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Today, I along with about 25 other ESCONI (Earth Science Club of Northern Illinois) drove to a Danville Shale Pile that is about 4 hours from Chicago. I drove down last night and grabbed a hotel. I should do a separate post on that, but it might be to scary for our members. The site, which is on Private Property, is Pennsylvanian in age and the fossils are about 1 1/2 million years younger than the Pennsylvanian fossils found at Mazon Creek. The fossils are from the Carbondale Formation- Herrin ( No. 6 ) coal, which contains a mixture of “Red Dog” Shale as well as gray and black shales. Also found at this locations are concretions, similar to Mazon Creek. The day was beautiful, around 80 degrees F and the wind was blowing at about 13 mph. We collected from 10 am - 3 pm and then everyone brought up some of their finds to show and get ids. Information is being put together on this site to track the different species of fossils that are found. This post will be picture heavy and I will start out with a lot of pictures of the site and participants. Though fossils are everyone’s main focus, I do like to take the readers on a photo tour of the sites I visit so you can enjoy the area from afar. The cars lined up, waiting for the site to be unlocked. Getting ready to collect. @stats getting his boots on. Listening to pre-collect info on the site and safety precautions. @stats and a friend, Jeremy. @connorp in the Red shirt. @deutscheben @deutscheben and @bigred97 Yours truly on the left, then @connorp @bigred97 @deutscheben Jeremy and @stats. Here is a new member to the Forum, Carolyn @CrustaceousBaki doing her thing. She found a beautiful example of a Trigonocarpus seed, the first found at this site. Continued on next post.

