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A few weeks back I made a short stop at the roadcut in Aliquippa, PA, and I found a good bit of plant material in the half hour I spent there. This plant fossil I found when I split a slab of shale. Seed cone, perhaps? Glenshaw Formation, Mahoning Shale member
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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.
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- allegheny county
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Hi all, I’ve posted a few topics on the forum but have yet to show my entire collection, or my best finds. So here goes. A little background on me. I’ve been fossil hunting since I was very young, probably since I was 4 when I found a plant fossil in my backyard. Over the past few years as I have ventured into adulthood I have gotten very interested in the fossils of the Pittsburgh area. I will display my best finds here and periodically update the thread with new finds. As a note, many of the vertebrate fossils I have found are rare and may be important to science. I have been in contact with @jdp about this and will most likely be donating the most important ones to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. If any of my IDs seem strange or wrong please let me know, I am always learning and value new info. I guess I’ll start with the marine invertebrates. To start out we can start small, with brachiopods, cephalopods and horn corals. The first is a Linoproductus from the Ames Limestone, a classic Pittsburgh marine zone.
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After having discovered more than a few "dinosaur eggs" throughout my life, this is the first that has prompted me to overcome my cynicism and ask for help in identification. I am assuming that it is very possibly a nodule of some sort - but looking at the details has me curious. Thanks in advance for your patience with my limited knowledge. I found it in a ravine near my house in Pittsburgh, PA, USA that has exposed layers of coal, shale, slate, and sandstone. I found it "as-is" and I have not removed any material. It is approximately 8.5cms x 5 cms. There appear to be at least 3 "layers" on it. There is a picture from a terminal end that clearly shows them. The outer one is fairly thick (2-3mm), the subsequent layer is much thinner (~0.5mm), and the inner one appears to be about 1mm. Photos were taken with natural light. The "bottom" shows a bit more of the interior, which appears to be darker and uneven. The "top" is mostly smooth, comprised of the "inner" layer with hairline cracks. If I can provide additional information, photos, or videos, just let me know of what part, and I will do my best to provide them. Much thanks! Kind regards.
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Dear Members, three years ago I found a small fossil in the Ames Limestone Formation (Pennsylvanian in age) exposed in Frick Park, Pittsburgh, PA. The Ames Limestone preserves a rich assemblage of marine invertebrate fossils (crinoids, corals, etc.). On the other hand vertebrates are much more rare (as far as I know). Originally only the tip was exposed, then I had a fossil preparator work on it, so that the whole specimen is now visible. Close up of the tip at 20X It is definetely fragmentary, but I don't know what it is. I would exclude a fish/shark tooth, because it is too flattened. I think it might be a fish scale, but I really don't know. Do you have any idea? Thank you, Fabio
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Hi everybody, I was wondering if you could help me with this. I found this rock among the Ames Limestone around Pittsburgh. The limestone's chock full of crinoids and corals, but I wasn't sure what this fragment was. It looks like it might be from a cephalopod (belemnites or bactrites maybe?), but I'm really not positive. Could you guys help me out here? Thanks!
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I found this rock alone under a tree, so I'm pretty skeptical of it, but I'm also pretty curious. I looked up trace fossils that might look like this, and I thought it was pretty similar to Rusophycus. The rocks around it are from the Glenshaw and Cassleman Formations of late carboniferous Pittsburgh. The "print" is about 10 cm long in its entirety, and maybe a quarter cm deep or so. Could this be a print of sorts or is it just some funky weathering? Thanks!
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I found this near a small creek in the Casselman Formation right outside of Pittsburgh. It was originally covered in some sort of black matrix, most of which I scraped off. It really looks like a piece of bone (maybe a tibia or a radius?) to me, but I might just be crazy. Thanks!
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Found out I had fossils down the street from my house and did some searching for a variety of plant fossils. This was found in a road cut along the Ohio river near Ambridge/Aliquippa, PA and the fossil layer is the Mahoning Shale. Most of what we found were tree ferns, calamites and lycopods. We had some great success and it was great to find these right down the street! Most were easy to ID with help from the Fossil Guy site. But we can't find any info on the attached. Any ideas are welcome!
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Hi all, Here’s an interesting plant find. I discovered it in a locality in Western PA known for producing good plant fossils. I’m thinking seed fern, maybe related to Alethopteris somehow but to be honest I’m not sure what the species is. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance Stratigraphy: Connelsville Sandstone of the Casselman Formation of the Conemaugh Group. Age-Late Pennsylvanian, ~305 MYA
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- carboniferous
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Hey Fossil Community! Finally stopped being lazy and joined The Forum. Long time follower, fossil hunter, collector, and advocate to grow the paleontological community. Looking forward to contributing on the forum, networking with you great people, and possibly getting some digs together! I actively support and go on digs with PaleoProspectors, collect and network with many people in the fossil community, and am part of the growing fossil community on Instagram. Feel free to reach out!
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Conditions in Western PA have been unusually warm recently, with highs in the 40s and 50s. I decided to take advantage of this warm spell by getting a little bit of fossil hunting in. I decided to do a hunt focused on plants as I’ve been hunting for vertebrates for the better part of the last year and a half and, although I could never get tired of vertebrates I thought some variety was well overdue. So I headed to one of my favorite plant localities in the area. It is located in the Connellsville Sandstone of the Casselman Formation, which is in turn the upper half of the Conemaugh Group. The sandstone is around 305 million years old. The Casselman Formation holds the record of the tail end of one of the largest plant extinctions in our earths history. The prolonged wetness that had existed for much of the Pennsylvanian gave way to dryer conditions, and, as a result, the lycopsid forests fragmented. Many of these lycopsids went extinct during this event, which is known as the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse. Conifers took advantage of these newly opened ecological niches. Their fossils have been found in this area, although I have never personally found them. Anyway, on to the fossils. Today I mostly found partial Pecopteris fronds, Neuropteris pinnules and Annularia leaflets. I’m going to include some of my better finds from other trips as well, as this trip was rather unproductive. Pictured below is the best Annularia I found today. Or Asterophyllites. I’m not sure. We’ll just go with Calamites leaves for now.
