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This morning I made a trip to a local spot. Wenlockian. Gravicalymene celebra, measures 4cm This one was difficult to work with, as dolostone always is. Ommokris obex cephalon, which turned out to be partial, and a small ventral calymene. The arrow points to the tongue-like protuberance which I was able to extract in one piece and glue back on, giving this trilobite a gargoylesque appearance. And last but not least, a mystery find...

Okay so I am a noob basically in fossil hunting. I am more of a living animal guy but minerals and especially fossils are a side passion that I would absolutely love to get more into. I have my own mediocre collection. My proudest piece is a trilobite which I bought for $5. I can’t really afford to buy all my fossils plus finding them is always fun. I have a decent collection of corals. Anyways now that I got the background out of the way. I need advice on where to look in Ky. Mainly the Jackson Purchase area as that’s where I’m located and currently limited to. I find most of my corals at the beach at Kentucky Dam. So where else should I lool? Creeks, cornfields, etc.? And what do I look for? I have a basic understanding but not really at the same time. And lastly I would love to find arthropods. That is my passion and fossilized arthropods are my favorite. So like trilobites, where can I find those? Anyone have any locations? Any help is greatly appreciated

Hi gang, I'm working fervently to prepare a post about the astounding time I had at Fossil Mountain in Utah during my fossil run back in July. (Will take me months to process and identify all these samples from four states.) I found a few partial trilobites at the upper layer of the Lehman formation, but I'm having difficulty identifying them. I freely admit I'm exceedingly weak at trilobites ID. these aren't the best pictures or even the best specimens, but I was there solo and the scree around the cliffs was pretty unstable so I erred in the side of caution. Anyway, Any suggestions much appreciated. I'll post better pictures tomorrow when I get my camera back off of my microscope at work.

As my life in college is imminent (I head to Milledgeville Thursday), I wanted to fit in one last pre-college trip to my favorite bug spot (An idea that was really given life when I heard about a Schwimmer paper that got into PALAIOS about what may be the oldest nesting behavior ever discovered (https://www.georgiasfossils.com/new-2b-a-trilobite-nest-in-georgia.html)). I can say with confidence that yesterday scored in the upper tier of my trip list to the site. I arrived later in the day than I usually would (got there around 6:00 or something), and the river was once again quite low. As a matter of fact, I think it was as low today as I've ever seen it: I went to work right away splitting some slabs from one of the lower layers that seems to give me the best results, and before long, I was getting quality split after quality split. By the end of my relatively brief 1 hour stay, I had quite a few nice pieces to take with me: Cont.

