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To make a long start to a story short, due to work connections of a relative I recently got invited to excavate a dino on a property. I was quite unsure what I was dealing with until I got there. Aside from the fact this was my first real foray into that part of Hell Creek territory there was a lot that wasn't clear; how well preserved was it? Is it better left to left professional hands? Was it within my ability to excavate (how was the rock, how large was it, etc.). Because of all this I ended up making the 4.5 hour drive to Bowman County with the simple expectation of scouting and seeing what I was dealing with. I ended up leaving with a lot more. Before you invest yourself in the story you should know that nothing substantial was collected, at least not yet. But it is interesting nevertheless. Upon arriving I learned this wasn't the first time someone looked at this site. After visiting the site I learned from the landowner that a group of paleontologists was the first to stay in their loft they offer on the property 20 years ago and they began an excavation then. I was told during this excavation their group found a more complete skeleton in South Dakota and abandoned the excavation mid-dig, covered it with a tarp, and left a bunch of excavated material in the landowner's shed. Aside from what I collected during the brief survey of the excavation site this shed material was also graciously given to me. Affixed to the label was this. The blocked name is the name of the landowner. Did they decide everything they had excavated so far was expendable to rush to their new SD dig site or did they actually end up taking anything more substantial? I don't know. It sounded to me like the landowners weren't aware of them taking anything with (although they had permission). The people on the property drove me out to the site in their UTV and were quite curious about everything. I spent a lot of time answering questions which was quite fun. The tarp over the excavation site lay dormant for 20 years and as you can probably guess was quite silted in and rotten. Initially I began uncovering these tarp pieces slowly to try and get an idea of the site and its fragility but it became clear that very little was exposed under the tarp so we ended up pulling up all the rotten pieces and tossing them aside. Occasionally there was a piece of matrix wrapped in plastic that was peaking out from under the soil. There were also 2 ziploc bags full of bone fragments that were left at the site and, by this point, were filled with soil and mud. Still, both under the tarp and around the fragments of bone were abundant, some rather large although still not diagnostic. During that time I completely forgot to take pictures of the site. I remembered on the walk back to the UTV and snapped this quick pic but I will hopefully be back to take some later. It may be worth excavating the area to see if there is anything more substantial. On the return I talked to the landowner and they mentioned fossils were also collected in the low creek bed on the property by the paleontologists so I also need to survey that. The material from the shed was mostly wrapped in aluminum foil and shoved in a bucket. There's quite a lot of chunkosaur here, at least 60 pounds. You can see the original 20 year old ziploc bags I mentioned I collected from the excavation as well. This area was poorly lit so the images aren't great but my lab is filled with WIP Fox Hills stuff at the moment so I spread it all out here. The previous excavators thought it was important enough to wrap this in plastic (although not to take it with them). This was left under the tarp. Tektite? I If any of the chunkosaur pieces have hopes of ID it's probably from this piece. A femoral or humeral head? I plan to post these off in a ID thread later. These stuck out going through the fragments as more scute like. This piece is just pretty.

I lined up a couple more properties over the weekend so I made another trip out to exposures of the Cannonball Formation (Paleocene) and Fox Hills Formation (Upper Cretaceous). I only planned for two properties but the first was so large (an entire section with many outcrops) that I figured this was fine. It was a nice morning and much of the haze from the Canadian wildfires has subsided. Junipers often creeped over sandstone concretions on the cliffs. A slump exposure of Cannonball Formation viewed from the top of another exposure. The top of hills were often capped with hard sandstone. Loosely consolidated and worn sandstone in lower layers had abundant shell fragments but not much else. A couple more complete fragments might be identifiable. Distinctly bedded sandstone. A nice hike even if the fossils weren't good. Another hour long drive and I was at the Fox Hills site. Fossils were loaded here. Some free-weathered (these are compressed Protocardia subquadrata)... ...and lots in concretionary layers. There's quite a bit I brought back to prepare. Species I've noticed just in the outer concretion include indet. fish scales, Mactra warrenana, Piestochilus feldmani, Protocardia subquadrata, Pteria nebrascana, Pteria linguaeformis, Cucullaea shumardi, and Euspira sp., A split Hoploscaphites (~6 cm). I brought back the entire concretion intact. To the left are Mactra warrenana and below is wood. Some concretions were massive. This one was a little under a meter long. And unfortunately contained a worthy specimen. Unable to remove the whole concretion I removed the layers containing the ammonite by chisel. Annoyingly the ammonite went through both the outer concretion layers (already separated in part) and the inner layers so the layers will have to be reconnected during prep. It's about 8 cm long complete. The gem of the day is this ammonite which I originally thought was a Placenticeras. Despite the preservation it is an excellent find. It did require multiple repairs as I found it in multiple pieces. A puzzle and some glue later and I have this. It is difficult for me to imagine based on my experience but there are some reports of massive Sphenodiscus from the Fox Hills as well as Placenticeras being present although I haven't found any scholarly sources to back this up yet. Some sources claim they disappear before the Fox Hills. It seems I'll have to do some research when I get the time. Outer concretionary layer removed (other side is solid sandstone). Some "body" removed (outer shell adhering to other side). Removed body. Continuing up the hill there is another exposure, this time of the Timber Lake Member that represents brackish transition. Cattle trails were littered with Crassostrea subtrigonalis. No other species found.

