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Hi everyone, I am excited to join you all in what I think is an exciting, educational hobby. I am new to the hobby and hoping I can learn from all of you with much more experience than I. I’m 52 at this point and my first experience really in finding anything really was visiting NJ on business and looking to fill my down time with something involving my other passions. I ended finding the fossil beds out there and was instantly hooked.

Hello everyone. I am English living and working in SE Spain for the last 17 years. My Wife and I enjoy walking the mountain paths and the beach. Until recently our interest has been interesting shells, marinelife and minerals. We were fortunate on one of our outings to find a fossil and this has become our number one priority now. As will become patently clear, the current lack of knowledge is hopefully becoming minimised by research in print and internet. Hopefully this forum will help us immensely.

Greetings all! I'm in the beginning stages of planning a road trip across the country hitting up places to fossil hunt and rockhound. I'm looking forward to digging through the posts and coming up with a list a cool places to visit. As I create my plan, I plan to share my adventures as I go. I look forward to reading all that I can, gathering some good info! I started here in New Jersey last year screening for fossils and shark teeth in Monmouth County New Jersey, about a 2 hour drive from home. So far I've collected some nice samples of shark teeth and a ghost shrimp claw embedded in the clay. I'll post some pics when I find my collection... It's around here somewhere.....

Good evening all, I would like to introduce myself. I reside in South Yorkshire (North of England) and have been interested in dinosaurs and fossils since I was a young 'un and it has only been relatively recently (past 5 or so years) been able to actually go on the hunt for fossilised ancient creatures, I remember reading about Saint Hilda of Whitby (a North Yorkshire seaside town for those not from these lands) who, legend has it that she, the 7th-century Saxon abbess of Whitby, rid the area of snakes by turning them into stone, when I was young I was fascinated by this. I have a small collection of fossils comprising of: Belemnites, 'Devil's Toe Nails' (Gryphaea arcuata ), a nice bivalve and a couple of crystalised Ammonites along with a current unknown fossil that I'm not sure about (could be plant maybe?)

Found in Dahlonega, Georgia. Original origin (if different) unknown. Before I realized it was a fossil, I had aggressively scrubbed the stone with a denture brush in hopes of cleaning off the deep dirt stains. It worked, but I'm not sure if it damaged it at all. It doesn't look noticeably damaged, if it is, but I figured I'd bring it up. This rock is *most likely?* limestone & quartz but I'm not terribly confident in that answer. Any help GREATLY appreciated!! The fossil appears to be a mix of star shaped and column shaped indents, with what appear to be shells as well. There may be more (as there are a lot of similar indents that look more like closely packed dots) but I'm not sure. P.S.: If anyone has tips to safely remove the iron stains, let me know! I'd rather preserve the fossil than remove the iron, but I figured I might ask.

Wondering what the smaller impression is that looks like a circle with lines all around it. I am obviously very new to this. Our creek bed and land has fossils on almost any rock you pick up.

Hello and thank you for having me! Ive been haunting here for a bit and decided to join.

Hello Everyone, I am heading to the Potomac River this weekend and was wondering what fossils I may find there and what collection methods are the best. Thank you in advance! Best regards, Nathan

I'm from Corpus Christi TX. My wife and I enjoy beachcombing Padre Island and Port Aransas. We are brand new to fossils. Looking forward to learning.

Hi, new to fossil hunting... and at this point it's just hard to find out what my imagination is or what's real. I found this rock on the beach in Denmark... so...dumb coincidence, or actually a fish imprinted on a rock? just noticed the back looks weird to

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.

Hello everyone, I’m Noah and I’m from Florida. I’ve loved dinosaurs and fossils for the longest time but I’ve never been able to go digging because I live in a decently urban area in central Florida. Hopefully I can go digging sometime and enjoy my existence on this forum!

Ever since I was a little kid, I have loved going to the museum to see the incredible dinosaur bones. I have spent countless hours in the dinosaur exhibit, as well as fossil hunting in the Colorado countryside. I have not been very successful in finding many fossils, but I have found several decently sized pieces of petrified wood. I am mostly here to learn about fossils more and see the amazing fossils others have found. I am excited to be part of this amazing group on the fossil forum!

Hello all! I’m here to learn as much as possible and make some friends! My collection only started in October 2021, but my main fixation is mammals and mammal teeth.

