In between all of the 4th of July weekend barbecues I was able to make it down to Cory's Lane, Rhode Island for a few hours of shale splitting. The day started out slow with only a few small plant imprints found, but I eventually managed to rip up a 5 foot slab of rock with a larger fern section on one end of it. After cutting the slab down to a little over a foot and a half in length this Pecopteris arborescens manages to go down as the largest fern I've found at this locality! It was a nice start to the long weekend, but the real win was the awesome weather .

"Silcrete plant fossils from Lightning Ridge, New South Wales: new evidence for climate change and monsoon elements in the Australian Cenozoic", Carpenter Raymond J., Goodwin Matthew P., Hill Robert S., Kanold Karola, Australian Journal of Botany. 2011 59(5). p.399. Specimen donated to the Australian Museum.

Is there anyone places to hunt for carboniferous fossils in the eastern US? I live in georgia and heard that there are some but they're in private property.

WHAT WE LEARNED IN OUR FIRST FOSSIL HUNTING SUMMER This is a short recap of what we learned on our fossil trips this summer, in our first 3 months as very new fossil collectors. This week, Nancy and I gave a slide presentation on our summer fossil hunting experiences, to the Delaware Valley Paleontological Society. We didn't realize it ourselves but in 3 months we visited 8 sites in Pennsylvania and New York including: Antes Creek, Deer Lake, Red Hill, Juniata County, McIntyre Mountain, Montour and St. Clair in Pennsylvania, and a very productive trip to Tully, NY. We visited St. Clair 4 times, which has become our home site. At St. Clair, we were astonished by the diversity of species - we collected well articulated samples of more than a dozen species including: Alethopteris, Annularia, Asterophyllites, Cordaites, Cyclopteris, Eusphenopteris, Lepidophylloides, Neuropteris, Odontopteris, Pecopteris, Sphenophyllum, Sphenopteris, and numerous Seeds, Bark, Roots. Most notably - I learned to pronounce all of these without stuttering! At St. Clair, we spent one trip looking exclusively for seeds trigonocarpus), and one trip looking just for roots (stigmaria). Our most significant finds have included very large (2 foot long) display pieces covered with well articulated orange ferns, an alethopteris seed attached to a leaf stem, and many Carboniferous leaves that have different shapes from traditional ferns. What we learned this summer has really helped us find some interesting fossils - here are a few things we did that helped a lot: 1. DOING OUR HOMEWORK. It helped to study each site in advance using Internet websites and books on fossils (Dave's "Views of the Mahantango" and "Louisville Fossils" are among the best, imho). Several universities also have great educational sites that bring each era to life in very creative and interesting ways, with lots of illustrations and photos. I like the UC-Berkeleyand University of West Virginia websites. 2. LEARNING FROM TRIP REPORTS. We read trip reports from other groups and individuals to see what they reported - sometimes this helps us stumble across new places to visit such as the site at Tully, NY and Deer Lake. 3. SETTING GOALS AND TARGETS FOR EACH TRIP. For each trip, we establish specific goals - for example we may look for seeds, or roots at St. Clair, or trilobites or shell assemblages at a Devonian site. Our interest right now is in looking for things that are scarce or rare, and fossils that are extremely well articulated (which is also rare!). We also like solving puzzles so eventually we would like to find things that help add to the fossil record in areas where there are still questions or missing links. 4. DISPLAYING WHAT WE FIND. Personally, Nancy and I like collecting larger fossils that we can display in mounts and frames, and we are also looking for larger pieces that we can display like sculptures - we have a few pieces that we drilled holes in, inserted wooden dowels that we stained, and then drilled/inserted the dowels in wooden trophy bases - all available from a craft store. This allows us to display thicker fossils esp. assemblages, like sculptures, and you can turn them around and look at all sides when they are mounted like this. 5. WE AVOID FOSSIL HORDING. We both agreed that we would NOT become "fossil horders" putting hundreds of rocks in boxes and sticking them away in the basement or garage - instead, we focus on finding display-quality items, and rare or scarce finds which we are slowly putting in frames. 6. DOCUMENTING OUR FINDS WITH CLOSEUP PHOTOS. We photograph everything we find as soon as possible after returning from a trip, using a digital camera with a closeup attachment - many times we find new discoveries while taking closeup photos and some of our best finds came AFTER we returned from the trip and inspected our fossils. I usually put the finds on a white background on an ironing board and use window light, nothing fancy, but it works. 