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I was wandering around the creek behind my family’s house earlier today and spotted this. Located in Western New York, Southern Erie County, on a tributary of Buffalo Creek. I’m guessing it’s just an interesting rock, but thought it was an interesting enough shape to look into. I’ve included photos of all sides, wet and dry and the location found.

This was a pretty awesome find, I found it in sandbank/exposed riverbed in a remote location alongside the Genesee River here in NY, USA Also, in the cavitation where this animal burrowed, right at the "tail" of it there are these....coarse red-black hairs. Now, I washed this rock/scrubbed it thoroughly 2 times before I realized they were there...and they're still there. So they seem to be...penetrating the rock?...maybe these hairs are from this creature?? They appear no where else on the fossil. Kind of a long shot but maybe.

Here’s a upper Devonian paleoniscoid fish I found in 18 mile creek - Erie county,NY this spring. seems to be similar to fish found in younger stratigraphy Linton deposits from Ohio area. Been hard to find any specific info on Devonian fish found in New York, perhaps a rare find? Has anyone found anything similar in western NY?

My husband found this fossil in a stream in Westfield, NY and I would love if someone could identify it for me. Any help would be great. Hope the pics are ok.

I’m not sure what I have here, I might have found this either in my backyard or in a nearby creek... I’m guessing that it was the creek. I was looking for rocks for my pond (2006). The fossil did not appear until a year or two later and I always wondered what it was. It measures 95mm x 35mm. Any clue would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance. JD

As the cold weather is starting to settle in I am looking through the fossils that I collected this year. I have this 14-15mm pyritized brachiopod. Is this the interior of the shell? Are the interiors distinctive from genus to genus? I don't think that I can remove this one from the matrix and was wondering if it could be identified. The first picture is through a microscope and the second isn't. I couldn't hold my hand steady enough on that second one and it is a bit blurry. Thank you for looking. Patti

Hi all, I am attaching a couple of micro-images of an ~18mm across brachiopod that looks like had spines and wondered if anyone recognizes it and could ID it for me. It is Middle Devonian and was found in Western NY. Thank you for looking. Patti

Hi all. I acquired a Nikon SMZ-1B microscope and have been having fun looking at fossils with it. I also have a Sony a580 DSLR camera and have been attempting to take pictures and finding it challenging. The microscope did not come with a ring light but I have an old B&L variable spot light which has worked for looking at the fossils but I am wondering how much better a ring light would be especially for taking photos. The Nikon ring lights look more expensive than the microscope and will not be on my purchase list. I have used the live focus check feature on my camera which magnifies a portion of the window and you can fine tune the focus. That has helped some but the color is different using it so now I am taking a picture with it and then turning it off and taking another and seeing which looks better. There is also a feature on my camera I have tried where you can change the picture to what it would look like under different types of lighting and I also tried taking pictures holding an LED flashlight (very blue). I have a couple of pieces of Leicester pyrite with fish fossils on them and they are especially challenging to photograph. I have to go back and really lower the saturation on the pictures or they look like children have been playing with rainbow glitter. I was wondering what kind of techniques that other people are using to get clear photos. I am including some pictures of the pyrite and a couple of others in shale hoping for some ID's. I have some guesses thanks to Karl Wilson's, "Field Guide to Devonian Fossils of New York" and website examples. Thank you Karl. regards, Patti 1 - chondrichthys 2 - chondrichthys 3 - ? fish plate 4 - chondrichthys 5 - Bryantodus I will add others in next message.

I have a few fossils that I am trying to ID and wondering if you guys can help. Thank you for looking. Patti 1. brachiopod ~3mm with spines Is it Devonochetes scitulus? 2. gastropod ~4mm Is it Palaeozygopleura hamiltoniae? 3. Is this a small rugose coral? ~ 11mm 4. yellow geode ~ 5 x 7cm Are there fossils in it or just minerals? 5. ostracod? 6. What kind of bryozoan is this. It looks like a vase of flowers.

Hi all. I am thinking that this fossil is a crinoid calyx. It is 8cm in diameter at widest section of the top, 3cm in diameter at the bottom and 5cm high. It is not complete and a bit careworn. It has a lot of small crinoid fragments scattered over it. I took some photos outside and then scrubbed it some more. It is now raining so I took one indoors. What do you guys think? Thank you for looking. Patti

Hi, I have these two unknowns that I can't place as fossils but I can't quite bring myself to discard either so I am hoping you can help me. They are similar because they both are two matrices stuck together. They were found in the same area at different times. The larger is 3 inches by 1 inch and the smaller is 1-1/2 by 1" not including the bases. The larger has some small crinoid pieces on it. The smaller doesn't have any associated fossils on it but in the matrix base has this small 1-2mm 6 armed bit in a hole and the top piece looks like it is wrapped around an "arm" on the base. Thank you for taking the time to look at these for me. I am sorry about the quality of the micro shot. I couldn't seem to get a good angle. It looks like a mineral flower through the microscope. Patti

I was wondering if this rock might be a stromatolite. It resembles some pictures that I've seen on the internet but I haven't seen any myself. It is about 41/2 x 41/2 inches. Thank you for looking. Patti