Hey everyone! It’s been a crazy busy June, July and beginning of August for me! I just finished moving into my house and I just got married on August 9th so my life has been a tornado. As a result I haven’t been able to comment, participate and keep up with all you fine folks on the forum like I usually do. I was still able to get out collecting here and there and I met up with fellow forum member @DrDave and did some exploring for the lower Devonian eurypterid Erieopterus. I won’t report on that until I have something to share. I think me and Dave found the right horizon now I just gotta search till I find something. Anyway I’m just gonna share the highlights from 3 trips to Briggs rd and 3 trips to DSR and a bonus day at Penn Dixie. Ill do the highlights from Trips on 6/30 7/06 and 7/28 to Briggs rd first. I found some pretty important specimens. Briggs rd is a very interesting site and you can find 3 different species of trilobites here. The Eldredgeops is the most common by far but the greenops and dipleura have made some appearances. This has got to be my most impressive greenops in a long time. This is actually a complete specimen!! The pygidium is tucked underneath. I have the right eye safe in a small ziplock bag. It came off in the counterpart and I saved it to try and glue back when I get the nerve. here’s a picture of the back. I have the counterpart for the pygidium and I’ll need to glue and prep if I want it perfect. Some of the material is attached to the counterpart. Im really excited about this specimen because the quality is good enough to compare with the greenops from DSR and Buffalo area. These eastern New York greenops are considered an undescribed species so I’m glad I have something quality I can use to really eye out the differences. After @Darktooth and his rock club went to Briggs I happened to be there the next day and found this awesome half specimen of a large dipleura! When I got there I found the body segments in 2 pieces and they looked like they went together. After awhile I came across the counterpart in rubble and realized “where is the cephalon?!” I went nuts looking for it with no luck then decided to try and pry a pieces of the wall off and BOOM! The cephalon was still in the outcrop lol. Super lucky. This was my best dipleura from Briggs so far. I’ve found some nice partials but this is the best I’ve found so far. @DrDave was kind enough to gift me this perfect un weathered cephalon. This specimen came from very fresh rock and is nearly perfect. I told Dave I’ve been trying to collect some quality cephalons from Briggs for comparison. I’ve noticed most specimens are usually missing a well preserved exoskeleton. This makes it hard to really compare with the western New York Eldredgeops that grow much much smaller. It’s interesting to me that the greenops are considered a different species and the Eldredgeops are not as you go east across New York State. I’m not here claiming everything is a new species only pointing out the discrepancies in species distribution across the state. Somehow the greenops change species as you go east while the Eldredgeops rana stays the same across the state. It’s not like the Eldredgeops from the east and west are identical either. The eastern New York Eldredgeops can grow to 3 inches! Just food for thought. I think about weird stuff like this a lot ha. anyway...here’s a close up of the undamaged cephalon. A tiny amount of with with an air abrasive and the eye detail will be perfect. here’s and example of a typical Briggs rd cephalon. The eye lenses are very 3D and preserve well even when the exoskeleton is weathered away. It’s hard getting a fresh specimen. just a couple nice cephalopods courtesy of Briggs rd. I love trilobites but I appreciate a quality cephalopod should a complete on present itself lol. Next is DSR highlights! Phyllocarids on the menu

Hi all, My girlfriend and I are planning a trip to New York State sometime in September, and although her main motive might be shopping, mine is - you guessed it - fossils! Does anyone know of a place on could find Olenellus or Elliptocephala in New York? I know they can be found around Albany, but I can't find any obvious outcrops... Aside from where to find Lower Cambrian trilobites, any other suggestions regarding great fossil outcrops in eastern New York are much appreciated! Cheers, Marc

I bought this morrocco Trilobite from an antique shop recently, and I have had a tough time identifying it. I believe the cephalon might be broken, so that complicates matters. Any help would be appreciated.

I have just returned from my first visit to a new fossil locality in the Northern Territory, central Australia. The location is around 400km north-east of Alice Springs along some rough dirt roads and once reached, runs for about 10km along the side of the road. When visiting the location today one finds themselves in the very center of Australia and a landscape of flat desert and scrub land, about as far from the sea as possible. In the middle Cambrian the site was very different and home to a vast shallow sea filled with ancient life. Arriving in the late afternoon we set up camp and got prepared for the morning of fossil hunting ahead. I had read about the fossil location from a small local out of print fossicking guide from the 1980's. That lead me to read some of the work done by John R. Laurie who has some papers published online detailing the formation and it's biostratigraphy. We managed to find some good examples of Xystridurid trilobites and stromatolites, all found within a red/white siltstone. There were also a smaller species of Agnostid trilobite, but we found many less of these. Below are some quick images I took of some of the finds, many more yet to properly examine. Also we have some larger slabs of siltstone which we plan to work on. Trip Image Album: The fossil site is found in the location below https://www.google.com/maps/place/21%C2%B042'53.0%22S+135%C2%B039'38.9%22E/@-21.71473,135.66081,1873m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-21.71473!4d135.66081 In the publication below, NTGS Elk 3 bore samples refer to the location visited. Great trip! Very pleased with the finds and learning more about the geological history of central Australia.

I’m going to U-Dig, the surrounding area and Cowboy pass in Utah Late September. Let me know if you’d like to go. This is some of what I’ve found there but I have found so much more.

