Search the Community

Hi everybody. I live in Wisconsin and primarily collect dinosaur fossils (which unfortunately I can’t find in Wisconsin) but I have recently really been having the urge to search for fossils myself so I’m wondering if anyone has info on Wisconsin fossils. I know there is a spot in Waukesha where some unusual fossils were found and a spot near platville where some great trilobites are found. Does anyone know how to get access to collect at these types of sites or any other good options? Also just out of curiosity, is Wisconsin a rarely collected state which could leave many potential new things to find?

Just now getting through some camera rolls and specimen photo-taking of a two week trip in May. I covered about 2000 miles across Ontario and Quebec, and this is a sample of what I saw and/or collected. I won't be mentioning any specific sites, so I'll just number them. Site 1: Pleurocystites Pleurocystites close-up A crappy Calyptaulax Possibly a Flexicalymene senaria, disarticulated impression. Leaverite. A busted, incomplete cheirurid. Leaverite. Large Isotelus gigas cheek. (Also leaverite ) Looking very carefully, just about complete and really smashed Isotelus gigas. The chisel tip is an inch wide, so the trilobite is about 5.5 inches. Not worth taking home, either. This I did take home. Not sure if this will be a complete Bumastoides. A big Gabriceraurus. The head is there, but smashed in. A c-grade bug.

I am looking for Dinosaur material I don't have of good quality. For now I have two items I am looking to trade let me know if you are interested.

For some time, I have been wanting to check out some of the lesser known formations that exist in my local area. The Devonian Mahantango Formation and the Needmore Shale are undoubtedly fun to explore and yield some beautifully preserved specimens - something that can be seen in a number of posts on this forum - but I still had the itch to collect from something a bit more obscure. That opportunity presented itself in the Ordovician limestones that expose intermittently in western northern Virginia. A small body of literature exists describing these formations and analyzing their fauna, particularly the silicified trilobites they are best known for, but they do not seem to be nearly as thoroughly explored as nearby Devonian formations. Armed with my trusty Estwing, an overly chipped chisel, and the hope of uncovering some silicified trilobites, I headed over to one of the better known Ordovician exposures in the Virginia area. This particular exposure is quite large and unique due to the different formations it exposes. The road cut begins beside a small stream (in which limestones can also be found) and is composed of large, white largely unfossiliferous limestone. This limestone represents either the New Market Formation or the Lower Lincolnshire limestone. As one moves rightward along the exposure, the white limestones continue for some time before grading into significantly darker limestones. These, which are part of the Upper Lincolnshire limestone, have been interpreted to represent the Taconic orogeny which took place in the Appalachian region during the latter part of the Ordovician period. The dark Upper Lincolnshire continues for an appreciable distance as one travels right until it eventually transitions to the Edinburg limestone. The Edinburg limestone, which is composed of alternating beds of limestone and shale, also represents a period of rather intense deposition caused by erosion of the mountains that had formed during the Taconic orogeny. The Edinburg limestone at the exposure appears white to dusky grey due to weathering, but, interestingly enough, when it is chipped, the true jet black coloration of the limestone is revealed. The sequence continues past the bounds of the road cut that I explored, with an exposure of the Martinsburg Formation - which is yet younger than the Edinburg formation - exposing not far from the road cut. Here are a few pictures I took of the road cut. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to take more pictures, and I am not exactly sure as to the specific formations each photograph depicts. I briefly explored the Upper and Lower Lincolnshire limestones, but I did not find much with regards to fossil content. Most of my exploration was focused on the layers of the Edinburg limestone, which I had heard were the most productive with regards to silicified trilobites. Unfortunately, I do not believe that I recovered any silicified trilobites from the exposure. However, I did manage to find some silicified brachiopods in varying states of preservation and a number of other interesting fossils that I have not been able to identify. Now, let's delve into some of the finds . Brachiopod 1: Brachiopod 2: Brachiopod 3: Brachiopod 4: Brachiopod 5: Brachiopod 6: This particular brachiopod previously had more of the (silica?) coating, though I believe I inadvertently removed it by treating the specimen with concentrated vinegar. I would not want this to happen to any other specimens, but Brachiopod 3 and some of the others would certainly look very nice if some more of the limestone/mineral coating could be removed. Would there be a way to do this without physical preparation techniques (I do not possess the proper equipment for this and even if I did, I would be afraid of ruining the fragile specimens)? Brachiopod 7: This was one of the best preserved brachiopods that I found, which was quite ironic since it happened to be exposed to the elements right on the surface of the limestone. The photographs are not the best and I can certainly take more if they are needed. Brachiopod 8: Brachiopod 10: There were more brachiopods uncovered... but I think that is enough for one post. Now for some interesting microfossil hashplates that I decided to keep. Hash 1: Under the Microscope: Hash 2: Hash 4 Here I have included some photographs of some specimens that I have not been able to readily identify. Any help in identifying what organisms they are and even what genus/species they could be would be greatly appreciated! Below each one I have included a tentative guess as to what each fossil is. Unknown 1: I believe that this may be a weathered brachiopod viewed from the inside of the shell. Unknown 2: An interesting feature of the limestone or perhaps a preserve fragment of an arthropod/trilobite carapace? Unknown 3: I would guess that this piece would have the same origin as the specimen pictured directly above. Unknown 4: Same as the previous two unknowns? Unknown 5: One of the larger and more interesting specimens that I found at the exposure. I am not at all sure what it is, though I would guess that it might be part of a graptolite or bryozoan. I'd be very curious to hear what others think about this specimen in particular. Unknown 6: Not at all sure what this is. To me it looks like it is a fossil, but it could very well be a mineral stain of some sort. Unknown 7: Upon first cleaning this specimen I thought that it might be a very weathered brachiopod. However, after inspection under the microscope it seems to me that it might simply be a mineral deposit or a geological feature. Unknown 8: An interesting piece of detritus found on the plate containing Unknown 5. Unknown 9: I would imagine that this is either an encrusting bryozoan, a sponge, or a fragment of trilobite cephalon. Unknown 10: Unfortunately I do not have a larger, better picture of this specimen. I will try to take another photograph of this one. I do believe that this might be some sort of fenestrate bryozoan. Although most of the specimens were smaller than those I am used to collecting, I was glad to have some interesting mysteries and to have the Ordovician represented in my collection. All of the micro photographs that I took were taken using a Celestron Microcapture Pro Microscope, which has been working phenomenally to view even some of the smallest fossils. I hope that you enjoy reading this post and I want to extend my gratitude in advance to any who help with identification of the specimens! (Edit: Not sure why these photographs keep appearing at the bottom of the post. Does anyone know how to fix this?)