Every time I begin a new trip report here on the forum I feel like I need to apologize for how long it's been since my last one. Because although I haven't written anything up since October, I've actually been on more fossil hunting trips in the last few months than in the entirety of last year. This is mostly the result of finally getting a car again back in August after spending the back half of 2021 and almost all of 2022 without one. In fact, I've made so many trips I haven't actually given myself enough time to write up a report about the last one I've undertaken before I'm back on the road and off on the next. So hopefully this report will be just the first of the five I need to eventually type up. With that out of the way, let's talk fossils! Specifically Pennsylvanian ones - the second half of the Carboniferous for non-Americans. Last fall I was finally taking my first paleontology course as part of my geology undergraduate degree. It was invertebrate rather than vertebrate paleontology, where most of my interest lies, but it was a paleontology course nonetheless so I had nothing to complain about. I was incredibly excited to take the course, and even more excited when I saw that there was a field trip planned for the middle of October to Mineral Wells, an incredibly popular fossil locality west of Forth Worth that I had only had the chance to visit once before. As a member of the Dallas Paleontological Society like myself, my professor decided to plan for us to make a brief stop at the DPS-hosted Fossil Mania convention in Glen Rose on our way to Mineral Wells further to the north. It was great getting to catch up with different members and seeing all the incredible fossils on display - especially those that were self-collected elsewhere in Texas. The two that really caught my eye that I just had to take pictures of were two riker mounts of Xiphactinus fossils. I'm obviously a little biased towards this giant Cretaceous fish species as I'm still eagerly awaiting the eventual excavation of one that I found with @Jared C last August. Seeing these displays definitely got me excited for what we might end up digging out! Bonus: To the left of the framed Xiphactinus material is the largest plesiosaur vertebra I've ever seen found from the North Sulphur River. While at Fossil Mania I also got to meet another member of the Forum in person: @JamieLynn! I hadn't realized she was a member of the DPS as well, so I was pleasantly surprised to finally meet the woman behind the incredibly well-done identification guides to Texas fossils that I've seen posted here on the Forum before and that she was selling laminated versions of during the convention. It was nice meeting you Jamie! After leaving Fossil Mania it took us about another hour to get to Mineral Wells and the muddy borrow pit that serves as the fossil park. The last time I had visited was two years earlier and I had always intended to go back - but instead I had been tempted by the possibility of mosasaur bones at the North Sulphur River, which I've visited more times than I can count. It had just rained in Mineral Wells the day before and the sky was overcast and threatening to rain even more when my class arrived. Fortunately I had brought my creekstomping boots and was well-equipped to trudge through the thick mud that covered the pit. I can't say the same thing for my classmates, however - I saw a lot of shoes go from white to dark brown within the first couple minutes. The upside of the bad weather though was that we had the whole park to ourselves, and I had the feeling that the rain had probably washed out some good stuff. The last time I had visited the pit was full of other fossil hunters and was bone dry and had been for weeks, explaining why it had been so thoroughly picked over. This time I hoped I might finally find one of my bucket list fossils: my first trilobite. I knew it was possible to find trilobites here, both from what I've heard other people on the forum say before and from the giant sign that the DPS erected near the entrance to the pit, showing some of the fossils that had been found in the park before. Although I love my prehistoric vertebrates, trilobites have always been at the top of my list of prehistoric animals that I'd like to find, so I was excited to get the chance to look for them again. Ready to look for the elusive trilobites, I half-skidded my way down the slick slope to the bottom of the pit. The ever-present crinoid columnals that the park is most well-known for covered every inch of the ground. It was impossible to step anywhere without putting my foot down on at least a small handful of them. Having collected far too many of the little round discs on my previous visit I mostly elected to ignore the crinoids unless I saw a large section of them joined together or a rare calyx fragment. Finding a complete calyx with all the arms at the head of the crinoid still attached has long been up there with a full trilobite as one of my bucket list finds. The first thing that I noticed once in the pit was how much larger the average fossil was compared to the last time I had visited. I chalk that up to the crowds of other fossil hunters not yet having a chance to come out and find them. Huge (by brachiopod standards at least) spiriferids were dotted all over the place. I took pictures of some that had already been broken before I managed to find one that was complete enough to save. I was able to find a couple of six inch long crinoid columns as well, but unfortunately didn't get any pictures of them. Either way, my attention was quickly drawn to a section of the pit where most of my classmates were gathered up and looking at something held by our class TA. I hurried over and was greeted by the sight of my first Texas trilobite. It was about half the size of the fingernail on my little finger and looked at first like a small white pebble, but the ridged lines that made up the trilobite's body gave it away. For something so small and unassuming it definitely lived up to the hype, and once I had overcome my jealousy I began scouring the mud with renewed excitement. Before I had gotten more than a couple of steps away, I heard a shout behind me. Our TA had somehow managed to find another trilobite in less than a minute. Even more incredible, this one was larger and fully splayed out unlike the first which was rolled up on itself. Apparently enrolled trilobites are much more common discoveries as when they were alive they would roll up on themselves when threatened, which was often the case when they were buried alive by mudflows on the seafloor. It's also possible that their bodies just naturally curled up after death like some modern insects, but I'm a lot less certain about that. Shortly after our TA found his second trilobite it was time to leave. Having stopped at Fossil Mania on the way meant that our time spent in Mineral Wells had to be cut down to only an hour. Annoyed that I didn't have a trilobite to show for my efforts, I began walking back up the incline out of the pit to where our vans were parked. But on the way something caught my eye. It was an incredibly thin, ridged fragment of "something." I picked it up and carried it in the palm of my hand back to the parking lot. It wasn't until I had sat down in the car that I got a better look at it. I couldn't be completely sure at the time, but it definitely looked like part of a trilobite. Specifically a trilo-butt! It was only a fragment, but it was enough to re-energize me. I decided that the following weekend I'd have to make my own solo return trip to spend more time in the park. That next Saturday I woke up bright and early and loaded up my equipment with coffee in hand. I made a stop in West on the way up, which if anyone is familiar with central Texas they will know as one of the best places in the state to get fresh kolaches. Taking my breakfast to-go I drove the remaining two hours back up to Mineral Wells. Once again the park was deserted and I was the first person there that morning. As far as I could tell the majority of the mud in the pit was undisturbed except for where my class had walked through it so I had my hopes up high that a more complete trilobite might be in the stars for me that day. And wouldn't you know it, within the first five minutes I had found what I had come for. Not just one trilobite, but several! The enrolled one furthest away from my fingers was what caught my eye, but there was also another fragment of a pygidium from a larger individual directly behind it (which can be seen slightly above and to the left of the enrolled trilobite). And not only that, but when I got home I spotted a third enrolled trilobite encased in the portion of the matrix obscured by my fingers in the photo above, although significantly smaller than the one I first saw. I believe the majority of trilobites at Mineral Wells are a species of Ditomopyge, with some of the larger and rarer ones being Ameura - I could be totally wrong though! Someone that knows the Texas Pennsylvanian better than I do feel free to correct me. After taking a couple moments to soak in the satisfaction of finding what I had come for so quickly, I turned my eyes back to the ground and continued my search. It didn't take long before I spotted yet another trilobite. And then another: None of the trilobites I found had the cephalon, or head, preserved. At the time I couldn't have cared less, but finding a trilobite from the park with the cepalon and its compound eyes still preserved has become my next goal. In my frenzy to find trilobites I had let my eyes become unfocused in terms of anything else. Taking a break from the little bugs I looked back over the patches of ground I had already covered to see if I could spot anything else. Not too far from where I found the first trilobites I saw one of the tell-tale button-like plates from an archaeocidarid urchin. As well as a nice little gastropod (probably Pseudozyglopleura - a first for me!). The morning wrapped up with a small fragment of a crinoid calyx. ....and one more trilobite for the road! Of course, already being in the area I couldn't resist the opportunity to visit another famous Texas Pennsylvanian site. But I'll save that for another report.... - Graham