Continuing from my recent trips to outcrops of the Cannonball Formation I made my way South towards the area of the Cannonball Formation type locality. I stopped at a couple roadcuts in Morton County on the way down but spent most of the day on the Cannonball River in Grant County. A burrowing owl off a country road. I believe this is Escobaria missouriensis among Cannonball sandstone. It isn't one of the species of cacti I frequently see. The only fossil that came from here is Nototeredo globosa bored wood(?). Pictures don't properly show how steep the outcrop at this site is. The only material found here was shell fragments that are fragmentary even by Cannonball standards. Most of the way up. From the top. Another hike in elsewhere and another Cannonball River cutbank. Trace burrows in a sandstone ledge that fell from the outcrop. There wasn't much here either, just some shell fragments. Pretty typical for the Cannonball in my experience.

While doing yard work, this rock caught my eye because it looked like it had fresh blood on it. I cleaned it up a bit, but there are about 5 or 6 holes with dark red dirt coming out of them. Could this be an egg? Thanks.

I was eager to get out before the heatwave coming up so I made the visit to a couple new Cannonball sites the other day as well as property adjacent to where I collected the crabs this spring. I was expecting more good bivalve material from the first sites but I'm pretty happy with the results regardless. Sort of a continuation of this topic. I tried a few cuts before working my way down to the area I found the concretions in before. The material in all was extremely fragmented. I still need to bust that concretion. One of the inconspicuous cuts. More fragments. A worn Ophiomorpha? I did find a worn Carcharias taurus tooth at this site which made it worth the stop. Down in the familiar area I had immediate luck as the first concretion I busted had a shark tooth. It broke the tooth but the break is clean and should made for an easy repair. Here's a crab (Camarocarcinus arnesoni) that was already split. This is the only split concretion I saw that contained a fossil. The white material obscures it a bit but the last one I prepped like this had the normal black color and carapace texture once I abraded away the white. This should clean up pretty nicely. An example of a concretion. Prickly pears, purple prairie coneflower, and prairie roses were all in bloom as well. Concretions show variety in color, texture, and shape but there doesn't appear to be a correlation with any of these characteristics and which ones contain fossils. The ratio of fossils to blanks was higher than last time but still not enough to warrant preparing the concretions directly. Got to split them all first and glue them back together as necessary. These two were blanks. This pretty one was not. Tiny (5 mm) fish vert. Hard to see but the faint outline is probably a crab. Otodus obliquus, a new species for me. A gnarly piece of petrified wood, probably float material from somewhere. Common Nighthawk eggs I believe.

I just returned to the site I mentioned in my previous Hell Creek trip report to give spend the day digging and exploring to see what else was left behind. I also stopped at another property in the morning that I recently obtained permission for. The first site was beautiful and, despite the sparse fossils, was a fun way to start the day. Lower in the layers some very sparse and fragmentary fossil shell material was found but it was really too fragmentary to collect or even get a good photo without bringing macro lenses. The lower portions did transition into coaly matrix of plant materials, mostly bits and stems. Probably the Fort Union Group. Sego Lily (Calochortus nuttallii) starting to bloom. Arriving at the Hell Creek site I made sure to take pictures this time. This was the original "excavation" site. The remains of the old tarp. Looking up at the site. Digging at the excavation site and sieving produced very little so I eventually went surface gleaning the rest of the property and had a bit better luck. Other parts of the property. I hiked long distances but it was beautiful out, 72 F, and a perfect breeze so I barely noticed. A cute little Short-Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma douglassi) was also cooperative in getting its picture taken. All the pricklypear cacti were in bloom. This guy's legs and abdomen were loaded with pollen. I wish I had my camera and macro lens for this.

