Search the Community

Hi everyone! I am new here & new to fossil hunting. I recently gravitated towards this & threw it in my backpack on a hike near the Vermillion River in Hastings MN. Upon cleaning it up, I immediately thought it was part of a vertebra due to the shape but I thought it could also be some type of coral. Would love some feedback! Thanks!!

his was found in a creek in the twin city area in Minnesota. Looks old to me but maybe just discolored from being in the water? Thanks in advance T

I found this black bone in the St. Croix River just south (downstream) of Interstate Park in Taylor's Falls, Minnesota. It was underwater half buried on a sandbar. It may have been washed loose from nearby cliffs by strong rains a couple days before. It is about six inches long and an inch in diameter.

Hello, this was found on a southern Minnesota river rock/sand bar. I have a guess what it is but wanted to see what your unbiased opinion is by not divulging my suspicion. It dense but pretty light like a piece of very hard plywood. This was found by a friend who loves hunting river banks and rock bars...

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. :-)

My son found this on the beach of Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. Sorry I don’t have a more accurate way to measure. Any ideas? Thank you!

I found this today while walking the shoreline of the, St Croix River in Stillwater, MN. Is this anything?

Greetings! My lady friend and I are beginner rock collectors, and occasionally find something that seems fossil-like to our untrained eyes. This is one we felt seemed like a tooth; are we even in the ballpark? We found it in a gravel parking lot in central Minnesota. It isn't magnetically reactive, but that's about all we know!

Hello everyone, New member from Minnesota, post my intro in the member introduction forum. The first is my Minnesota fossils. From the Cannon Falls and Rochester area from Ordivician period. The first is a Cephalopod from Rochester. One other from Minneapolis area from Ordivician. Apologies but most of it is unprepped at the moment Will have to post images in multiple posts. The Second will be my collection from Iowa. I have stuff from Montana that I will post in a different thread.

Hello everyone, I'm New to the fossil forum. I'm from Minnesota and I've got some nice sized Ordovician fossil from the Platteville formation in Rochester, Minnesota. They're in Limestone sediment. One is a slab that is a filled on both side with crinoid stems (hoping for other rarer parts under the sediment on this slab). The other two are large section on cephalopods. I'm looking for some advice/tips on how I should go about prepping them. Like what kind of tools should I be using and if I should use any chemicals. Any advice/tips would be appreciated. Still fairly new to fossil preparation. Also if better pics are needed I can get them Thank you

Hello, I was wondering if anyone can help identify this bone my family found while digging a foundation for a new home? It was found 13 feet down in a glacial drif in Northern Minnesota. We are quite confident the land has never been touched or altered prior to our digging. Thank you in advance for any help! Happy Thanksgiving!

Found these rolled fossils in the Decorah Shale, St. Paul, MN. Tan colored and measures 2.0 cm long by 1.2 cm wide. The broken piece looks to have piece of Trilobite with it. Thanks for your help.

I am down to my last few trilobites to label from this summer yet. Am open to suggestions on these less than perfect finds: 1. Found in the Galena/ Ordovician of Iowa. Isotelus? If so, is the species obvious? 2. Found in the Platteville formation/ Ordovician of SW Wisconsin. Flexi? 3. Another Galena/ Ordovician but from Minnesota

Hello. I found this rock on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, MN. I don't have the foggiest idea what this could be. Is it a fossil? I thought if anyone could steer me in the right direction it would be you fine folks. I have more pics I can post if needed, just reached my limit. Apparently I need to compress my images a bit more. Thanks!

Hello. I found this on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth, MN. Wanted to get an opinion or two on whether this is a bone, or just a weird looking rock. I have a few more pics I could post if needed, just reached my limit on this one. Thanks!

This Ordovician gastropod is like no others that I have found. Any knowledgeable members able to educate me?? Maybe a strange maclurite?? Love the hollow crystalline interior.

these are three specimens collected in Fillmore County , Minnesota this summer. This is Ordovician. Beyond that, these were out of fallen rock and I can not narrow it down any more.I keep looking at them, not really sure I understand what they are. Soooooooooooooo feel free to comment on them. 1. Looks crinoidal but is full of pores. So bryozoan masquerading as a crinoid cup? Or bryozoan covered crinoid cup? 2. All I can think of is 2 brachiopod shells in apposition, but the linear structure in the middle confuses me. The hinge??

I found this in south central MN near the Minnesota River. Is this a tabulate coral? Is a more specific identification possible?

Found this guy on the in the lake today. Strange impressions on three sides.

Found in about 3 inches of water off Park Point in Duluth, Minnesota. The oblong stone/fossil is 2" x 1.5". Fossilized coral was found nearby, for what that's worth. The radial lines do connect on both sides of the stone/fossil.

I found it in central Mn it’s petrified the white pieces can’t be picked off by hand. Please help thank you it’s about 14x4 3 inches thick..thank you

Hi I found this in West Central Mn, it is 9inx7in and about 3.5in thick. It appears that what crushed it left a foot print. But looks are deceiving any help would be great. thank you

Edit to add: more likely a phalange This was found in the river at the confluence of the Blue Earth and Minnesota River in South Central Minnesota on August 3, 2018. It appears to me to be an astragalus, the size of that of a white tailed deer, but the shape is not quite right. It matches none of the astragali found in Miles Gilbert's Mammalian Osteology. The "bump" at about the 4cm mark in two of the photos seems like a very distinctive feature, yet I cannot find an identification for this. About our area: This area was, in early American times, the land of the Sioux Indians and the bison. Geologically, this area is very rich in silica. We find a lot of mineralized bones of bison, bos, Odocoileus virginianus, etc. This is the north eastern edge of the great plains.

Soon I will be taking the family on our annual vacation. We plan on leaving central ks, and going almost straight north to the Ashfall fossil beds in Nebraska. We will then head up to Big Sandy lake in Minnesota for a week of relaxation and fishing. I'm looking for any suggestions on rock/ fossil related things anybody here might suggest. Thanks in advance!

Mike @minnbuckeye kindly sent me a package of orthocone nautiloids from his area recently. It's one of the taxa that are sparse in my collection so I was happy to accept the offer. I'm posting them to show what a generous guy he is and to elicit more info about them that might be missing... I don't think that big one in the lower right was labeled - Is it the same as the other large one, Elgin IA?