I've been going through again more of the fossils I found with @Tales From the Shale on February 18, 2023 at a Pennsylvanian age, around 300 Million Years ago, rock formation in Oglesby Illinois. Their mostly small but I'm a bit curious on their species identities. I hope these specimens could be identified.

I found this in the Finis Shale member of the Graham Formation, Late Pennsylvanian, near Jacksboro Texas. Almost everything from there is marine material. They were found in screened, washed matrix laying right beside each other, even after all the handling they went through! They may well be from an extant critter so I might need to ask the opinion of a vertebrate biologist about the possibilities. They may not even be teeth, but it sure looks like teeth. The scale is millimeters.

One of my Pennsylvanian crinoid stem hash plates had a couple of pieces I didn't recognize. I think the first may be an echinoid spine, the second, diamond shaped one may be a calyx piece (it would be the first one I've found). I think the last two are bryozoan. All the fossils are approximately 1 cm in greatest dimension (hard to get a ruler in the picture when that small).

Found in Oglesby, IL. Reminds me of a whelk shell.

Found this critter in what I believe to be the Brush Creek Limestone. It is Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian), Glenshaw Formation, and looks like a nautilus to me, so I'd guess Solenochilus. Thanks for the help.

This is perfectly circular in cross section. I am fairly sure this is a Tentaculitoid, but I've never really identified one before. These are somewhat rare where I fossil hunt. I've seen a few bits and pieces stuffed inside of gastropod shells. This one was fairly long, with at least another 1 cm of material broken off when I cut it out of the parent rock. It is mostly white in color, but that is more shell preservation at this site rather than an important attribute. Most of the Tentaculitoids in books I've seen have ribbed ornament, whereas this has lengthwise ribs. CG-0616—Unknown Scale bar = 5 mm.

Hello, I'm considering purchasing some unopened Mazon creek nodules to open for fun, since I'm unable to hunt fossils myself. I'm inexperienced with the material so I wanted to ask if there is a rule of thumb for judging if a nodule is going to be good or potentially contain some rare stuff? Here is an example batch I'm considering. The nodules range from 4-8 inches. My gut tells me the very long thin ones are most likely the common plants like Pecopteris, and that I should try to get more of the round/oval ones?

I found this cephalopod at the Lost Creek spillway site neat Jacksboro Texas. It's from the Finis Shale, Graham Formation, Upper Pennsylvanian. The largest dimension is 16 mm. It seems to be a replacement fossil so no sutures are showing and I don't know of any similar goniatites so that suggests a coiling nautiloid. The only thing I know of with a trapezoidal whorl cross-section like this is a Titanooceras and T. ponderosum has been found there but of course they are huge so it would have to be close to the protoconch. There is an off-center ridge going along the venter and the shell thickens greatly at the ventrolateral margins. I can check for any other features that might help with an ID. edit: It occurred to me that this may not be a cephalopod at all but a gastropod, Amphiscapha subrugosa but I haven't seen one with the ventral ridge. Ventral view Dorsal View

Been meaning to post these photos a while back but got caught up with preparing for Spring Break. Here's some more fossils myself, @Tales From the Shale, and another friend found a few weeks ago at a Pennsylvanian age, around 300 Million Years ago, rock formation in Oglesby Illinois. I hope these specimens could be Identified properly. I have no idea what this specimen could be? Some brachiopod and possible Chomodus sp. bits I would like a proper ID for. Possible brachiopod? Possible brachiopod or shell crushing chondrichthyan tooth? I don't know what this is (maybe a part of a Ctenacanthiform tooth or part of a shell crushing chondrichthyan tooth)? Brachiopod specimen I would like a proper ID of.