What is this fossil? It is a hard rock found in the bottom of a creek that happens to be very low around the Bismarck, North Dakota area. It looks like some sort of reptile skin. The size is about 1 1/2" x 3/4".

The weather was nice so I decided to get out to a couple sites that were on my list. The first site is the site where a friendly pocket gopher throw up fossils at an otherwise barren spot. Only one pocket gopher mound had fossils. The nearby ones apparently never made it to the layer of Fox Hills strata, even the ones within a few feet of this one. An unassuming site. The fossiliferous pocket gopher mound. This time the conditions were fine for sieving so I proceeded to sieve this gopher's pile. Lots of shell fragments but also some more complete stuff. I rarely use my sieves in North Dakota because most sites don't have loose fossils like this. A little Pachymelania insculpta in the sieve. A bigger one. This poor guy was hiding out in the mound and got hit by accident as I was scooping soil. He seemed to recover. It didn't take long to sift the whole mound at which point I took the sorted fossils, labeled them, and moved onto a site I went to the last time I was in the area. I never finished surveying the rest of the property so I wanted to come back to make sure there wasn't anything more significant than last time. There was in fact. Large Mactra warrenana were common in the salt and pepper sandstone outcrop I discovered. These ones are about 3 cm across. The iron stained fossils stood out quite a bit. Lower in the horizon were more outcrops of that shale and claystone, becoming progressively darker towards the base. I only saw very small shell fragments in these.

I've collected another Fox Hills shark tooth and I wanted to see if anyone more familiar with Maestrichian shark species has any ideas on what it may be. Attached is a preliminary list of species present in the Fox Hills of North Dakota as reported from Hoganson in 1995. There have been additional species discovered since that are present in a recent publication but I don't currently have access to that paper. I do have experience with some of these from other Cretaceous deposits but I welcome input from anyone with ideas. Pictures of the specimen. It has been difficult to get clear pictures due to the size. The incomplete root also complicates things but it is rare enough to warrant a try at identification. The shape and direction of the blade, lack of cusps (it seems complete enough to make this determination) and general stoutness makes me think something along the lines of Paranomotodon but that's just a guess on current information. Labial surface Lingual surface

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to look for fossils among additional Pierre Shale outcrops in the Sheyenne River Valley. I didn't post anything about that trip as it came up a bit short and read like my last Pierre Shale trip with more partial specimens. Today I went back to the area to look again, and also made it to an outcrop of the Gregory Member. Low water levels made for a great collection from the Gregory. The DeGrey was rather typical. The side of one of the so-called "Indian Mounds" of the DeGrey member and a frog which was hanging out on the mound. This portion of the river is also the DeGrey. The DeGrey is well exposed in many parts of the state but is often poor in fossils. That fantastic looking ravine produced nothing, not even fragments. Glacial till and boulders are often mixed into the worn outcrops. Some things still grow in the worn shale. Prairie Crocus (Anemone patens) coming up from a few weeks ago. Exposures of the Gregory. The mark of the Gregory, tan claystones compared to the mark of the typical DeGrey, iron manganese carbonate concretions. Frogs were everywhere. I counted 19 frogs in a 7 foot line along the bank here. Freshwater mussels are abundant in the Sheyenne and the low water beached several. Many became muskrat and raccoon snacks. This male Fatmucket (Lampsilis siliquoidea) was one that survived the feast. The first fossil from the Gregory, a nice Baculites.

Hey everyone! I know it’s a long shot, but I’m currently in Montana and will be for abt 1 1/2 more days, and was wondering if anyone had any ammonite sites in Montana, South and North Dakota, or Wyoming, I’d be willing to trade a spot, or take whomever it was out to Ernst quarries, or trade fossils for the site, if anyone’s interested in that, please let me know.

Went to attempt some new sites in Emmons County North Dakota yesterday. It was a pretty intensive day (out for 12-13 hours) for only a little bit of fossils but I thought some people might like to see the usual trip report photos and fossils I did find. Extensive clayey shale exposures are always worth photographing. Some horses were curious what I was up to but eventually lost interest. I'm not 100% sure this is Fox Hills (the clayey shale exposures of the Trail City and Timber Lake members look a lot like Pierre Shale when not accompanied by sandstone) but it didn't produce so it doesn't matter. A worn roadcut exposure with various bits of Ophiomorpha sp. Part of the Timber Lake Member most likely. For those not familiar, these trace burrows are incredibly abundant in the Timber Lake Member in North Dakota and become scarce in the Iron Lightning Member (also called the Bullhead and Colgate). Here's some of the burrows in-situ at a different site. Sometimes they form complex connecting tunnels. Speaking of Ophiomorpha, an isolated butte in a crop field produced some of the most detailed specimens of them I've seen. I thought I was long done collecting Ophiomorpha specimens but in this case I made an exception. Pictures don't do the details justice. Petrified wood also occurred in the outcrop. Larger pieces are less common in the Fox Hills than the successive Hell Creek Formation and Paleocene formations. The small butte. To check other exposures on the property I had to traverse the fields. Other exposures of the Fox Hills Formation on the property were numerous but didn't produce anything but more Ophiomorpha (with lower quality than the butte). Bank swallow nests in the softer sandstone outcrops.

