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Hello. We are beginners, and have a large concretion (suspected crab). What is recommended for removing the excess rock to expose what’s inside it? We want to minimize damage to it. It sounds as if breaking and freeze/thaw aren’t ideal for opening it. I’ve been trying to learn, but still not certain and feel safest asking. Money is tight this week, but would like to get something to begin on it and upgrade in a couple weeks. Any suggestions? Thank you. (I was thinking a 290 dremel w/fossil bits and later an air tool…uncertain which is best. Actually, I see that is a UK model.)

Hi Fossil Hunters, These finds are quite the mystery to me. I found them on a Tampa Bay Beach, Florida at different times but they look alike. One side looks like wood grain. The flip side looks smooth and shiny. The edges appear milky pearly white and jagged. All 3 are slightly curved. At first glance I thought they were a stingray barb, then some type of worked seashell. Ruled them out. Are they a man-made tool or natural? What is the material? Petrified wood? Possibly mammoth bark or is this wishful thinking, lol. Please help. Thanks!

Hi, can someone recommend me some good fossil prepping tools on Amazon for under 200 even if it’s an air scribe with a compressor, total under 200. Please attach pictures if you can thank you:))))

Hello everyone, I would like to start with fossil preparation using airscribe/pen, I have a few tricky fossils that need that kind of cleaning method. However, I’d rather spent my money on fossils than tools so I am looking for cheapest possible set up available. Saw an example of Paleotech tools, is that the only thing available for this? Any ideas anyone?

Are there any dealers in the United States that carry Zoic tips?

So, what do I do to separate a fossil from the sediment? Like a coral fossil as example. Do I use acid? I heard you can also use vinegar but I don't know. Also, what is probably the best prepping starter kit online, or in hardware stores? I want to get a full set of stuff but don't know where to find a good bang for your buck. I really want to get into that type of work soon.

Hello all- A friend of mine had a bunch of fossils stolen from his family's house on the outskirts of Cheyenne, Wyoming this past week. These were fossils collected 20 years ago when he started collecting and include petrified wood, Miocene mammal bones and teeth, and others. The wood was a six foot long trunk that was in about 6 one-foot long sections that all fit together. It is almost a foot in diameter and faded to orange-ish in color. A police report has been filed. I will see if my friend can send me more info on the fossils. Please help out as much as you can... if anyone out there sees any fossils show up online that fit these descriptions, please let me or the Cheyenne Police know. And for folks in Wyoming, Nebraska and especially the Front Range, let the cops know if you see anything like these in a local pawn shop. https://www.cheyennepd.org/Home

Going for my first fossil hunt at some point this year to a small quarry. I believe it’s mainly small sea life and some shark teeth. What tools would you recommend I take? Thanks

Hello I’ve had this for a while now I acquired it from my grandfather when he passed. Would love to find out more about it or if it’s even a fossil… thanks

Hey everyone! Just thought I would share this thing I made to organize my air scribes and parts, but also to have a way to keep them off the dirty bench when not using them. I have been working at the Village Barn (a small company that repairs and sells, boots, saddles, shaps, bridles, ropes, whips, knives, etc.) as an apprentice for about a month or two, and finally decided to try to make something to store my scribes. I think it turned out pretty good, but if I were to make it for someone else I would have made it nicer. Thanks for looking! Cheers and Shalom, -Micah

Hello Everyone, I am brand new to fossil preparation and just ordered a Zoic Paleotech Velociraptor II to get started. I have an older DeWalt portable oilless compressor that is more than capable of driving the unit. My understanding is that the Velociraptor II shipped with an inline filter, is this enough or should I be adding an air filter and dessicant? If I need an additional air filter, what micron level should I filter down too? Any recommendations on filters/dessicants? I will eventually be getting a 2 stage 80 gallon oiled compressor but not for a while. Cheers, Andrew

Hi there everyone! I hope everyone’s having a fantastic day! I just wanted to get on here and ask y’all about your favorite/preferred magnifying tool. I recently acquired some burmite with some beautiful inclusions but my standard magnifying glasses aren’t really cutting it in order to really appreciate the specimens. I’d love to hear about your guy’s favorite magnifying tools that y’all use to appreciate your fossils and your overall recommendations. Thank you all so much!

A while back, I wrote this article/page because I was fascinated with all the different rock hammers, especially Estwing. I had some experience using them, and I liked them more than others. https://fossil.15656.com/resources/geological-hammers-and-tools/ Surprisingly on a website where I write about many paleontological topics, this page has been the most visited by people using Google. I hope it's useful for anyone seeking out a hammer.

