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I got a nice delivery of shale from udig for Christmas, i've just been in the freezing cold splitting and having fun. Here are my finds. I'll post better and more clear pictures when they dry. I washed them and put them infront of the radiator to dry, is that a good thing?

I found what appears to be a small (1 cm) ammonite in Green River, Utah back in 1993. Anyone have any idea what genus it is? I don't know the geologic horizon I found it in but looking at a geologic map of the San Rafael desert, it's probably Cretaceous. I do remember it's from the East bank of the Green River, near the Old Highway Elgin Road. Matrix appears to be limestone if that helps (reacts vigorously to acid). Thanks for the help.

I found a few lists of trilobite species from Utah, but am having trouble finding any information on telling the Agnostid species apart. Looking for some sort of papers, book, illustrations, pictures or something that can help me make sense of the differences between, say, Baltagnostus eurypyx, Itagnostus interstricta, Peronopsis interstricta, and etc. Thanks!

Had an awesome day digging at U-Dig with @FossilSloth So the hound and the sloth hung out today and we pounded rocks from sun up to sun down. I found the largest Asaphiscus wheeleri I've ever seen and Justin scored a good number of Elrathia kingii. The find of the day a was massive Asaphiscus wheeleri. The trunk is full of Utah trilobites to prep this winter. Had an awesome day. Exhausted yet determined to find some more. The U-Dig season closes soon and I already miss this place. Justin and I holding up some of our finds. It's always fun meeting up with another forum member. Justin hauled off seven buckets full of trilobites, sponges, and brachiopods! One of Justin's buckets. I see an Elrathia kingii multiplate! Another Elrathia kingii awaiting preparation. Really going to miss this place. Sunset over the ancient sea ways. Up close of the day maker. Another angle. I'll post more trilobites as I prep them out. Found a myriad of Perenopsis and will post those later. The site manager showed us a secret spot full of them. Here is a video of all the neat trilobites we found in between one of the Shale slabs: That's all for now folks!

Think this is a tooth fragment. Found in the Rico Formation near Potash, UT which is just outside of Moab, UT. 1 1/4" x 1/2".

Nearly complete tyrannosaur fossil airlifted from Utah’s Grand Staircase. Specimen of T. rex-like Teratophoneus curriei dinosaur is heading to Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City for study and possible display. Salt Lake tribune, October 15, 2017 http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/10/15/nearly-complete-tyrannosaur-fossil-airlifted-from-utahs-grand-staircase/ Teratophoneus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratophoneus Related paper: Loewen, M.A., Irmis, R.B., Sertich, J.J., Currie, P.J. and Sampson, S.D., 2013. Tyrant dinosaur evolution tracks the rise and fall of Late Cretaceous oceans. PloS one, 8(11), p.e79420. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0079420 Yours, Paul H.

This was sent to me in a sort of starter pack of fossils from the United States about 40 years ago. It doesn't look like any algae or stromatolites I have seen from this site. Any ideas anyone? More pics to follow.

When our Plan A was killed we had to go to Plan B. Plan A was to visit a couple of old mines and sample the mine dumps for pyrite crystals and to try my hand at gold panning some of the tailings a little. This couldn't happen as there was some sort of bike race going up and down the canyon the mines were at the top of. Not wanting to waste the drive over there, we decided to visit the nearby limestone outcrops and viola! Pentacrinus crinoids! More pics

The apparent demise of the best California, Utah and Nevada area paleontology website is premature. Inyo.coffeecup.com (created by a former TFF member) is up and running. Check out his great write ups with pictures about trips to many sites many now under protection by state and Federal governments. http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/cf/carfieldtrip.html#fossilspages Download his fieldtrip guide: http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/fieldtripbook.pdf Here are two of my favorites sites: Red Rock Canyon State Park in the California Mohave desert http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/redrock/redrockfossils.html and see the magnificent silicified insects from the Miocene lake deposits near Barstow, CA http://inyo.coffeecup.com/site/barstowfossils/barstowfossils.html Thanks to TFF member @John for alerting us that his wonderful website was down. In a related matter, I would hate to see Inyo.coffeecup.com dissapear if the creator is incapacitated or runs out of money to support the site. Besides The Internet Archive AKA The Wayback Machine, I wonder if any institutions would be willing to archive a version for posterity. Books are archived in libraries; where should websites be saved? I wonder if The Fossil Forum would be willing to archeive copies of significant paleontology websites. Have we made plans to carry on and archive The Fossil Forum in case disaster strikes? Maybe geology libraries and paleontology departments at colleges/universities should store and archeive quality paleontological websites. Sometimes quality websites such as Mindat.org (minerals and occasion fossils) find institutions to preserve and support their continued operations. Mindat has Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Has The Fossil Forum ever considered forming a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization to support our activities or finding an institution to partner with? As an added bonus donations to TFF would be tax deductable. Cheers, John

Dinosaur dung reveals giant plant-eaters ate meat By Ben Guarino, Washington Post, Sept. 22, 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/09/22/dinosaur-dung-reveals-giant-plant-eaters-ate-meat/ 'Vegetarian' Dinos Made Exception for Shellfish, Poop Study Shows By Laura Geggel, September 21, 2017 https://www.livescience.com/60470-poop-reveals-vegetarian-dinosaurs-ate-shellfish.html The open access paper is: Chin, Karen, Rodney M. Feldmann and Jessica N. Tashman, 2017, Consumption of crustaceans by megaherbivorous dinosaurs: dietary flexibility and dinosaur life history strategies Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 11163(2017) doi:10.1038/s41598-017-11538-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-11538-w Yours, Paul H.

I purchased this bone fragment at a fossil show. It's from the Morrison formation of Utah. I suspect it's theropod, most likely Allosaurus because of its hollow nature but I just wanted to get other opinions on it. Thanks everyone!