Despite the shortest and most mild winter I've experienced in North Dakota (getting out this early is rare) it still feels like it has been an eternity since I got out. Thankfully I finally got a hold of enough landowners to warrant a trip to the Fox Hills Formation and celebrate the spring weather. While most of the later sites I visited were a bust the first site of the morning was excellent and contained fauna not often found in the Fox Hills Formation in North Dakota. 3 new species for me in fact. This site represents a brackish transition area of the top of the Fox Hills Formation. A view from the collecting hills. Note the water bodies are still frozen. Some farmers were burning stubble in the distance. One of the more significant exposures. Compared to the other 2 outcrops on the hills this one was poorly fossiliferous. Anomia micronema and Crassostrea subtrigonalis (glabra) litter the surface of the worn outcrops. The bedrock was basically an oyster bed hash of graywacke sandstone. This oyster laden sandstone isn't unusual but you usually don't find the additional fauna (see below). In-situ Crassostrea in one of the unworn exposures. Some of the nicest specimens. Moving clockwise from upper right is Pachymelania wyomingensis, Pachymelania insculpta, Corbicula cytheriformis, Crassostrea subtrigonalis, and Anomia micronema. Pardon the bad picture and for our international friends the coin is about 1.9 cm. I took this picture for the landowner since he was interested and I included a scale he'd know. I was also too tired to retake it with my metric scales. I plan to take better ones later. Nice sculpture to the Anomia. Most were not so iron colored. There are some additional things in pieces of the sandstone I brought back. I have an idea what this is but want to prep it to see for sure. This is larger, about 5 cm across. On the way back to the main roads I found a farmer in the middle of nowhere with a sense of humor. I also collected a couple smaller concretions of the more typical ammonite Fox Hills concretions from another site. I'm not expecting much based on their size but if there is anything interesting post preparation I'll post those as well.

Another small Hell Creek bone found in North Dakota, this time it appears to be a the end of a limb from what I believe may be a bird, small non-avian theropod or perhaps even pterosaur. It has very thin walls which is what made me think that way and I would appreciate any input from my fellow members. The bone is about 1 cm in length and 6 mm at it's widest point at the bulbous base.

I found this tiny, slender bone at a Hell Creek microsite during my trip to the Dakotas in 2019 with PaleoProspectors. I'm not sure what it came from, but I'm hoping it's theropod, avian or otherwise. It's missing a section of the outer layer of bone and I believe the interior is hollow & filled in with the ironstone common in the formation. The dimensions are 1.7 cm in length and about 3 mm in width. I would appreciate any feedback you may have. In situ shot from the site: The closeup shots did not come out exactly how I wanted them lighting and detail wise. If you would like me to retake them or get different angles I'll happily do so.

Another tiny toe found in a North Dakota Hell Creek microsite, this little digit is 1 cm in length and about 5 mm in width. I know it's difficult to identify isolated digits but I was hoping we could potentially narrow it down to a general ID, turtle, croc, champ or other.

I could use some assistance on this rock found on the shore of Missouri river in north dakota.

Hello Fossil Forum members, this year my family wen t hunting in the Hell Creek Formation and we came back with some interesting finds. We even came back with an Edmontosaurus annectens metacarpal. This bone would have been from the fourth finger ad the first digit of the finger. Along with this very complete metacarpal, we found many more fragmentary bones and lots of petrified wood. Some of the bone fragments show very distinct features like length and one being very porous (suggesting that it might be a raptor bone). This of course is fun news as always to know you have officially hunted for Dinosaur bones, but I need some help. For the next time I visit the Hell Creek Formation, I want to get some tips on how to find fossils from this formation. If you guys and gals could give me some helpful tips on hunting for fossils from this formation out of your experiences or knowledge, I would love that very much. Thank you so much for your time and information and I look forward to your responses. Have a good week and happy hunting my fellow Paleontologists. Best, PaleoZorryn