7. FOSSIL ID. We post anything we can't identify on the Fossil Forum and are EXTREMELY grateful for the terrific response from our friends on the site! We are also accumulating a growing library of fossil books (some modern, some from the 19th and early 20th century) so we can identify more fossils ourselves without having to post on Fossil ID. 8. WRITING ABOUT OUR EXPERIENCES GIVES US NEW INSIGHTS. We report everything that interests and excites us about fossil hunting on Fossil Forum to share our experiences - and we find that writing about what we're doing helps us learn more and gain insights, just from writing about it. We have also started videotaping some of our adventures and are thinking about the best place to post some of these. 9. WINTER PLANS: COPING WITH CABIN FEVER. Our winter plans are to visit one or two more sites, then go into "fossil hibernation" and organize, identify and label fossils we haven't processed yet. We have a Dremel to do some light preservation work where needed. We are not planning to become "chemical conservators" - using chemicals to dissolve limestone and so forth - that's a bit too ambitious for us at this point. We may get involved in some interesting activities by local universities that are using 3D printing to process and replicate large dinosaur bones. We are also planning to provide an exhibit (on Carboniferous plants and trees/coal swamps) at a fossil fair in April. 10. RECOMMENDED READING: I enjoy reading fossil books - I'm currently reading with great interest a small book entitled "Leaves and Stems from Fossil Forests" by Raymond E. Janssen (1939) which I bought last night at the DVPS meeting, and a textbook entitled Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record by Benton and Harper (2008) (excellent book). The book that has been the most useful to me so far is the classic book "Fossil Collecting in Pennsylvania" by Hoskins et. al. (3rd ed. 1983). I am constantly re-reading the Hoskins book and find something new each time as my knowledge grows. A book that impressed Nancy and me is a large beautifully illustrated book entitled "Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth" (published by Dorling Kindersley, 2012) UPDATE (Oct 11): Nancy is taking some college courses which are prerequisites to enter grad school, so I am doing most of the fossil reading and ID. I read several books at the same time and other books I purchased that I am currently reading are: Paleobotany: The Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants (second edition) by Thomas Taylor; and Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record by Benton and Harper. I guess you can tell from this that I'm reading up on fossil plants - my main interest is not just to understand the evolution and fossil record, identification tips, etc. - but also to try to figure out where the missing links and gaps are so if we come across something that adds to the fossil record, we will be able to recognize the value. What is most surprising is that there is a lot missing from the Carboniferous record - partly because after this period, many of the oceans and swamps apparently dried up and there were ice ages and other factors that caused mass extinctions. Here are some interesting things I have learned this summer about Fossil Plants and Trees: 1. More Carboniferous insect fossils and evidence of insects are needed (by the way, there are some GREAT current discussions about insects on this forum!). 2. Many categories of lycopsids and other Carboniferous trees and plants do not have verified associations between the leaves and seeds, or leaves and trunks/stems. Many trigonocarpus (fossilized seeds and "fruits") are found with leaves, but examples of seeds actually ATTACHED to leaf sprigs are rare (we have found one example of a seed attached to Alethopteris). 3. More Leaf and Bark Verifications are Needed. Another interesting thing I learned is that there are more than 30 different types of "scale tree" patterns but only half a dozen leaves for these trees - suggesting that a lot of different species had the same leaves - or - there are a lot of missing leaf types or the existing leaf types have not been matched to the bark patterns yet. 4. Another peculiar revelation is that most Carboniferous leaves that do not fall neatly into classic fern shapes seem to be lumped together as "sphenopteris" - we have many "non-traditional fern" leaf fossils that are VERY different from each other and obviously different species, but when we go online to ID them, they all seem to be grouped as "sphenopteris!" Maybe some of these leaf types match up with the bark patterns I mentioned. 5. Last but certainly not least is the insight that fern trees could have 2 or 3 different types of leaves on the same tree! This was really interesting. Also, some leaf types can come in different shapes - for example, Neuropteris can be round at the base of a stem and elongated along the stem and at the tip...AND...some paleobotanists now classify cyclopteris - the round fan shaped leaf - as a form of Neuropteris. This definitely adds to the confusion. I'm still reading and trying to understand all of this and these are only my initial impressions, which are still forming and there may be explanations for some of these questions that I haven't discovered yet but these are the questions that I am trying to answer by reading, and of course, by fossil collecting. I hope that many of our new friend (and I should add, VERY COOL new friends!) on the fossil forum will help clarify some of these interesting questions. Hope this is helpful.