Can’t wait to put these to some use!

Hi Found this large rock In middle Georgia. It has Holes in it that dont look natural to me but I could possibly be wrong. Just wondering if anyone has seen anything like this. Sorry the photos arent better. Where it was found a lot of artifacts are found because had Indians living here for 12,000 Years.

So, in speaking to @digit, I was convinced to make a wooden sifter to replace my current PVC pipe one, and in doing so, make a guide on how! So first things first - I followed Ken’a tips and his post here from years ago: So the materials: - 4 pieces of 1”x3”x20” lumber. I went with pine, cause it was cheap and on sale and very straight. - Wood glue - Screws. I used 12 #8 round headed screws. - Drill for the screws - Heavy Duty staple gun + staples - Hammer - Wire Cutter - 1/4” Mesh, enough to cover about 20 squared inches - Zip/Cable/Wire ties - at least 12, probably going to want long ones, I picked up a pack of 36” ones. - Pool noodles - enough to fit around 4 sides of the sifter. So, I have currently ordered, a 4” thick, completely solid pool noodle on its way to me, but since it’ll most likely be here after Sunday when I plan on using my sifter next, I’m using normal pool noodles for now. We’ll see if they manage to keep the sifter up for now. So to start, I got my wood: Took 2 pieces, drilled 3 holes within the top inch of the board going right through. I then lined this up with the side of the other piece, and used a pen to mark off where the holes were. I then drilled about a half inch into the other piece of wood. Next I smeared wood glue onto the area of the wood that would be touching, and then drilled the screws into all 3 holes: So it looked like this: I repeated that for the other sides, forming a box: Next, I grabbed the stapler and the wire mesh, and stapled along the frame to secure the mesh: Hammering the staples down to keep them in place and make sure the edges are smoother: Once the mesh was completely on: I then used the wire cutters to trim the excess mesh: Next, I cut the pool noodles to size around the frame, realizing I didn’t have quite enough pool noodle, and then zip tied them with my smaller zip ties that barely fit: I then used parachute cord and a carabiner to finish it off. The reason for using smaller pool noodles and zip ties is, as I mentioned, that I have the 4” thick, solid pool noodle coming. Being 4” thick, it’ll require the 36” zip ties I bought. It’s also 72” long, which means I can either do 18”/side of pool noodle, or I can do 20”, 20”, and then take another 20” section, cut it in half length-wise, and use each half-pipe shape on the 2 other sides, which is what I currently plan on doing. This’ll give me a good amount of buoyancy while also providing me handles. I’ll update this post when I’ve got the bigger pool noodle, and then again once I’ve tested it out! Hope everyone’s enjoyed this, and hopefully it’s clear enough to guide people through making their own. Feel free to leave questions if anyone has any!

I’m planning my return trip to Lake Texoma and I was wondering if y’all had any suggestions for tools to bring. Preferably batter-powered (no generator) and powerful enough to excavate large ammonites from hard limestone. Explosives, battery acid, and hydrochloric acid are out of the question. I’d settle for gas-powered tools, but only as a last resort.

I need to get one for a trip Im going on this month. Any help appreciated!

The best tools for cleaning dust and rock from artifacts are Chisels and Brushes , and what to do when the conditions are wet ?

So how do you "capture the UM size fossils and place them on another slide"? I am thinking of micro fossils less than 1mm. I would like isolate and move to another slide specific specimens. Dental tools are way too big. Do you make your own out of extremly fine wire or what? Sources?

