Search the Community

found this on the beach near Lourhina, Portugal. Fossils in the Lourhina Formation are late Jurassic. This looks like a small walnut but the unusual shape with a cleft in the face isn't like any walnut. I can't find it in fossil botanical books.

Hello! I happened to stumble across multiple seed fossils while fossil hunting recently looking for ferns and I decided i had enough seed pod mysteries to create this thread in hopes for identification Location: Missouri Time period: Pennsylvanian Formation: Upper Winterset Limestone Specimen #1 I would say this one is the most detailed plant seed fossil i have found so far ( Roughly 4.2mm) You can see the outline a bit better in the photo above Specimen #2 more rounder in shape (roughly 7mm) Specimen #3 this one is also with other plant material (roughly 7 mm) Specimen #4 This one was from a previous hunt but if anyone recognizes it let me know! (9mm) Specimen #5 (3mm)

While photographing some fossils from the Maltby coal measures South Yorkshire UK. A small piece unfortunately came away, and revealed what appears to be a seed. I haven't prepped the piece further as I'm a little unsure as to perhaps leave it as it is. I've read about a Upper Carboniferous seed called Trigonocarpus parkinsonii, does anyone have an example for comparison please. Not sure what the pinnules are around it but they do look like Paripteris gigantea.

On our third half-day trip to the St. Clair fossil fern pits, we changed our goals from display quality and size fossils, to exploring for rare and scarce fossils, which produced fewer specimens and took more time and patience, but resulted in some really cool finds (some of them are included in the images below). We recommend these St. Clair Collecting Strategies: We should mention that there are several strategies for exploring St. Clair. Strategy 1) You can whack away at the formations in the ground including pits left by previous collectors - this usually results in large piles of fragments and a few fossils worth keeping and is often wasteful. If you do this, focus on trying to extract large sheets or plate rather than destroying 100 fossils to get one you can keep. Strategy 2) Inspect the pieces left behind by pit excavators - there are piles around every pit - this trip we sorted through hundreds of discarded pieces and cracked open the thicker pieces to reveal some really exciting finds - some of our finds came from simply turning over rocks left scattered on the ground. Strategy 3) Find some large rocks or formations you can extract, then patiently crack them apart, one layer at a time - this is the "Cracker Jack" strategy we have favored in the past and gave us our largest and most attractive display fossils. Strategy 4) Read about the fossils you can find in the Pennsylvanian period - what kinds of exotic extinct plants and trees grew in the Carboniferous swamps including the exotic patterns of bark on fern trees as well as fern leaves, seeds, and patterns - then, with those images in your mind, inspect the piles of discards for rare specimens (which, we have discovered, many collectors toss away because they focus mostly on "traditional" fern leaves). These strategies apply to many "fossil-rich" sites. The RESULTS can be fascinating. Here are just a few examples of the "Strategy 4" discoveries we made on our August 11, 2012 visit which was our 3rd trip to the site. I should mention that we saw no bears or bear signs but I did see a very large 6-7 foot black snake (not poisonous) on the side of the trail leading to the site. It was curled up like a cobra but not aggressive, but disappeared when we approached. It probably came down to drink from the pools of water that had formed on the trail after a rain. One of our goals was to find better articulated fern seeds which are somewhat rare. The fossil seeds we found so far were obviously seeds but not well defined - as usual, Nancy turned up some terrific seeds (I found one) - including a really amazing seed with the seed stem attached to the fern! This is especially cool because I read recently in a book from the 1870s that reported that "no Alethopteris fern seed had been found that was actually attached to the fern" - only a century ago, paleobotanists were still looking for this exact type of sample (seed attached to Alethopteris fern). Of course our sample is not a discovery but it is somewhat rare and as you can see, we accomplished this goal for our trip, finding several good seed fossils. We were also looking for an Odontopteris fern which we had not discovered yet and examples are included here. One of the most impressive finds was an iridescent section of Calamites bark which shimmers in different colors including blue - nearby was another sample that has a coppery color and shimmer. Hard to capture with a camera but I think you can see the effect in the photos. We won't get back to St. Clair for awhile, maybe not again this year - but we were VERY pleased with the results of focusing on just a few hard to find targets, settling for fewer fossils but better quality. We are AMAZED how many different species are included at this site, almost every major type of Pennsylvanian plant fossil in the major fossil books are found in this fossil pit, all very close to each other. This area must have been tremendously diverse. Also, if you're seeking to identify your fern fossils, Monte Hieb has created an EXCELLENT site on the plant fossils of West Virginia that provides photos and details on identification for each species - great site, highly recommended: http://www.geocraft....ableOfCont.html On this trip, we came away with an important lesson. It's not the quantity of the fossils from St. Clair, it's the quality that counts. Many rare species are found in the cast-offs around the dug-out pits scattered around the site. It helps to have a hammer and chisel because fracturing open even the smaller pieces can reveal lots of exciting surprises. Nancy's best seed (the one with the stem) came from "fracking open" a piece of shale (see Alethopteris 1c below). We are now examining our St. Clair fossils with a closeup camera lens, inspecting smaller pieces to see what we have. This morning Nancy pointed out a very small cone-shaped fossil on the edge of a larger piece of shale that she says "looks like a fish tooth" - it's probably just a small branch or stem but it does have some intriguing qualities that pose some ID challenges - I'll post several views in the Fossil ID section and see what the site experts have to say. As you can see if you've read our previous posts, we're really having fun with this and in addition to displaying our finds, we hope to do something one day either in a small e-book guide for new fossil hunters, or on a website, or both - maybe in a year or so when we have enough samples and knowledge. We're finally starting to zone in on how to quickly identify fern leaves and hopefully can share what we learn in the future when we get more organized. Our most important insight I think is this: we never imagined that plant fossils could be so interesting!