Hi I just come back from offerton (Stockport uk) found some Carboniferous plants

This week we found ourselves headed for Carbon County, PA and looked up some places to go hunting. St. Clair was out, but there were some references to Carbondale here and there. As the name suggests, Carbondale was a coal mining town. There are active and inactive areas all over town, much of it fossiliferous. The most popular spot seems to be the one we went to, a tailings pile next to an apartment complex off of Westside Rd. The land status is unknown, but there were was nothing posted, so we ventured in as many have done before us. Our directions said to follow the gravel path between the third and fourth buildings on the right, then bear left and continue to the en of the ravel road, where you'd see a "mountain of tailings." When we parked, I looked from side to side for a pile I expected to be maybe the size of a van. From behind me, I hear my husband say, "Oh, that mountain of tailings." I looked from side to side. No, her told me, look straight ahead and up. Oh! It was indeed a mountain! The pile loomed above the rich grove. How did I miss that? (On a return trip a couple days later, I noticed it also loomed over the apartments!) A narrow trail leads through the woods to a meadow and a bare section of wall just asking to be explored. April was the perfect time to go as all the weeds were down from the winter snows and not yet regrowing much. The trees growing from the wall itself provided just enough footing for me to climb without sliding back down - until I wanted to. Whee! Once I reached the wall, it took me only seconds to spot my first bit of Calamities bark, and then another, and then a complete, 3D stalk section! After about an hour of searching I spotted a limb sticking put of the fine slate crumbs and pulled it out. It was a chunk of Calamites stalk as big as my outstretched hand. I spent a total of about 5 hours over two days scrabbling across a sheer wall of loose shale. Ferns! Leaves! Roots! Seeds! Bark of all different textures! Some of the ferns were incredibly detailed. One had all the miniscule veins outlined in red (pyrite?), while others were just extremely fine impressions in the grey rock. As it turns out, the gravel road itself runs across an overgrown tailings pile. Here and there you can find exposed rock, including bark plates bigger than dinner dishes! After spending what felt like an hour on day 2 (It turned out to be three hours!!!) I decided it was time for lunch and slid down the hill like a little kid. There at the base of the hill, was mu find for the week: a whole section of tree(?) trunk with bark all the way around the specimen. It was lying alone in the woods on some leaves, just waiting for someone to wander off the beaten path. I debated about bringing it home. It was so big! Hubby was snoozing on a nearby rock. Rocks are not his thing and bringing home piles of them doubly so, but he is so sweet that he picked that heavy thing up before I could blink and carried it to the car himself. He's a keeper! It will take quite some time to photograph all my treasures, but I will post in the comments here when I have an album together.

I purchased this fern fossil some years ago from a rock shop in Colorado. It was identified as a Neuropteris sp. from the Braidwood formation, Johnson County, Missouri, from the Pennsylvanian period. I have several questions. First, when I do a Google search I see quite a number of fern fossils being offered for sale with the same provenance. But when I dive deeper, I can't find a Braidwood formation listed for Johnson County, Missouri. Here is the USGS listing of geologic units in Johnson County, and I don't see a Braidwood formation listed: https://mrdata.usgs.gov/geology/state/fips-unit.php?code=f29101. The only Braidwood I have found on Google is the Braidwood biota, part of the Mazon Creek fossil beds in Illinois. Has this been misidentified or am I missing something? Also, I'm not sure I can tell the difference between neuropteris and pecopteris species, can anyone give me a good identification? Thanks! 12X magnification: 25X magnification:

Kathleen B. Pigg of the University of Arizona notes that this "stem subsurface pattern that is sometimes called 'rabbit tracks'. The double track you see is probably a result of a pair of air channels that accompany the leaf trace through the cortex. The vertical ribs are produced by an increase of bark through secondary tissue production." The pair of sepicemns in the first image are the positive and negative impressions of the same piece. The second image is a detail from the same specimen.

Hi, a friend of mine found this fossil. can anyone suggest a resource where they can find out what it is please.

I received this relatively large fossil about 4 years ago as a Christmas present from a friend. All the information I have about this specimen is that "it comes from the Carboniferous", it was bought from a peddler at the local Christmas market without asking for the provenance. Now I am trying to definitively identify it. I compared it to all my fossil ferns and to many pics online, and some photos of Pecopteris polymorpha are particularly similar in shape. ^This is one of the images I found online. There is a surprising similarity even with the surrounding matrix, could my fossil come from the same formation? My specimen measures about 180 x 140 mm.