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I thought I would let folks know about this meeting happening in Seattle in April. https://paleomethods.org/Annual-Meeting This is the annual meeting for fossil prep types from all walks of life. Anyone here who does prep work might want to look into it. At least one of us will be there teaching folks how to use carbowax in fossil prep.

Hello, coming to you from Tacoma WA. I'm very new to the world of fossils. Always been interested in it and have an insatiable thirst for knowledge on the subject. For me it's the sheer number of years it takes to create a fossil and I love to imagine how the earth was when the creature/creatures were alive. I'm also struck with awe at the amazing fossils I've found just around my home even though it's very populated. I've found tons of fossilized wood, what I think is fossilized charcoal, fossilized snake head, a turtle, tons of she'll fish and some fossilized bones that I have no idea. But I'm only guessing at all I'm a complete novice. That's why I joined so I can learn from experts! Thankyou for letting me join and happy fossil hunting!

I joined a few weeks ago but hadn't introduced myself. My primary interest is getting started in micro-paleontology. Would love to hear about fossil collecting from members here in Washington state.

My kiddo is super into fossils at the moment and the best place for us to look is the Blakeley Formation in Seattle. We spotted a few interesting things at low tide but we have no idea if they are fossils or not! Any help would be appreciated!

Hello everyone! My name is Jacob and after about a year of lurking in the shadows I have taken the dive into creating an account, thanks to a few friends that are active here and giving me the ol peer pressure treatment. I live and work in Washington state, am brand new to fossil hunting and fossils in general, but consider myself an expert at finding and packing out leave-r-ights. I have zero prep experience but after a recent trip to the Green River formation I have come home with some awesome practice fish (and some beautiful not practice fish that will wait) and hope to pull the trigger on some prep tools very soon. Feel free to ask me questions if I left anything cool out.

I can't find much history or geological information of the Seattle area in Washington State before the people started settling there. I get lots of history about how everyone settled, who they were, dates of events, and the beginning of industries. Is there a easier way to find out through other resources about actual formations of the land and geological events that have happened in the past throughout the centuries? Is that made available to the public for research in their findings of fossils? There's more then I thought to learn about when it comes to fossils, and when it comes to fossils being found in or out of profound areas where you don't know how it may have got there, takes you more on a history hunt for answers to the how? question, and the when? question. Finding a fossil in someplace that makes you scratch your head???.. I'm sure this has happened many times. Hasnt it?.. Ocean animal fossils no where near the ocean? I believe that would be evidence of a past tsunami. Could there be any reason why sea fossils would be found in the middle of a populated city not really that close to a Ocean but close to a man made lake. Half salt water half fresh water. I think there should be a key importance to explore more of city populated areas before major construction. Seattle is a place that has never been explored geologically so much other then the beach along the coastlines. I find no evidence of geological history of Washington but of our volcanoes, not so much tsunamis at all. Seattle has just been built on top of so quickly, that Seattle hides a whole lot more beneath the high rolling hills and valleys surrounding then we think. There are less and less places to explore in a growing city and I'm not a expert, but when I can notice something out of the ordinary and you know it's of importance, how can it not excite you enough to find out more about it! So who's the first one I would call to report a geological formation of importance? How are those steps determined in the concept of discoveries ownership and so on? The laws are so twisted and much goes into it. The reward it's self in fossil hunting or just stumbling upon one is the past answers they give us, but they are our future answers too!

Hey everybody! Im JT, 31, hailing from the Seattle area in WA. I started collecting fossils, mainly of dinosaurs, last year. I've viewed some parts of this forum for a while, but finally got around to making an account. Big thanks to everyone here for contributing and sharing their knowledge, the wealth of information on this site is fantastic. Hoping to go on a dig in the midwest in the next few years, a bucket list dream for sure. Cheers

As the lockdown continues and I can’t go on any new adventures here’s another amazing experience from my palaeontological back catalogue. A little shorter this time than my Burgess Shale story. I was back home from university for the Christmas holiday and decided to go with my family to the Burke Museum in Seattle. I’d been many times before as a child but this time I was going to see something special the Tufts-Love rex, and I got lucky. We had arrived in the morning just before they opened and were one of the only families there, as I was peering into the lab area trying to see as much as possible, the preparator stopped, came to the door and asked if I wanted to see it up close. Next thing I knew I was face to face with the T-rex. Looking at it up close you could see the fine detail in the bone where veins ran into the maxilla and the almost feathered texture of the supraorbital ridge. She even let me touch it, something I never expected a museum to allow me to do. Of course I couldn’t pass up the photo op. In the picture the googly eye is in the wrong place, it should be up a little higher where in its place one of the preparators put a sticky not saying “no more prepping in eye hole”. Clearly the temptation to continue in further and hollow out the skull while it was still half in block was just too strong. You can also see one of the nasal bones has been exposed and has been displaced. At the time I got to see it, they weren’t sure if this meant that the other was missing or how complete the other side of the skull was. Now that the skull has been fully prepared we know (There is a fantastic thread elsewhere on the forum by @Troodon documenting its preparation). 100% of the skeletal elements are present and it’s one of the most complete skulls ever found. I haven’t seen it fully prepared yet though, since I haven’t gotten back to the Burke since it has been renovated but next time I’m back in Seattle it’s the first thing I’m going to do. Thank you all for reading, Benton

