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So, in trying to identify my local limestone for sure, I've gotten the need to try to extract conodonts, and I'd for sure like to see other microfossils. I know this has been discussed here before, but I was wondering what might be the correct or tried and tested method for home, using obtainable chemicals. The last thread I found was talking about lab processes and clouds of white smoke. I've heard different things from using acids (Vinegar), Hydrogen Peroxide (3% limit at Walmart), to Kerosene. Also a need for sieves, filters, etc. Curious for a guide or advice for effective home methods. - Clint

Location: Missouri Time period: Pennsylvanian Formation: Muncie Creek Shale Hello! I found this quite some time ago and did not know what sort of fish material it could be. I am fairly certain it's something fishy as I have found plenty of chondrichthyan teeth, body parts, bones and a few fish coprolites during my nodule cracking adventures. More images: https://imgur.com/a/s9NIiRy

Hello everyone, sorry to be posting so much Florissant fossil quarry material, but I'm going through my collection of foliage and still need these ID'd. Most of these leaves are obviously pretty common, but I can't find some of them in the book Fossils of Florissant. So here they are: 1. Think it's a Fagopsis, but just double checking. 2. Don't really know, feeding traces around the edges.

Hey everyone, Asking about a piece of shale I just opened, there appears to be a little soft-bodied creature on it, however, it could just be an insect. The small piece measures exactly 1 and 3/8 of an inch. Is it a badly preserved beetle? Notice the small oval-shaped things lining the back. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Hey everyone! Amateur fossil hunter here! Can someone help me out with what this is? Found in Nanaimo in a shale deposit, not sure what the vertical lighter section is. Was surround by fossilized shells. Thanks for your help!

So, with the help and astute observations of LabRatKing and JDP, my "what is it" this may be an individual of Iniopterygiformes a chondricthyes/cartilagenous shark which resembles a modern day flying fish WAY COOL!!!!!!!! SO EXCITED!!!.. I am contacting pros who would have a much better idea and may be able to reveal more of the animal. I have radiographed it this morning, and maaayybbee I am seeing one of the "horns" depicted in paleo artist Ray Troll's painting?? at 12:00? There are other interesting "items" in the shale at 11:00, 2:00 NS 4:00 as well. I've contacted the KU field museum to get confirmation of the fossil, but is there a way to expose the rest?. I would imagine there is? but i am in no way prepared to try. Here's the pictures and radiograph. The cone shaped item is in the shale- not on it, under it, etc. , or is it nothing??.......Thoughts or suggestions appreciated!!! Bone

So building up my conodont collection and getting a scope to get better pics, but I found a 6-8' Pennsylvania shale shelf with huge intact pieces. I found this 2 x 2 1/2' piece with this central fossil fish? Under magnification (photo 4 and 5) there are scales/skin along the "spines"-that picture is at the central aspect of photo 2. I found the positive impression piece several yards away, though there are positive and negative pieces in both. Off one of the "spines". Off the end of one it a short, pointed spine? I can try to get a photo of that. My questions are 1. What is it?- fish? Listracanthus? urchin spines? 2. There appears to be some sort of decomposition of original tissue around some of the spines. Is that a reasonable observation and can anyone explain? 2. How do I clean it further?- the rest of it appears to be under a shale layer at the 7:00 position in photo 2 and 10-11:00 position in photo 3 there is ~12-18" of more shale along that margin 3. Should I just take/donate this to a lab and have them do it? I don't think this is earth shattering, but if its wholly there, could be interesting Thanks for any input! really appreciate the expertise on the forum!! Bone

Hello everyone, I was chipping through my bag of shale I brought back from Florissant Fossil Quarry (highly recommend!) and this fossil caught my eye. It's probably from some plant, could you give me an idea of what it is roughly?

I wonder if anyone may be able to help determine whether this is a bone, and whether it might be from a fish or a tetrapod? It was found in the Middle Pennsylvanian Wewoka Formation of northeastern Oklahoma. It may take me 3-4 postings to upload all 7 images. Best wishes.

