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For the last 15 years most of our fossil collecting has been in the Devonian and more recently in the late Devonian (Famennian). Interestingly, This represents a period between two episodes of the Devonian mass extinction, the end Frasnian Kellwasser event and the end Famennian Hangenberg event. The first was mostly marine and saw the end of most of the jawless fish but the second ended the reign of the Placoderms and a lot of dominant taxa of sarcopterygians including the Tristichopterids (like Hyneria). Most of the sites are chuck full of these guys. When I retired and decided to move, it was to the Hartford Basin. Much of this area exposes one of the other of the big 5 mass extinctions, the end Triassic. This is what gave the dinosaurs their opening. Central Connecticut has a number of basaltic ridges running north-south. These formed as Pangea broke up but while they were forming a number of lakes were present in this rift valley. Some of these lakes have yielded thousands of beautifully preserved fish. You can certainly see some in Tim Jones's (Fossildude) collection. With his guidance back in 2015 we were able to locate one of the sites, Bluff Head, Guilford, CT. This was fully excavated back in the 1970"s by Nick McDonald but they took out so much material scraps were bound to be left and so here I present some pretty snarge nice scraps. The first is the most common fish they found, Redfieldius. It is a Paleoniscid ray fin (Actinopterygian). The thing I really like is these are very similar to the Devonian Paleoniscids except they are bigger and better preserved. This first Redfieldius specimen is nearly complete with most of the skull, only missing the tip of the snout. It has a dorsal and anal median fin and just a smidge of the pectoral fin. The next one is also a Redfieldius, actually two! This is the best preserved example of both a skull (upper left) and the body/fins although two different fish. Unfortunately, most of the snout is under that beautiful anal fin! Final example I'll show is also a Paleoniscid called Ptycholepis. It was found last year when I asked my son if he wanted to go hiking and he said why don't we go see if we can find the Bluff head site again. We really did not expect to find anything but this was the only fossil we found. The body is very worn as it has been exposed for maybe 50 years? but the skull was protected by matrix which needed to be carefully removed. To our surprise the entire skull was there.

Hello everyone, I found this forum While searching for locations for fossil hunting. I would be very thankful if any local fossil hunters could share some locations for a beginner. I’ve always been interested in fossils and geology and I’d like to make a fun hobby with it if possible. Thank you!!!!! reply to this post or shoot me a private email!!!!! Please thanks again!!!

I am going to go to some real sites in eastern New York tomorrow, but I decided to check the rocks by a pond near my grandparents house where I found a couple trilobites and other Devonian fauna this summer. And I found this really nice Platyceras specimen which it turned out had a brachiopod fossil attached near the bottom, where the opening of the shell would be located. I highly doubt that these two organisms are articulated and fossilized together but I thought it was interesting and worth showing here.

So i found these fossils and im dying to know what they are! Can anyone help! I found them in smooth round stream river looking rocks(pic of the type rock im finding them inside included, thought it might help with id) that are lining are drainage ditch at a gas station. That first one resembles a hornets face so much! But as the rock its inside has seashell fossils inside it too thats probably highly unlikely. Ive been an avid gem collector and rock hound for a very long time. I know alot about crystals and minerals, plan to get my gemology degree from GIA eventually. But I know next to nothing about fossils.