Here is a paradox that was found at U-DIG while searching for trilobites. At first I thought pelecypod but as I started prepping I didn't find a shell. Instead I found it full of small cubes. I didn't take a pre-prep photo but I stopped prepping so you can see the shape and the gray surface. The white cube is one centimeter. Second photo.

Hello, Im traveling from Argentina to photograph the national parks in Utah and tge Grand Canyon and petrified national park. Can someone tell me where I can find some fossiles( obviosly out of nat parks), or soneone who can guide us to fossile sites? Thanks.

I got back last week from a two week collecting trip in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming with my wife and our two friends Bill and Jean. In addition to collecting, sunstones, topaz, agates and fluorescent minerals we collected Cambrian,Silurian, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Eocene fossils. We collected trilobites outside Delta, Utah and Liberty, Idaho, Marine fossils in Emigration and Riley Canyons in Utah and fossil fish in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The results of the trip was 15 boxes shipped home and many hours of preparation ahead of me. My friends came away with 13 boxes of fossils. If anyone wants tips for successful shipping of fossils please PM me as I learned a lot shipping with both USPS and UPS. Perhaps a post about shipping might be valuable. Photots from the trip will be posted at the end. Our first fossil excursion was to U-Dig quarry. Within ten minutes of arriving my friend Bill found a beautiful Asaphiscus wheeleri molt. That was the start to a great day of collecting. By the end of the day my wife and I had a table covered with trimmed examples of all of the common trilobites. The highlights were Bill's Asaphiscus, a huge 2 inch Asaphiscus I found, two brown trilobites and a 1 3/4 Asiphicus my wife found in the discard pile as we were getting ready to leave. We left with four flat rate boxes in total. After collecting in the Delta area for fossils and minerals we went back to our condo in Park City, Utah and visited Emigration Canyon for Jurassic marine fossils in Salt Lake and Riley Canyon, near Jericho, Utah. We found some brachiopods in Emigration Canyon but the fossils were not abundant. Our next stop was Riley Canyon for agatized horn coral. After a hike that resulted in a 3000 foot elevation change from 6000 to 9000 feet we eventually found the horn coral site. It wasn't what I expected. The searching involved looking for loose rock on the mountain among vegetation. While we found pieces of red agate, the agatized horn coral was elusive until my friend Bill found a nive 3 inch horn coral. We continued to search the area with little luck. By the time we left I found one small agatized horn coral and several chuncks. I did find one fossil that was mostly buried in matrix. At the time I thought it was a horn coral but imagine my surprise when I started prepping it and found that it was a large brachiopod. I do want to say that Riley Canyon material is one of the hardest materials I've ever prepped. The matrix is very stick and doesn't want to release from the fossil. It is also extremely difficult to remove with micro-abraision. Our next excursion was to Spence Gulch outside of Liberty, Idaho for Cambrian fossils. Fortunately I had read many different directions to this locality, otherwise we wouldn't have found it. It was a solid miles walk from where we had to abandon our rental vehicle. My wife and I found the matrix at the site to be very similar in consistency and friability to Spring Creek material in Alden, New York. You definitely want to bring cyanoacrylate (super glue) or some other stabilization agent as well as foil to wrap your fossils in so that they dry slowly. Otherwise your prized fossil may be dust by the end of the day. As soon as we arrived at the site I found what looks like a partial Zacanthoides trilobite. By the end of the day our party had found three partials. Bill and I started the morning climbing the slope and excavating pieces where someone had exposed a flat section of rock outcropping. We were rewarded with trilobite pieces and a few hyoliths. We then moved to the base of the outcrop and started splitting small pieces of shale. By the end of the day we found about 20 complete Achlysopsis (at least that's what I think they are). By the end of the day we had a good representation of the Spence Shale. Our last fossil excursion was to Forum member Sseth's fish quarry in Kemmerer, Wyoming. I want to start off by saying that the people working at his quarry are some of the nicest people I have ever met. They were very friendly and always checking in to see if we were having a successful trip. If you ever make it to Kemmerer to collect I have the following pieces of advice. Visit Fossil Butte National Monument Visitors Center first so you know what things look like. Bring boxes and packing material. Bring lots of water. Four people can drink a case of water by early afternoon. Bring sunscreen. Be ready for the dust. You will be covered in dust as will the interior of your rental vehicle or personal vehicle. We had such a good time at Sseth's quarry we actually went back a week later for another day of collecting. We had a lot of fun at his quarry. We came away with many individual fish and several plates of multiples. Most of the fish were larger than three inches and we came away with at least five different species of fish. Our largest fish were a 10 inch Diplomystus my wife and I extracted from a very large rock and an 8 inch Phareodus my friend Bill found in the discard pile splitting discarded rock. While we were there Sseth was excavating a turtle and while excavating it they found a second one. Photos will follow.

Found this in Moab, Utah on a hike a few weeks ago. I am wondering if this is some type of bone fossil or just a rock? It is small, about 1.5 inches by 1 inch.

Found this out in the west desert of Utah, between the small towns of Eureka and Vernon, Utah. I was out rockhounding for some Wonder Stone and found these fossils too. This is one of them. Not sure what this is an imprint of. The exact location was 40*06'36.2"N 112*21'26.3"W (The exact location my Jeep broke down that day!) Thanks!

Does anyone know where I could find a detailed Cedar Mountain Formation of Utah Map?

Lerosey-Aubril, R., & Skabelund, J. (2017) Messorocaris, a new sanctacaridid-like arthropod from the middle Cambrian Wheeler Formation (Utah, USA). Geological Magazine, (ahead-of-print publication) PDF LINK