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Hunting spots unfortunately come and go. And so it will be with the site I visited this week having been one of my favorite local spot for Decorah Shale fossils it saddened me to see construction taking it away from me. So I hunted it hard and it produced fairly well. First up are a few hash plates. There was a discussion this week on whether fossils should be left in matrix or not. I decided to provide a little of both There seems to be two types of rugosa coral. One is very smooth. The other has rough ridges. The only species name I have for the Decorah is Lambeophyllum profunum, which I feel is the smooth one. I found dozens of Strophomena but have a difficult time differentiating the various species based on the look of one side of one shell. So I didn't bore you with many pictures of this genus. These are worm burrows, very common in the Decorah. I find these on occation and call them sponges. It is a ball with a stalk that seems to have attached to something. Maybe it is just a common Prasapora bryozoan. This was one of my favorite finds of the day. Gastropods in the Decorah are not pretty. The Platteville below and the Galena above produce many nice gastropods. If anyone knows an explanation, I would love to hear it!! This is your typical Prasapora bryozoan of the Decorah. Two species are mentioned without a description of how to tell them apart. This next species of Prasapora is easy to tell apart. But is uncommon to find. I was ecstatic to grab two in the same trip!! This picture speaks of how easy it is to ID a P. grandis from the others!! Now I must tearfully say goodbye to this site. But construction continues to boom in the area and new exposures will likely show up. Mike

News Flash! thefossilforum.com featured on a Behind the Scenes podcast for the outdoor show Minnesota Bound, host is Laura Schara and person interviewed is "The Fossil Lady" Bev Sandlin. Minnesota Bound Podcast - MN Bound Podcast | When MN was under the ocean! (transistor.fm) 'Sorry I haven't been around for a while, but I am getting old and have slowed way down. I am still fossil hunting some and giving some fossil hunting tours, but I am hoping to find a replacement "Fossil Lady" before I bite the dust. A couple of years ago I was featured, second segment in episode #903 Cops and Kids, on a Minnesota Bound episode for fossil hunting, which I shared with Minnesota Buckeye, geologist Emily and our own Coprolite lady, Lori Gesch, @GeschWhat. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted to do a Behind the Scenes podcast on fossil hunting in Minnesota and this is it! Without all of the wonderful members of thefossilforum.com I would not have what little knowledge I have today and am able to share with others on the joy of fossil hunting. I had never even heard a podcast before I did this one and they sent me a link to it. Please be kind as I shared what little knowledge I have and hopefully it is at least somewhat accurate, at least it is enthusiastic. :-) I did get my blog up and running after almost two years of it being down - SEE smack myself on the forehead! Twenty minutes with Hostgator and it was up and running again. However, if I don't use it, I lose it (two strokes) and now I'm having a devil of a time trying to figure out how to post again, such is life... :-) So, my effort to send people to the BEST site on the internet for fossil hunters - thefossilforum.com!!! Thank you all for your knowledge, patience and kindness! Bev

I am posting this because fossil hunting is one of my favorite activities and I enjoy sharing it with others. In that spirit, other fossil hunting enthusiasts may wish to share their love of fossils with others, but do not know how to do that and/or the potential to promote fossil hunting as an outdoor activity. @GeschWhat and @minnbuckeye GeschWhat, minnbuckeye, Todd, a friend and fossil enthusiast, and Emily, friend and geologist, all joined together to do just that in May of 2018 when the Minnesota outdoor adventures tv show came to my place, Whispering Winds, Spring Valley, MN to film a segment for their show - Minnesota Bound. Fishing, hunting, skiing are the staples of this show. This is their FIRST, I hope more will come, segment (this half hour show is like a TV show magazine featuring 4-5 segments per episode) on fossil/rock hunting! Link here: http://mnbound.com/watch-mn-bound Cops 'N Kids | Minnesota Bound #903 June 20, 2019 Please COMMENT on the site, after the video, and mention TFF - thefossilforum.com! The more comments, the more likely they are to find someone else in Minnesota for a rock hunting adventure! We are featured in the second segment in, at about the 4 min. 30 second mark. :-) This all started about 4 years ago when I was asked to set up a booth about fossil hunting at the "Glacier Stops Here" conference in Rochester, MN. Ron Schara was next to me and asked if he could someday come down and do a segment of his show on fossil hunting. Ron has since retired, but his daughter, Laura, continues with the show. If you have an outdoor adventure TV show in your state, please contact them! I have a website: Bluffcountryfossils.net and a fossil adventure blog, so that is how I got known for my fossil adventures. The site/blog (which I need to figure out how to update!), was originally just a record of my personal fossil hunts, but then I found others were interested as well and found TFF and off I went into fossil fantasy land! LOL :-D People can find you, as a fossil enthusiast, with a website and blog. I also do fossil hunts through Eagle Bluff Environmental Center Skills School and private hunts for families and other fossil enthusiasts. And I have developed 3 maps of the area, so that people can hunt themselves at proven sites. I am disabled, after having had two strokes, and credit fossil hunting with a lot of my mental and physical comeback from the strokes. It certainly exercises your brain and body! So, I thought I would share a few behind the scenes pictures! We gathered together the day before and of course went fossil hunting as this is the most prolific part of Minnesota for that particular adventure. This photo is at the famous, in 1800s Minnnesota paleontology literature, Wubbles Ravine with GeschWhat, minnbuckeye, and Todd. Mike, minnbuckeye, is holding Lori's, GeschWhat's coprolite book. I believe that was a trilobite find. :-D Continued... Admin please move if this is the wrong forum. :-)