Are there any Seattle-area folks on here who have tried hunting for beach fossils around Alki Point? You can see the outcrop pretty well on satellite images and it's on the geological maps. This Blakeley formation is pretty crumbly, though, so I'm not sure whether any meaningful fossils would survive being washed out in the surf. Guess there's only one way to find out! Since we're coming up on the new moon, the low tides are nicely timed for a long lunch break, so I'll plan to check this out some time in the next few days and report back.

I'm becoming a habitual "is this wood" poster... I found this one yesterday on the shores of Lake Washington near an outcrop of the Blakeley formation, and just polished one face using sandpaper. Specimen measures 1.5 inches in the longest dimension and the polished face measures 1 inch x 1 inch. SG is 2.48 by suspension method, +/- 0.01g accuracy. The lighter spot on the polished face is where I got lazy before removing the entire weathered surface.

This trip started out in Tacoma Washington. Our first stop was Centralia WA. Supposedly there were marine sediments 35 million years old that encompassed bivalves, gastropods and some other small marine life. Of course I have another spot near my house with a similar variety of fossils so I was less interested. None the less I spent 2 hours there looking through clay and checking if I could see any siltstone or shale. Unfortunately I did not find anything here. The next stop was near Portland Oregon in Butte Creek where there have been numerous whale teeth and some other vertebrate fossils. I of course was certain that collecting vertebrates was also illegal in Oregon so I skipped out on keeping anything I found. I came up dry again in Butte creek after an hour of looking. Next I searched Myrtle Creek Oregon briefly as it was getting dark. I didn't see much there, however there could have been plenty that I simply missed in the dark. (also I only looked for 15 minutes) The next day, I went to Riddle Oregon, where supposedly Jurassic Leaf fossils could be found and also some Bivalves, Gastropods and Ammonites. I skipped looking around the town and went straight to Cow Creek (goes through Riddle) and saw fossils across the water, however during February, there was no chance of me swimming across. The current is quite strong too. It also was loaded with private property signs and we even saw a guy looking back at us with a rifle over his shoulder. That is when we left. We heard about Ashland and the great cretaceous formations off the road at I-5 near Klamath Mountain. We traveled up there but found Nada. In California we searched along Gazelle Road and found a few possible corals. Gazelle Callahan Road is Silurian. I got permission from a land owner to search along his property. On the way back we stayed at a motel in Medford. Planning for the day tomorrow I read on PDFs that I was checking the wrong spot along I-5 for the cretaceous fossils south of Ashland. I plotted exactly where they were on maps and got ready to go the next morning. When I arrived at the mountain pass, it had snowed at least 2 - 3 feet. There was no way I was finding anything. Disappointed, we left to go back to Riddle, When I arrived in Riddle, I decided to search the town for Jurassic - Cretaceous fossils. While searched a road cut near town, I found some Bivalves called Buchia (according to the formation species guide) This was the only spot where I did end up finding fossils unfortunately but I did want to share what I found. I still have a whole whiteboard full of fossils I have yet to go through so I couldn't upload all my finds. Riddle Oregon was actually packed with fossils if you look closely. Thanks for reading : )

So I found these fossils around Tukwila Washington. I'm not looking for an ID but I'd just like to share with you some of the gastropods and bivalves I found along the way And for all you Washington fossil hunters, don't listen to people who say you need to be in Utah to find fossils, they are everywhere here (Information: These come from the Eocene time period 40 million years ago. Some of these fossils are Turritella Uvasana (Identified by Professional) some gastropods, some pecten looking shells (still not sure) and bivalves of unknown species.)

I just recently moved from the Mid-Atlantic to Seattle, and feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer variety of geological formations I've encountered around Puget Sound beaches and nearby mountain trails. My kids (4 and 6) are starting to show an interest in looking for rocks and fossils, so I'll probably be leaning on you guys to help us identify our finds (at least any that look potentially fossil-y). My previous major experience with fossil hunting was during college ~15 years ago in north Florida, when I used to screen gravel beds in local creeks with a friend of mine. We mostly found dugong ribs and sharks' teeth, with occasional other stuff, so my IDing skills will probably prove grossly insufficient around Puget Sound.

Hi all, I am going to be in Seattle for three weeks, is there anything worth collecting in the area? Any info would be appreciated. Feel free to PM me . Thanks, Herb

Hoping someone can help identify what I found while digging in Seattle. To me it looks like a large (measures in inches) toenail. Not much to go on so hopefully the pictures are helpful! Thanks..........