I know very little about shark teeth. I found this one a while back in Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesian) shale in northeastern Oklahoma. I am speculating this may be deltodus only because I see a nearly identical tooth labeled as deltodus on another website. The fossil is very thin (too thin to photograph the edges). Besides confirming the taxonomy, can anyone tell me which surface of the tooth is shown in Side A? Finally, would you say Side B is mainly matrix (other than the edges)? I think matrix is showing through the cracks on Side A, and that may be the only thing holding the fossil together. My wife recently got me a camera, so I am working on a gallery album in the forum. I would like to make sure I have the IDs correct before I post photos in the album, so you may be seeing several ID requests from me over the next weeks. Best wishes

I found this broken nodule in an outcrop of Pennsylvanian shale in Northeast Oklahoma. I’m wondering if the fossil could be the upper part of a skull? Other common fossils from this site include fragmentary fish remains (e.g., teeth, spines, dermal denticles, and coprolites from sharks and other fishes), as well as invertebrate remains from ammonites, gastropods, bivalves, brachiopods, corals, and conularia. If this is a skull, would you guess it to be from a fish, amphibian, or reptile? I don’t see any traces of teeth in the nodule, but I can provide closer views of areas that might be of interest. I’ve done as much prep work as I dare with a brush and needle (my skills and tools are rudimentary). I look forward to any thoughts you may have. Best wishes .

My son (9 years old) collects rocks and found this "rock" in a stream near our house. We are located in the Tug Hill Region of New York State. The area has shale starting about 45 cm below the sod layer. I have looked and cannot determine what they are, but there seems to be some Ordovician fossils. Thanks for the info!! Levi and Logan (son)

Hello new member here. Houston area. So much Old fun if finding cool fossils in the mountains of New Mexico. I have many specimens that were packed up and moved along with me for years. I thought I lost them during recent move but I still have them. Not much around my area, at least that I know of. I have this little one that has bugged me for years. I will continue on fossil ID. Cant get past keywords so here is my little guy. Total size Jefferson nickel. What do I have? More pictures to come tomorrow? thanks , Philip

All, I have been finding a few dermal denticles in Northeast Oklahoma Pennsylvanian shales. Based on published reports and images from our area, I believe these are Petrodus. I’ve attached an image of two denticles I found yesterday. I’ve been looking for images of the entire shark because I’m curious about the animal’s overall appearance; however, I’m only finding images of the denticles. Do scientists know what these sharks looked like, and if so, does anyone know of resources containing overall images? Best wishes.

Greetings experts, enthusiasts, and fellow pareidolia sufferers. I just got back from spending a couple of nights at Jalama Beach Park. I did manage to get in a little bit of rock splitting while there. I didn't see anything fish-like. After searching for a bit before my back said "no more", I reached the pick end of my hammer over towards a larger chunk of material and gave it a whack on the side where I thought it would split. It split nicely. At first I didn't see anything, and maybe I still didn't see anything, but something did stand out as unusual no matter what it actually is. At the bottom of that balloon shaped staining there is iron-colored staining(?) that is reminiscent of a human fingerprint. And while I know it's impossible for it to be a trilobite in such a formation, the imprint looks like a trilobite stain. The overall shape of the staining also looks like a horseshoe crab. All of that said, I'm thinking that it's most likely a seaweed fossil print something of that nature. Any thoughts are appreciated. If anybody would like another image of another area on the split, let me know. Cheers all. MrR.

Found this at the edge of a shallow stream bed that flies down from Smoky Mountain region in East Tennessee at Indian Boundary Lake near Tellico Plains Tennessee at edge if Cherokee National Forest. It measures 2" long, 1.75" at widest 1/2" deep at deepest. A bit more flat on one side. Cross section shows a thin outer layer. Outside look reminds me of wood but I don't know. Looks like photos too big so I will load another below.

Hello, I found these shale fossils on sulpher mountain hiking trail in Ventura california. I think one might be a fish scale and I have no idea of what the other could be. Any ideas? Thanks for looking

I thought this 6" split was an interesting conglomerate of various barchipods and others impressions from a drift pile near Newberry, MI. About the only impressions it lacks are a good trilobite impression, (though there is a softly pressed one on the other side) and graptolites. I don't know what any of these are, but they are pretty common in my splits... the little #3 image has brothers in almost every split ranging from 1/2 Inch long to 8 inches long ( longest one I have found there. ) such a cool degrading hill. Everyyear I go, more rocks have tumbled out of the hillside , waiting to be picked up. Locals come and scoop the stone up and use it for refurbishing their driveways...Nothing earthshaking here I suppose, but lovely, lovely fossils, all of them impressions or thin remanants like # 7.Most of the impressions do contain some remnant of the original creature, so they are fun to look at, but none of them would survive being chipped out of the rock. Almost forgot, I am actually interested if anyone knows what # 6 is, that ridged brachipod. thanks.