Last week, I made some incredible trips with my kids to the middle Cambrian U-Dig site, the Fossil Lake lagerstatte in Wyoming, and a muddy, rained-out attempt at the Late Cretaceous in Colorado. This was our first time visiting all of these sites - such amazing times! Here are some pics starting with Utah. My best find, a triple carcass Elrathia kingii Fossil Lake, first started splitting slabs in the Green River formation. This is where we were working. A large plate with three Knightias and a Diplomystus. Later we cut the plate down so could transport home. 18 Inch Layer: My son made the best discoveries at the 18 Inch Layer: a fly and a bee Bee under magnification. Incredible preservation detail! Some fish under scope We made it to the Cretaceous locality but it began raining. You can see the storm clouds approaching on the left. The roads were too muddy to continue and we were running out of time as we had a plane to catch unfortunately...another time perhaps! A beautiful drive. When we returned home it appeared the TSA searched my checked luggage! Luckily nothing was missing or destroyed. Thanks for reading.

Tim (Fossildude19) and I got together Monday the 1st for the third time this year to head up to Central New York, an over three and a half hour trip from Southeastern New York where I live. The weather was bright, sunny, and warm in sharp contrast with our last trip there in early May for the TFF gathering when it was cold and raining. Instead of going straight to Deep Springs Road Quarry, both our favorite collecting site, we decided to stop first at Briggs Road Quarry, a somewhat smaller quarry with a slightly older Middle Devonian marine fauna- the Upper Ludlowville Formation. Some excellent fossils have been found there recently and Tim and I decided we would try our luck. As typical of my experiences there we found a large number of partial Eldredgeops trilobites. I believe Tim found one complete roller. I brought this one piece back with a few partials. However, my best find there was this phyllocarid; Echinocaris punctata, the first phyllocarid I ever found at Briggs Road.

Hello gang, As promised this is where I will share specimens from my personal collection, my grandfather's collection, and the collection that was donated to the university I work for. The latter is interesting as it is literally boxes of rock and fossils, with no information and my university does not have a geology or paleontology department. I'll be updating it every so often. Enjoy! NOTE: Some of the donated items have old school "labels" on them. If you see initials or such that you recognize, please PM me, as I am doing my best to properly catalog them properly as part of my job!

Hey everyone, This past weekend I was out in Buffalo, NY for my bachelor weekend. My brother planned a fun fishing/hiking/fossil weekend at an air b&b on Lake Erie in wanakah. We had the house from May 30th to June 3rd. Buffalo is like my Mecca. I need to go there at least once a year and get back to my roots where I first starting being fossil crazy. I did some form of fossil hunting every day. I came out to buffalo early and stayed late to get extra time in! One major highlight from the weekend would be 3 pygidiums and a cephalon w/ 3 body segments of the rare pseudodechenella rowi trilobite!!! I also found some top notch big brachs!!! Heres general list of what I did. Thursday 5/30 -type locality of wanakah shale (lake shore) -smokes creek, Buffalo (wanakah shale) Friday 5/31 -fished bear lake. Caught 7 bass -Hamburg beach surface collecting Saturday 6/1 -Penn Dixie Sunday 6/2 -18 mile creek highland on the lake (big bust, water levels) smokes creek, buffalo (revisit wanakah, hiked all the way to windom shale) Monday 6/3 -Smokes creek, West Seneca (wanakah shale) -Francis rd, Bethany Ny railroad cut (big bust, now posted trespassing). Went on the way home. -purchased a few Eurypterids from a friend in Rochester. -Got back to Utica New York 8pm. I can’t show every single thing I found cause I took a lot of material with me. I did however find a lot of amazing stuff!! I’ll break up the findings by each day. I’ll mention locality and if it’s from the wanakah or windom shale. I’ll show the best stuff (still lots!!) and spare everyone the extras haha..... Bear with me. I’ll be uploading pictures in chunks throughout the day. Thats everything. Looking at each column from left to right. 1. Wanakah shale type locality 5/30. 2. Smokes creek (wanakah) 5/30 3. Hamburg beach 5/21 4. Penn Dixie 6/01 5. 18 mile creek (lake shore), smokes creek (wanakah, windom) 6/02 6. Smokes creek, West Seneca (wanakah), Francis rd, Bethany (2 small specimens). Ill upload the highlights and extra details later today. Stay tuned!