With the end of the semester approaching, school has picked up and I have been too busy to embark on many adventures. When my schedule finally cleared up one afternoon following a brief rain in Austin, I jumped at the opportunity to do a bit of exploring. One of my goals right now is to check out new parts of the creek I hunt on. Scanning through my list of potential spots, I decided to try and be the first one out to a very promising location. Like my previous hunts, this place ran through the Ozan formation, so my expectations were set on some nice Cretaceous specimens as well as the usual native artifacts that Central Texas is so famous for. After I parked and carefully scaled my way down to the water's edge, I was immediately met with several pairs of shoes and jackets. Thinking I had been beaten to the punch, I decided I might as well head down the stream and meet whoever it was to discuss the location and fossils in general. Thankfully, the trip was saved when they turned out to be a kind group of fishermen. After a brief chat, I carried on to get the hunt started. The mud was an absolute nightmare. I had never been up to my knees in it until then. Somehow, I managed to trudge my way through without getting one of my water shoes sucked away into a different dimension. When I finally reached the first gravel bar, I was instantly rewarded with the nicest Ptychodus tooth (E) I have found yet. Scattered around the bar were tons of flakes and a couple of larger worked pieces (G, I) that were unfamiliar to me. Before moving on, I also stumbled upon what would've been the largest point I'd ever found (H). Unfortunately, it was pretty banged up. The previous rain wasn't that big in terms of flooding, so I spent the most time scouring the gravel still under water as I reasoned that the stuff on dry land was less likely to have been moved around in the storm. It was during this moment that I found my first mosasaur vertebra of the day (A). This one was exciting to me as I personally thought it very much resembled the verts that famously come out of the NSR's Ozan formation. Within a couple feet of it I found another half piece of mosasaur vertebra (B). With the close association of these two bones, I went into a bit of a frenzy. Nothing else came up, but I knew that there was a massive exposure just up ahead so I hurried on. Along the way I ran into a fragment of the smallest point I've come across (F). At its size, I wonder if the original piece would've been a true arrowhead. Once I reached the main exposure, I immediately got to probing around. I came across two more pieces of bone that I believe are both belonging to mosasaurs (C, D). They have bony structures, but they are also pretty beat up and may have come from a different formation in comparison to the other two verts I collected. With the day winding down I picked up a nice big Exogyra ponderosa for my dad's friend as well as a couple of preforms. I tried to look around in the exposure for any hints of mosasaur, but that shale is extremely difficult to get through. All in all, it was a great success. I think I've found my new go-to spot! With the addition of potentially 4 new mosasaur verts, that's a 400% increase in my total mosi collection! P.S. Does anyone else get "Tetris Syndrome" after scanning gravel bars for way too long? For hours after the trip, I literally could not stop seeing gravel and chert flakes every time I closed my eyes. An overview of the finds: Closeups for ID: A: First mosasaur vert of the day. To me, it strongly resembles those found in the NSR's Ozan formation. This one was covered in a clay-like matrix. B: The second vert of the day. Seems to be broken in half and from the same formation as A. Appears to have pyritization on some parts of it. C: Third vert which I believe is mosasaur. This one is beat up and seems to be of differing material from A and B. Could it be from the Austin Chalk which is present farther up the creek? D: The last "vert" of the day. This one I am least confident about. It appears to have a bony texture, but is very worn and has a confusing shape. It seems closer to C than A or B, but it also feels very distinct in it of itself. What do you guys think? I suppose it could be something else entirely! E: A nicely preserved Ptychodus tooth. I'm thinking anonymous or mammillaris, but my ID skills are pretty lackluster. F: "True" arrowhead fragment? G: Strange artifact. The angle seems too wide to be a point. I think it's too thin to be an adze. Obviously missing a huge chunk from that fresh curved break. What do you guys think? H: Fragment of a large point I: Another strange fragment. I think it may be an adze since it's a bit more robust. Fresh break on one edge. Let me know if you want any more close-ups. Thanks for reading!

Today's Fossil Friday contribution is about the chicago pneumatic air scribes. Periodic maintenance is highly important, but many new owner dont know how or are intimidated to open them up.

So I was wondering what gear you guys would recommend bringing to Mazonia. I know the brush is insanely thick, but I know very little beyond that. Oh, I also know digging isn’t allowed. Is it marshy in some areas? Do I need muck boots or waders (the kind fly fishermen use)? Is bug spray required? What is the best month to visit? Is the collecting better or worse after it rains? Should I bring sunscreen and bug spray? Any other tips for gear would be helpful in my never-ending quest for the elusive Tully Monster.

I made a whirlwind trip up to Tucson to deliver some prepped fossils and pick up another load of pieces to work on. I spent a day at the show, talking with dealers and drooling over the great fossils. The cherry on top was picking up my new, German engineered, HW-70 airscribe. This thing is amazing. It will blast away matrix at 30 psi and can operate on pressures as low as 3 psi. I made some great contacts while I was there and I’m going to have some cool stuff coming out of the Global Paleo Services lab in the future. More to come; now I gotta get prepping!

I'm totally new at this, so I'm not experienced on how to uncover more of the fossil from the rock matrix I found it in. If I wanted to see if there was actually a nautiloid (orthoceras) in this rock (see photos), how would I go about digging more of it out to uncover it? What tools do I use? Any suggestions or recommendations? Thanks in advance.