I was hunting in the upper Devonian today which was a spectacular day in Western NY and came back with exactly one fossil. I am wondering if is is fossilized wood and what could be the small unknowns found around it. The ?wood is ~2inches x 1inch. The small unknowns are between 3-8mm. It may take more than one message for the pictures. I recently acquired a microscope and am trying to get clear pictures and finding it somewhat challenging. Hopefully these are OK. Thanks for looking. Patti

Hey, I was wondering if anyone could tell me if what looks like fine roots are fossil or mineral? I haven't come across any other rocks that look like this. It is ~3inches X 2inches and ~ 1inch thick. Thank you for looking. Patti

I found my largest trilobite so far at 2 1/2 ". I am guessing that it is a Phacops. It was found by a creek and is worn but made me happy. By it was another rock that is very busy with some parts that remind me of a trilobite. I don't know if anyone can tell me what if anything I am looking at. The rock is 3" x 2 1/4". There does appear to be a brachiopod on one side. The third is an ammonoid found by Hemlock Lake and I wondered if it could be identified. It is ~ 1 3/4" at the widest point. The lake side is in the Sonyea group but It could have come down from higher up above the lake which gets into the upper Devonian. Thank you for looking. Patti

Hi. I was wondering if it is possible to ID the brachiopods in this fossil from the imprints. I was looking in "Devonian Paleontology of New York" and thought that they looked similar to Tropidoleptus carinatus on plate 66. Can anyone tell if this is right or wrong? Thanks for looking. Patti

I have this rock. It looks like it is covered with a thin layer of cement. There are raised orange colored portions that have rounded out areas.(picture1) Are they purely geologic, not fossils? In picture2 you can see that there are small circular pieces of fossils, some with a t shape cutout in them. There is also a small circular one that reminds me of a button. (picture3). There is a second one on this rock as well. It seemed like I had seen this before. I poked around and another rock that I had actually posted here before has the same type of structure, cement covered rock, raised orange colored sections over chert with rounded areas and small pieces littered about.(pictures4&5). Picture 6 shows a horn coral with a button-like fossil next to it and one further to the left. It is a bit blurry. Has anyone seen these before? They are like columnals with the wrong cutouts in the center. They are only a couple of millimeters in diameter. The first rock is 8 inches across. Thanks for looking. Patti

Hello all! July 3rd dawned (literally) early,... at 5:00 am for me. I had been up the previous morning at 3:00 am, to travel the 6+ hours from Connecticut to the annual 4th of July Jones/Browning family reunion, at my aunt's lake cottage in Rushford, NY. I was excited this morning, though, with the prospect of some good fossiling in good company. After the usual morning ablutions, I packed the Pilot, with snacks and fossiling gear, and shoved off at 6:00am. I was headed out on the 56 minute drive from Rushford to the super secret location in the Buffalo area. I had been to this area twice before, and had come away with some of my best trilobites to date,( A few Eldregeops rollers, and one prone, but messed up Greenops possibly?) so I was hoping for a repeat performance, at least. Was I wrong,... but, ... I digress. Muttering under my breath to the Fossil Gods, while "GPS Lady" guided me in her heavy handed way, to my destination. Doh! Need gas!! Found a station on the route there, and after a quick fill-up, disregarding even coffee in my excitement, I was off again to the refrain of "Recalculating!" ... yeah... yeah,... I'm goin, I'm goin! Jeeze! The sunny summer sky was turning threatening, to the north,( the directon I was headed!) and I drove with trepidation to the locality. Darker skies seemed to want to confirm the weather guy's baleful forecast of "Pop up T-storms". Great! Well, rain or no rain... Onward and upwards. Arriving at my destination, I pulled into the lot, and found Xonenine (Carmine) waiting for me. We got out of our cars, shook our hello's, ... and started almost immediately to converse about fossils as we made an exchange of fossils. I liked Carmine right away, and we seemed to hit it off. The rain started up while we stood talking over the fossils, and let up again, just as suddenly. The weather guy was wrong again. What else is new? After a short time discussing our trades, we decided to get moving. I had to leave by 12 - noon, or would have to face the wrath of She Who Must be Obeyed. (Don't want that!) So after moving to the lower lot with our vehicles, we geared up, and set out into the creek. Entrance to the creek on the left. We headed left under the small bridge, and I mentioned to Carmine ( Who, by the way, is a great guy. Modest and down to earth, and generous to a fault!) that sometimes trilos could be found in the concretions that can be found weathering out of the shale cliffs. Carmine using his xray eagle vision to find fossils. View looking back under bridge. He immediately grabbed a large one out of the base of the cliff, roughly a 2ft x 1ft round honker of a concretion, and proceded to smack it with a sledge. This stuff is HARD! Well, Carmine is no slouch with a sledge, and boom, the concretion splits. There is a roller Eldredgeops, right in the center of this huge thing. I took some time to break out the chunk with the roller in it, as Carmine had deffered to me, as his guest, ( Did I mention he is a gracious host?) and I finally got it out, in the midst of which I found another, smaller roller, which broke out fairly easily ... I insisted he take it, and he reluctantly agreed. We worked our way down stream, splitting shales, ...(the Mucrospirifers were plentiful)... and finding wildlife... Carmine finding more cool stuff... We moved along, and started to search near the second bridge, finding the much harder limestones that produce giant favosites, brachiopods, trilo-bits and pieces, and horn corals. ... ... TO BE CONTINUED>>> Tomorrow...