This fossil comes from east Pittsburgh. I believe the formation is the Casselman, Conemaugh Group, Pennsylvanian. It looks like a worm to me, but what do you think? Thanks.

Found these fossils on a hike today. I think this is a temnyspondyl head? And I'm not sure about the one that looks like a spine, seems pretty large compared to the head. These are on land that was recently acquired by the state less than a year ago to protect the wilderness. These are probably fossils right? I was thinking of reporting them to the Arkansas Natural History Commision who acquired the land last year for the purpose of protecting endangered trees.

Howdy folks. Been a while since I’ve posted. I went through some significant personal losses and haven’t been on TFF in much longer than I’d have liked. After over a year, I’ve finally gotten out to hunt, this time in an area I’d never been to. (Also, if you’re in the Jacksboro area, my water bottle unfortunately fell out of my backpack, and I would really like to get it back since it’s been on a lot of trips with me. I’d pay someone to go get it if they’re nearby!) The weather was pretty nasty, raining and thundering a good amount of the time I was out hunting. But with new erosion, there was a lot of good stuff to be found. I will be updating this post with new photographs as I get things clean, everything is pretty muddy. IDs and information is welcomed, I am not familiar with Pennsylvanian material. A nice little Gastropod was the first thing to greet me. It was quickly followed by a straight nautiloid, which I found being one of my favorite things to pick up. Lovely bit of Goniatite. Probably my favorite thing to find here. Fresh whitetail deer tracks, probably only a couple hours old from earlier in the morning, right through the exposure. Held my breath for a moment, hoping this might be more whole, while it was, the condition is pretty poor. Still a nice find. The plains were standing in water about 3-5 inches deep across the entire area. In about a week, it will be an absolute nightmare! Tens of thousands of mosquito larvae.

Wow... I had a SUPERB run around Texas for the last 2 weeks. The inaugural Permian Fest in Seymour, which was an absolute blast, started us off. Thanks Chris Flis @dinodigger and the other Whiteside folks for EVERYTHING! Then some more Permian in TX & OK. Then various archives and site pilgrimages relating to RT Bird, about whom I am writing a biography. And sprinkled in there, a bunch of wonderful Pennsylvanian and Cretaceous collecting. Thanks to Tully Hair @thair and admin John Jackson @JohnJ for their participation in these adventures. What an amazing trip! 3 xenacanth teeth and a fragment of Eryops jaw from the Permian of OK Jonas Studio T. rex from the 1964 World's Fair at Dinosaur Valley State Park, TX Elongate theropod track with reflection of fossil hunter Edlin Pitts at Dinosaur Valley State Park, TX Complete Cretaceous Phymosoma peeking out of road cut and an ammonite my wife found near Lampasas, TX Pennsylvanian Petalodus tooth from near Grosvenor, TX in the wild and in the hand Complete Cretaceous ?Tetragramma that my wife found near Lometa, TX My wife and John canoeing in central TX hunting for Cretaceous goodies A surprise Pedernales Point (thanks for the ID @JohnJ!) from a gravel bar in central TX RT Bird's "swimming" sauropod trackway at Mayan Ranch, Bandera, TX 2 shots of the Davenport Ranch dinosaur tracks with Davenport descendants

Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting out for one of the nicest opening days of the fossil hunting season at Mazonia-Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area that I’ve experienced. The sun was shining, the ground was relatively dry and temps were in the 40s-50s. And I only encountered 1 tick! I ran into a few other collectors over the course of the day, including @connorp. The park was mostly quiet as usual, with the sounds of birds and passing cars nearby, as well as the distant rumble of trains and planes. My hunting area for this trip was south of Monster Lake- after getting nearly skunked when it came to interesting fossils the last two years I wanted to go back to a site that had given me more success in the past. It’s about a one mile hike to get down to the collecting area, although I was able to pick up a few concretions on the way there. I’ve been using an 8 inch wide plastic rake the last few trips to clear leaves and litter from the ground and I have found it really effective. It’s a full length rake like this one: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ames-60-in-handle-Collector-8-in-Poly-Shrub-Rake-2915900/204476248 so maneuvering it in the underbrush can be annoying sometimes, but since I’m already trying to fit a 6’3” frame through there it doesn’t make it notably more difficult to get around. Here are a couple concretions in an area where I didn’t clear things up: I didn’t find too many already split concretions- a few dirty plants I’ll share once I’ve had a chance to clean them up and some mystery things that may or may not prove to be anything (and one exciting find I will detail below). As usual, there were also plenty of split Essexella blobs to be found, but I didn’t bring any of those home. Towards the end of the day, I found myself at the base of a small hill that was veritably covered in both split and unsplit concretions. At first I thought it might have been a dump pile from a collector back in the day, but the number of unopened smaller concretions made me question that, as well as the next find I made- a very partial Tullimonstrum gregarium! It’s a wee one, but only the second example of our state fossil that I’ve found. Here is a wider shot of the hill where I found it: By this time I was starting to get pretty sore, so I decided to head back. I ended up with around 2 gallons of concretions, a pretty average day at Pit 11 for me. Here is my bucket at the end of the day: I’ve got about 10 gallons of other concretions in the queue ahead of these, so it may be a while before I start freezing and thawing them, but I will work on getting them cleaned up and ready to go in the meantime. As @Mark Kmiecik famously said about hunting Pit 11, I left “bruised and abused and grinning from ear to ear”. It’s a tough experience, but you can count on me keeping at it as long as I can. Anybody else planning to make it out to the park this week?

I have found a lot of shark or other types of fish cartilage and bone from this site but this looks like soft tissue. The preserved part has several layers with 1 side of the layer being mostly smooth and the other having the textured surface. The concretion is about 4cm long. Any information or other possibilities would be very helpful.

A few days ago I went on a fossil hunt with @Tales From the Shale and another friend to a rock formation of Pennsylvanian age, around 300 Million Years old, in Oglesby, Illinois. We also went to a second site in the Mazon Creek area in Braceville, Illinois. Today I decided to put some of the specimens I found under a dissecting scope to see them better and potentially get a proper ID for them. Here is a little Crinoid specimen (I think it may be the top part) Here is a nodule I found at the Mazon Creek site. @Tales From the Shale Identified the specimen as possible fossilized plant seeds.

Two days ago I went with @Tales From the Shale and another friend on a fossil hunting trip to a Bond Formation Roadcut in Oglesby, Illinois with rocks dating around 307-303 Million years ago, to the Pennsylvanian section of the Carboniferous era. Hadn't been back to the site since October 2022 and it was good to be back! I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of snow. But it was clear it only melted very recently judging by the arm sized icicles and the mud. (Quick advice for anyone planning to go fossil hunting at this time in Oglesby: bring snow boots to balance yourself on the rocks and mud, they will be a life saver). Found the usual brachiopods and crinoid bits at first, but then I found a 5cm long crinoid stem (the most intact one I've found so far from the area). I don't know currently what species it belongs to. We worked for two hours at the site before heading to another site in Braceville before heading back to Chicago. Today, I looked at some of the specimens I found and realized I found a lot more than I initially expected. Definitely enjoyed finding the large brachiopods (the second one I believe is a large Linoproductus). Found some Bryozoan (species unknown), the first I've discovered in Oglesby. Found a small but still pretty cool Cladodont shark tooth around 1-2cm in length. Currently don't know the species yet. Another cool Brachiopod (I think it's a Punctospirifer species). Also found some Petalodus teeth, Trilobite pieces, and bits of Peripristis. I'll post those and more detailed images of the others when I have access to my college's microscopes later this week.

Does anyone know what this is? I found this rock in the wabash river bottoms in west central indiana two years ago. It’s not quite like anything I’ve seen around here (usually I get a ton of crinoids). The equidistant branches off the central ring remind me of a vertebrae, but that just seems too good to be true.

Howdy! I found a beautiful pseudorthoceras last week and last night I noticed a tiny white organism on the rock. It looks like several "Vs" strung together. Fossil is 0.5 cm, is from the Glenshaw Formation and likely Brush Creek Limestone. I have no idea what this thing is. Thanks for the help.

I found some pyritized plants a few days ago and noticed that one looks like a stem with seed pods. The fossil measures 2 cm and is from the Glenshaw Formation of Beaver County Pennsylvania. I'm nearly certain that what looks like a stem is a stem, but what are the three round things seemingly attached? Help is appreciated, thanks.

Hi, I’m new to the forum. I’m 27 and from western central Indiana. I have been interested in fossils my whole life but only recently within the last few years tried to identify the fossils I’ve found. Yesterday I found this strange design on this rock which is probably sandstone while hiking in a small stream. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Any help identifying this would be much appreciated.