I'm a software engineer living in London. I think ancient artifacts & fossils are super cool but don't have any knowledge on them whatsoever. My goal is to one day own a large fossil slab in my home

Hello! Indulged my hobby a little this weekend (4-7 Mar) and headed to Lyme Regis for some sunny ammonite hunting. Found this while digging on East Beach there… I’m nowhere near experienced enough to determine if it’s even a fossil at all, but it was such an odd shape and I thought I’d ask! About 1 3/8 inch (3.5cm) across and approx 1 inch (2.5cm) thick. Found 5 March 2022 on East Beach, Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK. See photos below for details. Thank you everyone!

Hi there! I have always been enthralled with dinosaurs and fossils. I was an environmental Science major in College and even took Geology 101. My life, however, went in a different direction and that interest took a backseat. Last year I took a vacation in TN and on the way home we stopped at Elijah Mountain Gem mining and took home quite a few gems. Had a blast. Decided to buy a rock tumbler and spent the last year slowly tumbling those gems. A few months ago I realized my supply of tumbling material was coming to an end and so I started doing research not only on where to get more but on how to get them by finding them myself. One thing led to another and realized I was in the heart of fossil hunting land. So not only am I a new rockhound... I am also just getting into fossil hunting. I have already gotten my FL permit and am looking for a guide to get me started. Meanwhile I had an opportunity to look around a recently cleared space where a limestone pit was uncovered. I found a number of cool rocks (I am still trying to identify them). Some of the rocks had shell fossil imprints and boy did that get me excited. After a bit more looking I came across another find that I suspect could be a fossil or at least a fossil cast (Still researching and trying to understand the proper terminology). So I signed up here in order to maybe get some help determining what I may have possibly found and to learn as much as I can about all of this. Thanks for reading. Tad

Hello I'm just here to learn about what I found.

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by the world of prehistory. One of my first books was called 'I can name 100 Dinosaurs', a cardboard picture book with outdated art and simple wording; from the moment I understood what I was looking at, I was obsessed. T-shirts, toys, movies, the reptiles of the Mesozoic were my childhood, as I'm sure many here can identify with. While I was enamored by the animals and the world they came from, I didn't have an interest in fossils until my early teen years due to lack of real exposure to them. I grew up in coastal California, far from the well-known fossil sites of the state. Fossils existed as more of a concept in my mind than a tangible reality, much like the dinosaurs themselves. This changed when I was visiting my Grandparents in Florida, and on a whim the family decided to stop by the famed 'Shark Tooth Beach' along the gulf coast. The experience was absolutely magical, The sifting sand to reveal shark and ray teeth from animals that had died so long ago I could barely comprehend it felt amazing, and I soon held a new appreciation for both how uniquely fascinating fossils are and that anyone had the ability to collect and enjoy them, not just the paleontologists and museum researchers. Fast forward to my high school graduation: I'd been collecting small fossils over the years (mostly aquatic specimens like shark teeth, ammonites, crinoid stems, bryozoans, orthoceras, etc.), but the initial drive to collect had waned, even if my appreciation for the fossils themselves hadn't. After my graduation I went on a celebratory trip my parents had arranged, which included a tour of the Hell Creek formation in North Dakota. I was able to work on an active Triceratops dig site and unearthed Trike rib fragments with my bare hands. Being quite possibly the first living thing to come into contact with this animal since its remains were buried was a spiritual experience, never had I felt more connected to nature and it instilled yet another layer of admiration and respect for what I had once written off as an irrelevant curiosity. While at the base camp of the dig team, I was able to purchase a Nanotyrannus tooth (or juvenile Tyrannosaurus, I'm waiting till the question of Nano's validity to be fully decided before I put a label on it, so at the moment it's Shrödinger's Genus) and it has become easily my most prized possession: feeling the preserved serrations along the tooth's edge never ceases to bring back that feeling of connectedness to the earth and its inhabitants, past and present. Cut to late 2021: Still collecting small fossils occasionally but losing the drive to do so. Then I learn that my grandparents' health is declining, and my parents and I decide we need to move closer to them to help take a more active role in their life and care. January 2022 rolls around. My dad flies from Cali to Florida a month early to begin his new job while my mom and our geriatric dog wrap up affairs in my home state and take the car across the country in a road trip that would last over two weeks in total. The first leg of the journey found us in Arizona, and I wanted to visit the Petrified Forest National Park while we were there. Thankfully it was on our way, so we made plans to detour there. Along the way we saw signs for a rock shop selling petrified wood specimens and we stopped to look. What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer size of the place and the array of not only petrified wood and crystals in more colors or shapes than I can count, but the entire section of the place dedicated to fossils of all shapes and sizes! I was over the moon, not all of the items on offer were museum quality specimens of course, but it was enough to re-ignite the fascination with the prehistoric that had cooled since my childhood. I walked out of that shop with a lovely trilobite (Gerastos Granulosus) specimen and a determination: I wouldn't let the passion die out this time. I was moving to a place I knew from my own experiences had fossils, and I was going to use that to the full. Then I began looking into the Florida fossil scene and found out I was moving within 90 minutes' driving distance to Peace River, a fossil hunting hotspot known for its plentiful ice age specimens! Cut to present: the road trip ended the day of writing this and I'm sitting up thinking of possibilities in my near future. I'm mainly joining this forum out of curiosity and because I like discussion of shared interests but I'd also love to hear any and all fossil hunting advice y'all would be willing to share. I look forward to getting to know the members of the forum, thank you for reading!

