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Part 2 Fossil hunting trip in Utica, Illinois October/29/2022
Joseph Fossil posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
This is the second part of my post describing my recent fossil hunting trip with @Tales From the Shale in Utica, of which it was awesome!!! So after visiting the abandoned clay pit, we decided to go to another location in Utica one might not expect to be productive - the former peabody coal company Pit 15 (or at least its outskirts), located not to far away from Lake Shannon, Kankakee County, Illinois (I'm am not going to tell the specific route or address so the area doesn't end up being picked clean). We went there as I had heard a report that a while ago, someone found a sizable Cladodus (or cladodont labeled as Cladodus) tooth at Pit 15 itself. At the top of the outskirts of the Pit was truly Beautiful!!! I expected to find simply nodules in the area. What I found instead were a staggering amount of different rocks with a descent portion containing fossils, most of brachipods though. As the area was once a mine, I've somewhat come up with a theory as to why this is - when the mines were closed, the pit was filled not just with nodule containing rocks but by all the types of rocks available in the Utica area ranging from shale to clay to limestone, likely either Ordovician or Carboniferous in age. It's still a pretty productive site and I've recently analyzed many of the specimens with a microscope and dissecting scope and I hope to get some IDs from them! Here's a possible shark spine I found there!
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Fossil hunting trip in Utica, Illinois October/29/2022
Joseph Fossil posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
On Saturday, I went on a fossil hunting trip with @Tales From the Shale in the area of Utica, LaSalle County, Illinois. After some time driving and looking for roadcuts, we discovered an abandoned clay bed/outcrop not too far away from the town itself. There, we discovered an absolutely massive amount of shark spines and teeth! I would like to know if anyone could properly ID some of the specimens we found!! \ This is one of the best shark spines I found at the site!!! It does look somewhat like the spine of Listracanthus, but I'm not 100% sure!! Possible Crusher plate tooth or maybe the bottom part of a large cladodont? Likely fish teeth or denticles, but I'm don't yet know what species/genus this could belong to? I really don't know what this could be? Maybe some sort of mineral or a fish head? Truly beautiful chondricthyian tooth in a clay matrix!!! However, I still don't know what specific group it could belong to? Maybe it could be a large crusher plate?
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The Fossils of the Essex Quad in Kankakee/Grundy County Illinois
Joseph Fossil posted a topic in Fossil Hunting Trips
I've been recently trying to find some good places to go fossil hunting in the Mazon Creek area and there is one area some say is good but I've never heard or or been to before. It's called the Essex Quadrangle or Essex Quad in Kankakee County Illinois. It's supposed to be extremely close to the old Peabody coal company pit 15 and have fossils from the Essex Biota dating to around the Pennsylvanian period. https://isgs.illinois.edu/maps-data-pub/quads/e/essex.shtml https://ilmineswiki.web.illinois.edu/index.php/0359 I'm wondering if anyone's heard of or been to the place before, what kind of fossils you can find there, and where is it? -
Hello! I'm traveling to Colorado Springs this summer. And I'm hoping to do some fossil hunting within an hours drive of Colorado Springs. I'm a geology graduate from James Madison University in Virginia and I love to collect invertebrate fossils to share with the kids I teach. Anything from ammonites to crinoids to leaves. Any advice on where to look? Thanks!
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This piece of arkosic sandstone from the late Eocene Coldwater formation north of Santa Paula, CA, has a few marine species traces. It would be great if anyone could ID the bivalves, but what really seems different is the set of chevrons I've pointed to in the top photo. Maybe it's just two bivalves wedged together to look like one? Appreciate the help!
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While hiking in Arizona last year I saw dozen of tiny fossils very similar to what I find back home in Illinois, so I left most of them there (I was already carrying 50lbs on my back and didn’t want more weight). But I brought a few pieces back as a keepsake. Any special IDs for this guys due to their location?
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Hey everyone, many years ago my dad found these shell fossils on a beach in Staten Island New York. I was wondering if any of you shell experts would be able to identify them. Thank you! -Mike
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I'm sorry if this is the wrong sub for this, but I wanted to show some of my finds. I went out to go collecting at an exposure I had passed many times while driving to other fossil sites but never visited before. When I went to the road cut back in September and November it wasn't too badly overgrown, but was separated into two parts by trees and talus cover. The southernmost part was mostly sandstone and siltstone from the layers lying above the coal-shale beds that were exposed further north on the road. For the most part the fossils from these layers were poorly preserved plants, though I did find a rare trigonotarbid from closer to the contact between this layer and the coal-shale one. Further north on the road from this part of the cut was the more interesting coal-shale layers, which housed many more floras, amounting to about six different species. These layers were characterized by a diverse array of plant life. Specimens from top to bottom: Hash of assorted fragments from Triphyllopteris lescuriana (?) from the sandstone beds above the coal. For the most part these rocks were not fossiliferous, but they do occasionally have large hash slabs such as these two specimens. Abdomen of the as yet unidentified trigonotarbid, possibly the first one recorded from this formation from the state of Maryland and the first one since the original found in 1930. It was interesting to find the ancient relative of the animals that infested some parts of the exposure (luckily I had a hammer to swipe all the wolf spiders away!) Rhodea vespertina.