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Hi all. I was wondering if I could get some sort of specific ID on a possible insect wing that I found in the roof shales of a thin coal that is dated to the Late Pennsylvanian or Kasimovian. Fossil plants and some vertebrate material can be found in the same shale. Stratigraphic information: From a roof shale of a thin coal roughly 30 feet below the Brush Creek Limestone of the Glenshaw Formation in the Conemaugh Group. Discovered in the suburbs outside of Pittsburgh.
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- carboniferous
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Hi all, This specimen was found in a black shale layer that lays directly and uncomfortably upon the Duquesne Limestone, which is Late Pennsylvanian age. It was found in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Both the shale and limestone are filled with vertebrate fossils, especially the scales, teeth and spines of paleoniscoid fish. As far as I know there is no species list from the shale but Elonichthys has been reported. I know skull roofs can be very diagnostic so any rough estimates of genus would be very helpful! I apologize for the picture quality, my phone is a brick.
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- carboniferous
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Hello everybody, In my forst post, I'm asking you to identify this fossil that I found this summer in a public park of Pittsburgh, Pennsilvanya. I found it alongside rocks dating to the Carboniferous bearing marine fossils (mostly crinoids stems). I have not removed the matrix yet, but the exposed surface of the fossil is less than 1 cm (0,40") long. The magnified pics were taken at 20x. I can't think of anything that I know of. Can you help me? Thank you, Fabio
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2 Carboniferous Fossils (Maybe) strange objects - need help :)
corporateidentity posted a topic in Fossil ID
Hello, I have two strange objects that my wife and I found in Pittsburgh in Carboniferous territory. The triangular shape one is a little larger that a quarter while the spherical rock is about the size of a baseball. I haven't seen anything like these two rocks in any of my fossil trips, so any help would be terrific. Thanks everyone!- 5 replies
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Hello everyone. I have been a collector for a long time, but I think it is pretty sad that there is a very limited amount of fossils in my collection I have found myself. I want to start fossil hunting more often!! I often take my fossil collection to schools, and I think it would be special to be able to share things I've found myself. Right now I am visiting family in the Canonsburg area, which is outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I am going to try to get some geologic maps for the area. But in the meantime, I was wondering if anyone has any other resources for me or any favorite spots around there? Thank you all! (Not sure if this was the right section for this post, if not please move)
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Hi everyone! I’m not a collector or even a hobbiest (yet!) but I came across this forum looking for a way to start learning and to help me ID some interesting things I found the other day. I was walking with my dog in Cranberry Township PA (20miles north of Pittsburgh) and noticed a number of darker, reddish, oddly shaped stones that stood out against the hillside of crumbled gray shale that had been pulled out (possibly from as far as 50 feet down or so) in digging a drainage pit for a new development. Most of what I saw just looked like concretions formed around river stones or something like that (some were split in half so they almost resembled clams) but in one area there were pieces that looked different, some with fairly conspicuous tooth or bonelike shapes. I rinsed mud off of them with warm water and started scrubbing a bit with a brush but I noticed that the lightest areas on a couple pieces are fairly soft (I can scrape them with my fingernail) so I thought I'd better stop until I figured out what was what. I don’t really know anything about this stuff yet, but I loved looking for ferns, etc and even found a trilobyte once as a kid and so I was kinda thrilled to have maybe found something interesting. Of course, they could just be a pile of neat rocks too, haha... So what do you think I have here? Just organic looking concretions or something cooler? Thanks! (note: I embedded the images instead of directly attaching them, so if you click on them you'll be able to see higher-resolution versions)
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- concretions
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Hi all! Hello from Pittsburgh, PA! Can't wait to start sharing my finds from our carboniferous era rocks as well as a few permian areas south of the city.
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From the album: Pittsburgh Fossils in Handmade Museum Boxes
This fossil, not sure if it is pecopteris or linopteris. It's about 4 inches across. It is housed in "museum" box I made with two modern fern fronds which were preserved with a special oxidization-inhibiting sealant.- 1 comment
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From the album: Pittsburgh Fossils in Handmade Museum Boxes
This is what I believe to be an alethopteris in shale collected in Rennerdale, PA. About 3 inches across. It is housed in "museum" box I made with two modern fern fronds which were preserved with a special oxidization-inhibiting sealant.- 1 comment
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From the album: Pittsburgh Fossils in Handmade Museum Boxes
I believe this one is linopteris. Collected in Rennerdale, PA. About 1.5 inches acorss. It is housed in "museum" box I made with two modern fern fronds which were preserved with a special oxidization-inhibiting sealant.-
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From the album: Pittsburgh Fossils in Handmade Museum Boxes
I believe this specimen would be pecopteris? approximately 300 mya. Collected in Rennerdale, PA. Approximately 3 inches in length. It is housed in "museum" box I made with two modern fern fronds which were preserved with a special oxidization-inhibiting sealant.-
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OK. My mom moved and when visited today started checking out her new garden. Found these and others.... Thinking lake stones? Am I pathetic???? lol! http://www.thefossilforum.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.png I'm pretty excited. Lots of split concretions too... http://www.thefossilforum.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/smile.png ID's? Please something.... http://www.thefossilforum.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/wink.png
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