Evening (morning) everyone! New member here, so be gentle... i have no previous experience or knowledge of fossils but i was out walking the dog the other day and found this strange looking piece of stone or rock but it appears to be made up of two different materials and almost looks as if it has veins or arteries inside... Just looked a little odd, compared to every other stone. Any suggestions on what it could have been? Or is it just some rock... It was found very close to the River Dove in the Midlands (UK). N.B... It's around 2" in length and perhaps about an inch in diameter but my measurements could be off! Many thanks Chris.

Hello everyone, thought I'd pop my head in and say hello! I'm from the UK and live near Derby. Looks like a good group!

Hello! I am a new member on TFF. I have been fossil hunting for about a year and a half (one of the few good things that the virus has done for me). I live in Jacksonville FL, and go hunting near me, ex. in Gainesville or dredges, and sometimes travel to Venice or Charleston (SC). I am mainly focused on Miocene and Eocene fossils, shark teeth, mammals, and other fossils from that time period. I will find fossil hunting tips very helpful as I am a beginner, and get all my knowledge from TFF and YouTube, though this is working well for most common IDs, more specialized tips, I'm not sure if that is the right wording, would be helpful.

Hello from New Mexico! I have been collecting the odd fossil or two for about two years now, so I'm pretty new to the fossil scene. Thanks for having me! I actually joined back in last October, but forgot to this and then promptly went inactive. Now that I'm becoming more active I remembered to do this. So here's a very belated hello from New Mexico!

Hi. I have been collecting fossils since I was very young. My main interest has always been dinosaurs but I live in Wisconsin where dinosaur fossils are not found. When I was about 4 years old I realized I was finding horn coral and crinoid stems not dinosaur teeth and small bone sections. However, through the web I have been buying and collecting dinosaur fossils for a couple years now and renewing my childhood interest. I have been reading and learning about identifying types of dinosaur fossils and this site has been a great resource for me.

Hello everyone, Bit of a late introduction, but a new amateur fossil collector here checking in from California. I only started collecting last year and so still have a very small collection so far; wish I could fossil hunt myself but that's unfortunately not a realistic option, so I'm exclusively buying from online shops. Recently I've been obsessed with bizarrely coiled (or rather uncoiled) heteromorph ammonites. Structure is function after all, so it's intriguing what evolutionary advantages such various, ridiculously cumbersome shapes would've provided to offset the loss in mobility! For instance, here is an cool little paper on how the U-shaped body chamber of the Ancyloceratina may suggest a stationary "hooked adult" stage of life: (https://academic.oup.com/mollus/article/80/4/354/1021718) Anyways, I have been scouring the internet for something that really strikes my fancy, but haven't found it yet. The huge, bumpy open-coil Didymoceras species are my holy grail, but I generally like any impractically open-coiled heteromorphs. Pleasure to meet you all! I've already received a lot of help from some of you on the ID and "Is it Real" threads, so I look forward to my time on this forum.