hafa adai, I'd really like to buy one or two of those detailed trilobites with spines, appendages and all, either Russian or Moroccan. I see prices all over the map, and have observed a few really bad fakes. I'm sure that there are also a lot of really good fakes (hence the wild price differences). Can anyone recommend a checklist/things to look for and/or a reputable dealer (preferably one that doesn't charge mortgage-level prices)? I don't want to keep bothering folks with repeated queries of Is this one good?" "How about this one?" I've read a number of posts in this form, and they tend to refer to individual specimens. I"m looking more for something that I can save to my HD and refer to while I"m shopping online. thank you in advance, hemi

The Confusion Range and the House Range sit in Western Utah. The House Range is farther east closer to Delta, Utah than the Confusion Range. Parts of the Confusion Range are basically on the Utah-Nevada border. Both mountain ranges though have spectacular fossils. The House Range is basically all unfaulted Cambrian age layers and fossils pop up in several of the rock layers there. The Confusion Range, though, is broken up by many faults and everything from the Cambrian to the Triassic is present. Here's a short stratigraphy section marked with the layers we visited. We went to three different sites. A Cambrian site next to U-Dig fossils to sample the Cambrian explosion, and Ordivician site at Fossil Mountain (what better place to find fossils then a mountain named "fossil" mountain) to sample the Great Ordivician Biodiversification Event, and finally a time where 90% of all marine was wiped out, the Permian Period and the Gerster Limestone.

Fossil hunt at St Leon Indiana today. One inch square for scale. 8 Flexicalymene. One so small I can't even believe I saw it. Some mini brachiopods, some small horn coral and some gastropods.

Hey everyone, I'm touring colleges in Ohio from tomorrow to Tuesday and I wanted to know if there would be any opportunities to go fossil hunting in areas nearby the colleges I'm looking at. I'll be touring them in this order- -Wittenburg University in Springfield, OH -Denison University in Granville, OH -Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, OH -The College of Wooster in Wooster, OH Let me know if there are any good sites that would be accessible in these areas. Thanks, PN

It was a planned family get together at my sister's ranch in Kentucky to celebrate my father's 90th birthday. I was travelling from Southeastern New York by car. Made it to Harrison, Ohio the first day, right on the border with Indiana. Next morning, weather was pleasant and I was out to the famous St. Leon road cut, a place that I've wanted to visit for years. Finally made it there. Spent the entire day. Despite the site's fame, didn't see another collector and except for one brief shower the weather was perfect though a little on the warm side. I explored the entire exposure though the best was just below one of the terraces where the brachiopods and corals were weathering out of the shale complete.

Last year I got a call from my friend Gary. I have collected with him a few times and I have volunteered to help him with educational activities that he runs for middle and high schoolers many times over the years. He was wondering if I could go on a paid dig with him to a quarry near Rome, NY famous for triarthrus trilobites with soft tissues preserved. The deal was we each pay a fixed price, but we get to keep up to five trilobites each. Prepping could be provided for an additional fee. Other fossils we find were free to keep, but the dig owner reserved the right to keep exceptionally large or rare finds. After finding out more about the quarry and realizing it was home to the "gold bugs" I committed to go. It took about 3 or 4 months before Gary, the quarry owner and I finally were able to coordinate an open date to go, but that just made the anticipation build even more. We drove the 260 miles and met up in a pre-arranged parking lot. The quarry owner is a famous fossil hunter and now makes his living purely finding, prepping, buying and selling fossils. Despite that he has donated many prize fossils to museums and universities including new species and has been included on several academic papers such as this one. We'll call him Mr. M. (M for mysterious) We got to the quarry and unloaded our tools. Mr. M was a fountain of information about trilobites. The history of the quarry is fascinating all by itself as well. A quick Google of Beecher's trilobite beds will give you plenty of additional data about the place and the history behind it. This is the section that Walcott dug in before he later discovered the Burgess Shale. So, after a quick geology lesson we got to work. Gary found a beautiful example within 5 Minutes of starting, and he was up to about 4 before I found my first one 3 hour later. But I had paid the blood price to the fossil gods with the sharp shale. So I was rewarded with trilobites!!! I have a lot more to show, but it will have to wait for later.

