:

I went arrowhead hunting near Lowery City, Missouri South of Clinton, MO in a local stream bed last week and found this marine fossil. It is about the size of my hand and the round organism is about 1 inch in diameter. Is it possible to identify what all or some of these small fossils are? I believe the area is either Pennsylvanian or or Mississippian strata right by the Truman reservoir. Thank you.