Last month my dad and I took a four-day weekend trip to Western New York to visit some new fossil sites and to collect in the famous Beecher's Trilobite Beds. We had only once before been out to Western New York to collect fossils - a visit to Penn Dixie Fossil Park - so this time around we wanted to try out some different places that we had never collected in before. The trip was a lot of fun and I enjoyed putting my research skills to work in finding new places to visit. I greatly expanded my collection of Silurian and Devonian fossils and found quite a few things on my fossil bucket list. I am excited to hopefully make another trip out there soon and fortunately still have my list of potential stops to make. Thursday On Thursday we woke early and made the 6.5 hour drive towards Western New York. In preparing for the trip I spoke with @fossilcrazy who was kind enough to invite my dad and me to collect from some of the spoils piles on his property from the various fossil collecting trips he has made. I was really excited to explore his pile of Linton Coal as I have very few fish in my collection and even fewer Pennsylvanian marine fossils - one of the consequences of living near Eastern Pennsylvania is that you end up visiting a lot of Late Pennsylvanian Llewellyn Formation plant sites. @fossilcrazy is an amazing fossil collector and an even more incredible member of the fossil collecting community. I cannot say enough about his generosity and hospitality. We were all hoping that my dad and I could find an amphibian or complete fish fossil, but no luck. We found a few isolated Orthacanthus teeth and head spines and some isolated coelacanth scales and bones. Fortunately @fossilcrazy kindly gifted me some representative pieces to add to my collection. These fossils are from the Middle Pennsylvanian Upper Freeport Coal from Linton, Ohio. I highly recommend checking out some of the posts @fossilcrazy has made about his finds from the Linton Coal. They are amazing! Rhabdoderma elegans Here are some close-ups of this beautiful coelacanth head and tail Haplolepis sp. Orthocanthus compressus Teeth and Head Spine Conchostracans Death Plate After visiting with @fossilcrazy we made our way into Buffalo to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House. My dad is an architect and he really wanted to see the newly restored interior of the house. It is really a quite stunning home.