You know I'm feeling better when I'm hitting me auction sites again. Just picked up this nice I will death plate with about 14 Orygmaspis spinula trilobites and a couple Kendallina sp. Late Cambrian. Canada. McKay Group Formation British Columbia The trilobites are mostly 1/4 inch. The matrix is 2 1/2 inch by 3 1/2 inch. I'm not sure what it is but I usually prefer multideath plates of trilobites vs single trilobites. I don't always buy on that way because multi displace always cost more.

Hi. i recently purchased the “little pile of stuff” in the for sale section. And as I was looking over the slab I’m finding “heads” off of 5 trilobites (you can see one on upper right corner of the picture) and I’m getting more and more excited when I notice a discoloration on the side. So I carefully split it there. At first I’m thinking “oh cool! A leaf!” But as I’m looking at it I notice the strange structures right at the edge..now I’m not so sure anymore. What the heck did I luck into?

Hey TFF Members! I was able to do something very different from the normal Florida fossil hunting the other day. On the way up to Michigan for my Mother's wedding I stopped in Northern GA to hunt for Trilobites! I was saying the age wrong throughout the video, I thought they were Devonian. But turns out they are actually Camrian... even better! Hope you can check out the video when you get a chance. I had an amazing time doing this!

Hello all, I recently saw a whole lot of collections on this forum, and they were all beautifel. Now I cleaned up my room (what's a hell of a task to me, I spended 8 hours) and I deceided to take pictures of the nicest part of my fossil and mineral collection. It's by far not as nice as most members here, but I still have decades to get a nice collection . It's a bunch of everything older then the cenozoicum, because I find it hard to choose what group of fossils I want to collect, trilobites or dinosaurs/ reptiles. Dinosaurs are pretty hard to get here without paying high import and shipping costs. So let's start then. The trilobites are the firsts. Selenopeltis longispinus. Upper: Flexicalymene ouzregui 2 X Elrathia kingi Flexicalymene ouzregui Lower: Minicryphaeus sarirus Cyphaspis agayuara Crotalocephalina gibbus Upper: Cyphaspis walteri Boeckops boecki Combination of Cyphaspis sp., a very tiny kettneraspis sp. and two phacops sp. Coltraneia oufatenensis Lower: Kettneraspis pigra Cornuproetus sp. Gerastos tuberculatus Stapeleyella inconstans Trinueleus fimbriatus Elrathia kingi Phacops latifrons Foulonia sp. Right upper corner: Phacops sp. with bite mark A whole block with partials of Stenarocalymene celebra (I don't find much about this species so I'm still not 100 % sure if this is correct) and a ventral prepped Ogygiocarella debuchi The personal high-light of my trilobites (pictures don't do it justice). A Kettneraspis williamsi with a couple of free-standing spines. Personally the best I have ever seen. So far my trilobites. Next my Khouribga fossils: Lytoloma elegans ( a bit of restoration but most is real) A roothed Mosasaurus globidens tooth. Enchodus fang (there is a jaw in the stone also) Pretty big Mosasaurus sp. tooth Two verts of Otodus obliquus. Partial Mosasaurus globidens jaw Mosasaurus sp. partial jaw. 3 Weltonia ancistrodon teeth Otodus obliquus tooth Roothed Prognathodon tooth a box with misc fossils from Khouribga My two only teeth that are not from Morocco or Europe Denversaurus schlessmani Indet. Croc from Patagonia More to follow

Hey! This might be the wrong thread/topic but here it goes. I recently started collecting different species of trilobites. It would have been interesting to see what species others have collected and whether you can refer to some species in a medium price range that is worth collecting. I have a desire to compile a list for myself with different species that I can follow. Someone who has / knows about fine trilobites that are worth collecting? These are the species I have collected so far: - Flexicalymene sp (morocco) - Flexicalymene retrorsa - Coltraneia oufatensis - Hollardops mesocristata - Hollardops sp. - Ductina vietnamica - Elrathia kingi - Different phacops sp. - andalusiana cambropallas - Some unidentified species (will be posting pictures, some of you probably know) Thanks!

Okay, so everyone else is doing one it looks like, so I figured I would jump into the fray.