At Florissant Colorado (dated to the Eocene) my family and I found these fossils and I would like to I D them to know what I found. I didn’t have a 12 inch/30 centimeter ruler so I used my six inch to make a ruler on a piece of paper it is accurate I promise. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Has anybody found crinoids in kinnekulle sweden? I have only found one small bracipod and a small gastropod and are these crinoids and in what layer should i look for more crinoids and shells? On top of the quarry theres shale i only find trilobites and squids there but anyways are these crinoids or something else?

I found this fossil yesterday near Whitby at Runswick Bay. Ammonites and belemnites are common here in the Jurassic cliffs, but I also found this. I am unsure as to whether it may be part of a fish or something else entirely- can anyone help?

Hello to all! Hope everyone is doing well, cause after my recent finds I am definitely doing well . So a little backstory: 10 years ago in grade school when I used to collect fossils with my father, we would never find any good fossils in shale. Always layer upon layer of the bland gray rocks with nothing even close to a fossil. For the longest time I never even bothered glancing at the large sections of shale dotting the many rivers of Toronto. jump ahead to the beginning of the month when I read some posts from @JUAN EMMANUEL showing some very nice nautiloids from shale. At first I didn't think anything of it and figured I'd never find anything THAT nice in shale. But, jump to a week later: While exploring a new location, I happen across a large section of layered shale on the riverbank and figured I'd try my luck - and started doing some digging. I pretty quickly came across a shell. A second shell. Then a third, fourth, fifth, and after chipping back the layer I found dozens of very tightly knit shells to my surprise. I was shocked to find anything after thinking for years that Toronto shale held almost nothing of interest. But still - they were ambonychia shells which I already have plenty of in my collection. So I keep looking around and chipping away at other layers, thinking maybe I'll find something a little more exciting. An hour goes by while digging in a somewhat awkward position, and my legs start to fall asleep so I readjusted my legs and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something right near my knee. My heart absolutely skipped a beat as I realized what I had found: A perfect and complete trilobite in the shale. After taking a closer look I realized there was in fact TWO of them right near each other! I hadn't found a trilobyte of this quality since grade school when I used to go with my father - let alone two. I just sat there for about 2 minutes staring at them, thinking they were going to shatter as soon as my pick got anywhere near them. Ultimately, luck played in my favour and the trilobites came out perfectly! But, the story doesn't end there, oh no! So now I'm going back to all these old places, primed with the fresh new knowledge of how to hunt shale. Although the work is pretty messy and uncomfortable, it seems to pay off quite nicely. And before I know it, a couple days later I end up finding yet another trilobite. But the crown jewel of the month came last weekend when I found two different nautiloids - one being an absolute MONSTER specimen, and the other being my most complete nautiloid ever (it even included the tip at the very end!). I just gotta give a big thanks to the people on this forum. Without the knowledge shared on this forum, I would likely have still been stuck in my ways avoiding any piece of shale in sight. I also have also included some other fossils that I found this month. [All fossils found in Humber, Etobicoke and Mimico river/creeks riverbanks - located in Toronto ON, Canada // Georgian Bay Formation // Ordovician (485.4 - 443.8Ma)] The first set of trilobites In Situ from humber river. The first two trilobites on the left and the later one on the right. The many pieces of nautiloid that came out during extraction. They unfortunately broke VERY easily so I figured there was no point stressing about it coming out in less than a dozen pieces. Here is what it looked like when all the pieces were assembled together (with the help of a little super glue of course). It even seems to have the very tip of the nautiloid as well (which would be a first for me)! here are a couple other decent pieces I found as well:

Went looking for ferns and plants today. Spent my lunch hour splitting shale nearby. This one caught my eye. The ghosted pattern around the stem is interesting. I feel like it’s part of it seeing how symmetrical it is. And ideas? Length of the stem part is 2 1/8” (Don’t have a metric ruler handy) To me, the bottom portion is the base, so the shape is confusing.

After some awesome advice from FF members, my family made it out to the Lost River quarry in WV (Devonian shale). We found a bunch of bivalve and trilobite partial fossils and two fossils that we can't ID (pics below). The first was found in a split piece of shale so one part mirrors the other (pieces are ~3x3in). Unsure if this is a fossil but any insight is appreciated! The second is a very small (1/4in) circular, striated fossil. Thanks!