Hello all, In my investigation of the fauna of the Devonian Mahantango Formation, I have become quite interested in the trilobite Dipleura dekayi. I have not yet had the opportunity to encounter this bug on the field, but it’s size and strange appearance have draw my interest. From the sources that I have read regarding the Mahantango and Hamilton Group formations in Pennsylvania and New York, I have noticed that trilobites with a very similar appearance have been referred to the separate genera Dipleura and Trimerus. In Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States, Jasper Burns seems to treat Dipleura and Trimerus as synonyms. However, Wikipedia (I am fully aware this is not the most reliable source) has separate pages for Dipleura dekayi and Trimerus dekayi. I have also heard more references to Trimerus when the specimens are found in the New York area and I vaguely remember a posting on the forum where the question of Dipleura vs. Trimerus was addressed but which post that was has escaped me. Here are the main questions that I have regarding this topic: 1.) Are Trimerus dekayi and Dipleura dekayi different valid trilobite species or are they synonyms? If they are synonyms, which would be the most proper to use? 2.) If Trimerus dekayi and Dipleura dekayi are two different valid species, how can they be differentiated? Does this depend on the region where the specimen was recovered? 3.) Are there other species of Trimerus present in the Mahantango Formation/Hamilton Group and how can they be identified and differentiated from Dipleura? Thank you in advance to all who view and comment on this post. I am very eager to learn more about Mahantango fauna and hopefully it will not be long before I find my first Dipleura/Trimerus in the field.

Hello y’all! On Sunday, my close friend@KompsFossilsNMinerals and I met up once again to do some collecting at La Familia quarry in search of some good trilobites, and as always, we didn’t leave empty handed! We hit a few different sections of the strata, and we managed to have some level of success at every spot we worked.

Hello, welcome to my report of this last week fossil hunting in Morocco. I have been this last week in Morocco going to different localities looking for fossils. As I have never done fossil hunting before in morocco, I contacted with Mohand Ihmadi from Ihmadi Trilobites Centre, a local geologist that does fossil hunting tours. I talked to him about all the localities that I would like to visit and we planned a route together. If you ever want to do some fossil hunting in Morocco, I have to recommend getting in touch with Mohand, if you search for him or the center in google, the contact information will appear. I will try to divide this fossil hunting in the main 4 areas that we hunted: KEM KEM BEDS This location is near the dunes, and going there you will have beautiful views. Once you arrive there, you will start seeing the typical Kem Kem colors. First you can try to find microfossils filtering the sand. We also found some workers there, and they let us visit the caves they make to arrive to the layer where they find the fossils. Here is me and my dad in front of the cave entrance. And here more photos inside the cave: In Kem Kem it's very difficult to find the stuff you see online so the normal thing is to find some micro fossils or chunks. This is what we found in and hour or so: Probably if you search harder and during more time, you can find more stuff, but we were more casual about this. And obviously, you can also try to buy the stuff the workers have found. ORDOVICIAN LOCALITY FOR CALYMENE Another locality we visited, was a trilobite locality. A ordovician Locality. Here, with heavy machinery, they extract the first useless layer, and then you can start to manually search for the trilobites. Here, we found several as it's pretty easy. One of them is this next photo: DEVONIAN TRILOBITE LOCATION The other trilobite location was a devonian one. There you can find phacops sp. pretty easily and if you are lucky some other species. Here is the typical limestone where you have to break them, find the trilobite, glued back and prepared it. After this, we went to Mohand workshop and he teached me how to prepare them: We were lucky and found a Paralejurus spatuliformis that he is preparing for me and will send to me. OUED ZEM FORMATION The last stop was the Oued Zem formation. It's the formation where we found most fossils, and it's easy to work with the hammer and find it. It's near the phosphates exploitation ground. And here some of what we found: We visited some more places, but this were the main ones. In conclusion it was an amazing experience and Mohand was the best guide we could have asked for. If you are planning a similar trip to Morocco and have some doubts or questions don't hesitate to ask. And just as an extra. As we all know, all the Moroccan material has a reputation of being restored, composited and altered. And while that is sometimes true, after visiting this places and talking to the diggers there, I bought some pieces from them, without the intermediaries, and they were really honest about what reparations or things they did to the piece. So my conclusion is that a lot of times the international dealers are the ones buying pieces without caring about the state of this ones because a composited/restored piece will be cheaper and they think it will sell at the same price and will make more profit.

Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: 500 million-year-old Grand Canyon rock layer finally gets a name. UNLV geologists name ancient rock layer after Las Vegas mountain that contains similar strata; research published in the journal Geosphere. New Study Links Geologic Features of Las Vegas’ Frenchman Mountain with Grand Canyon. Las Vegas Valley rock layer matches that of a famous interval of rocks at the Grand Canyon; findings reported in the Journal Geology. University of Nevada at Las Vegas, May 1 , 2020 The open access paper is: Rowland, S.M., Korolev, S., Hagadorn, J.W. and Ghosh, K., 2023. Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: A new formation of the Cambrian Tonto Group, Grand Canyon and Basin and Range, USA. Geosphere. Supplemental Material: Frenchman Mountain Dolostone: A new formation of the Cambrian Tonto Group, Grand Canyon and Basin and Range, USA, Geological Society of America Another paper is: Karlstrom, K.E., Mohr, M.T., Schmitz, M.D., Sundberg, F.A., Rowland, S.M., Blakey, R., Foster, J.R., Crossey, L.J., Dehler, C.M. and Hagadorn, J.W., 2020. Redefining the Tonto Group of Grand Canyon and recalibrating the Cambrian time scale. Geology, 48(5), pp.425-430. Related papers: Rowland, S.M., 2022, Geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens, southern Nevada, USA, in Jiang, G.Q., and Dehler, C., eds., Field Excursions from Las Vegas, Nevada: Guides to the 2022 GSA Cordilleran and Rocky Mountain Joint Section Meeting: Geological Society of America Field Guide 63, p. 23– 43. Rowland, S.M., 1987, Paleozoic stratigraphy of Frenchman Mountain, Clark County, Nevada, in Hill, M.L., ed., Cordilleran Section of the Geological Society of America: Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide 1, p. 53– 56. Hollingsworth, J.S., Sundberg, F.A. and Foster, J.R., 2011. Cambrian stratigraphy and paleontology of Northern Arizona and Southern Nevada. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin, 67, pp.1-321. PDFs of more trilobite papers. Videos Wild Speaker Series: The Amazing Geology of Frenchman Mountain and Rainbow Gardens. Friends Of Nevada Wilderness Frenchman Mountain Loop | Bordering Lake Mead National Nevada Trilobites, Frenchman Mountain Yours, Paul H.

After scouting some Kinzers spots with @Dean Ruocco , we found ourselves in rock with some beautiful Cambrian bugs. Not nearly all…but some highlights in order 1. Olenllous Getzi (Cephalon) 2. Olenllous Sp. (full bug) 3. Wanneria Walcottana (Thorax/pygdium)

hi! i recently acquired some trilobites with the intention of sending them off to be prepared professionally. however i would also like to start prepping myself and thought this might be a good opportunity. i’m a student and don’t have the biggest funds so was looking at the Dremel 290 engraver with the zoic palaeotech fossil prep bits. this with ppe is about £54 which is great for me. these are the specimens i would like to prepare: the main advice i wanted was should i stick to going the professional route on these guys or trying it myself. i’ve heard that very fine detail is hard to get without an air abrasive tool which i cannot get, anyone able to give their advice is welcome!!

Hi people, First of all, I love everything related to fossils and the fact of collecting them. I got these three Trilobite fossils from a reputable seller some time ago and I want to know if they're real or not. They presents cracks on the matrix that extends to the fossil I think. Here are some photos: Fossil 1: Fossil 2: Fossil 3: Thanks for your time and I hope you have a great week!