Paleocene plants in Central North Dakota are among the first fossils I've collected. Despite this I haven't given them the attention they are due lately. The preservation is very nice but due to various reasons they've taken a back seat to other outcrops in the state like the Cretaceous ones and I haven't thought about them for awhile. I am now reorganizing some of my Paleocene collection and a spark was reignited in me. I've decided to post some of the best examples here as a result. Come spring hopefully I can collect in additional Fort Union sites. The terrestrial Paleocene deposits I've collected in all belong to the Fort Union Group, mostly the Sentinel Butte Formation and the Bullion Creek Formation. I see that some sources now list the Fort Union Group as a formation and the Sentinel Butte and Bullion Creek as members but for the purposes of this post I'll treat it as a group. First, petrified wood is a common constituent of the Fort Union Group. Some of the wood is rather spectacular though. Silicified patterns are often striking. This piece is Sentinel Butte Formation.

I have an ambivalent relationship with the Pierre Shale. I try and try to find good sites that produce fossils but the end result is usually a fossil-less site. For a long time I quit trying exposures of Pierre Shale even though it's the closest fossil bearing exposure to where I live. About a year ago I decided to try the Pierre Shale again because it was close and I was too tired to go elsewhere, like the Fox Hills Formation in Central ND. Mostly I found worn Inoceramus fragments but to my surprise I found a nicely preserved caudal vertebrae from a mosasaur among float material. Following that I began to try the Pierre a little more and today, after finally getting landowner permission, I spent the day at a site with extensive exposures. Most of the Pierre Shale exposures in East-central North Dakota are of the DeGrey Member. The most obvious feature of this member is a large amount of iron manganese carbonate concretions. The few fossils I find in the Pierre here are usually in these worn concretions. The first fossils I found didn't come from the Pierre at all but came from glacial erratic limestone. I occasionally find older material like this among the tons of glacial material that blankets most of this part of the state but rarely do I find such well preserved/unworn specimens. Some nice brachiopods to start. I was happy to collect some of these among a split limestone boulder despite the lack of specific age/locality data. Moving towards the actual Pierre Shale deposits there is distinct worn shale with bands of worn concretions. The large tract of land I had permission to collect on was covered in these exposures.

Hi everyone, I haven't posted an ID in a while as I'm at college and don't have ready access to my fossils to take pics. However tonight, through sheer coincidence, I noticed a recognizable fossil online after looking at the new discovery of an albanerpetonid amphibian preserved in amber. After checking if these amphibians had been found in the Hell Creek I see an image come up of a jaw identified as belonging to scapherpeton (a true salamander) and recognized some features similar to a specimen of my own which I had never posted. I found this small jaw section in the Hell Creek fm. of North Dakota and while I don't remember a specific measurement I am confident that is was about 1 cm in length give or take a few mm. Here's the pic of the jaw I saw online, posted by the national museum of natural history on their google arts and culture page. Here's my small jaw:

I was very happy to see that recent publication that finally described the youngest known alvarezsurid Trierarchuncus prairiensis from the Hell Creek Formation. Material is rare but is most commonly overlooked and described as Croc or unknown theropod so knowing what to look for helps. I'm constantly on the lookout for this material and have been for years and have been fortunate to either find it or be able to acquire it over time. I used publications of other Alvarezsauridae like the Asian Mononykus and Canadian Albertonykus to help in the identification of my specimens. The paper is pay-walled but I included it for reference purposes. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195667120302469?via%3Dihub Extremely rare associated material found in SD

I came across these in central North Dakota while looking for Teredo wood I assume they are modern buffalo teeth, but when I took a blowtorch to the root, it didn't have much of a burn smell. some of the small bits of root eventually blackened. This isn't so much an identification problem as a question- but confirmation of buffalo is fine, and if I am wrong, correction to the correct animal is welcome. Question: in the process of "fossilization", as collagen or whatever is replaced by minerals, how can you age a specimen, modern vs 'fossil' vs partially 'fossilized'

Hi everyone, it's been a while since I've posted something to have ID'd so I thought I would take a few pictures of the oddities in my collection and post them on here. I'd like to know people's opinions on this piece of bone I found in the Hell Creek formation of North Dakota which looks like it may have holes in it made by bone boring invertebrates. Here they are!

I found this theropod premaxillary tooth on my last day in North Dakota this past summer and since then I've wondered about what it is and if it had and diagnostic features of an particular theropod group. It's just over a centimeter long and has no serrations.