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to get back to the Silurian site were I found a complete Dalmanites last month. I met up with @Jeffrey P, @Scylla and his son Grant, as well as their friend Chris who is a member of the New York Paleontological Society. I met up with them around 8:30am. They had gotten there about a half hour or so before me and were already finding things. I spent more time exploring the site then I did the last time as the fossil exposure covers a very large area. I would check out various spots, and it took awhile before I found a good spot to get settled in and do some serious digging. I won't bore you with all the trivial details, but there were plenty of fossils found by all. Brachiopods, bivalves, small horn corals, trilobites, ang even a sponge. I was very surprised by the sponge, which according to Jeff and Gus are rare finds. I actually thought that it was a small concretion and was ready to toss it, but then something caught my eye. There was a small piece broken of the sponge that showed the internal structure. Once I saw that I knew it had to be something and Gus confirmed that it was a sponge. Then a noticed a pattern under the thin film of dirt on the surface. So I was happy. It was only about 36° out but after awhile of digging I ended up removing my jacket as I was getting too warm.( I always dress with many layers in the colder months.) So I set my jacket next to my bucket of tools and moved away a bit. Sometimes later I was talking to Gus when the wind picked up and blew my jacket into the Canal. It was too far out to retrieve it went to the other side. Thank goodness I didn't have anything important in the pockets like my keys or phone. Then a while later Chris had the wind blow his bucket in the water twice. Anyhow, it was really great meeting up with everyone and I had a good time. I will post some pics of my finds and I hope Jeff and Gus will share their finds when they get the time. Sorry not all of the fossils have been cleaned up yet. Pic#1 Sponge 2 Sponge 3 Trimerus pygidium The rest are all Dalmanites partials.

Greetings to everyone. I am trying to decide for a nicely preserved and prepared morocops. I found these two that seem to have a lot of detail on the cephalon. The first one seems to have nicely preserved eyes and the pores (don't know if it's the correct naming for the small dots) seem much more pointy. On the other hand the second one I just like it, I don't know why but I think I prefer it esthetically more. So I want some personal opinions to decide and choose between those two. Thank you all.

G'day TFF, I thought i'd share with you all the results of my recent trilobite hunting trip in country NSW, Australia. This is only the second time i have been able to collect trilobites and i am very pleased with the results! My family and i went out to a spot near Forbes that is part of the Silurian-aged Cotton Formation. The rocks are marine and date back about 435 million years old! It's crazy to think that at the time these animals were alive in the sea, there was very little life yet on land at all! The most common find here is the trilobite Odontopleura markhami, but you can also find graptolites and rare brachiopods and gastropods. We got to the site around about 11 am and quickly started splitting as many rocks as we could looking for the trilobites, and after being there for only about a minute i managed to split a beautiful near-complete Odontopleura markhami with both the positive and negative sides. It was only about the second or third rock i cracked open too! For the next few hours my family and i continued to whack away at the rocks and we managed to find at least 5 other complete trilobites during that time, in addition to lots and lots of disarticulated body parts (isolated heads, tails, sections of thorax etc). Mum and i got the best examples, but it really does tend to come down to luck (and persistence)! It was a great little trip and the specimens below are already proudly displayed in one of my bedroom glass cabinets. Now for the pictures! The Location: The Days Best Finds (complete or near-complete trilobites only) First of all i thought i'd include a picture of what the seafloor might have looked like in this part of Australia 435 million years ago. This was the Odontopleura markhami i found barely a minute after arriving at the site! My other favourite example that i found I love this Odontopleura markhami that mum found! The detail of the spines is amazing! Other great examples. All are again Odontopleura markhami. Thanks for checking this report out and happy hunting to all! Cheers, Nathan

Hi! My friends and I are part of our Universities geology club and we were hoping to plan a spring break day trip to look for some trilobites. We go to Binghamton University in the southern Tier. I've been to the site in Tully NY behind the hotel and gas station and found some great partials (especially of greenops), but this time around we were hoping to find some more complete fossils. We've heard that there are some good places to look in Madison County, and also in Little Falls, but were hoping for advice on the best spots to look that are also public property to collect on. Sites closer to Binghamton would also be great, but I figured I'd ask about the one's we've heard of so far. A few of us have also been out o Buffalo to find fossils at places like Penn Dixie but the Buffalo region is probably too far for this trip. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you! Here's a picture of my favorite trilobite find from Tully