Search the Community

I drive 8 hours with a friend to a location he remembers from his childhood as yielding a lot. Oh boy it did. 100% worth the drive. Lake Huron, among the agates, pyrite, yooperlite, has some extraordinary Devonian fossils. All fossils were collected from the beach of his family’s property except for the fenestelid bryozoan, which was found at a gas station on the way there. please enjoy this collection of gastropods, petoskey stones, various tabulate corals, crinoids, stromatoporoids, bivalves, Brachiopods, tenteculites, horn corals, an unidentified agatized fossil in jasper matrix, and a pudding stone I felt like showing off too. Thanks! I highly recommend the area.

Back in April of last year I started a new job based in Texas. I had planned to work remotely until we returned to the office and then make a road trip down to Texas that would involve making several fossil pit stops along the way. When the time came for my move to Texas, my road trip unfortunately coincided with Hurricane Ida and I had to sadly scrap all of my plans and simply hightail it through the Gulf Coast to avoid the storm. Fortunately though I was given off from work the week between Christmas and New Years and I was even more determined to not let my research go to waste. The delay in my road trip also had the added bonus of time- I ended up visiting several sites that I had not known about during my move to Texas. Funnily, while I did not have to dodge hurricanes on this trip, I did have to dodge two tornado warnings. I guess extreme weather is just something you have to deal with when you fossil collect along the Gulf Coast. The road trip ended up being ten days of late nights and early mornings. I found a ton of really interesting fossils, which consequently meant that I have only now been able to finish cleaning, prepping, and identifying all of my finds. The road trip involved a number of firsts for me- it was the first time I have ever done a several day fossil road trip without my dad; I found a number of fossils that I had not found before; and I made my first ever donation to a museum. I would not have had it any other way! I can't wait to do it again soon! Day One I had a long drive into Mississippi in front of me so I had hoped to get an early start to the day. Fortunately or unfortunately that did not happen. I was to met a property owner early the next morning so my plan was to just get as close to tomorrow's site as possible. I could not pass up the opportunity though to do a little fossil collecting along the way. I had read about some old Oligocene sites that I thought could be worth checking out just to say that I had been there. Sadly one of the sites was simply too overgrown to be collected and at the other I was only able to find some incredibly fragile Pecten byramensis scallop shells. First find of the trip! Day Two Early the next day I drove another hour to a stream exposure of the Upper Eocene Moodys Branch Formation. In the time that had passed from my planned trip in September to my trip in December the site had changed ownership, but the old owner was kind enough to pass along the new owners' contact information. With a little convincing the new owners granted me permission to visit. I was excited! I had been warned about the fragility of the Periarchus lyelli sand dollars at the site but with the right tools and the right mindset I was ready to get into the creek and do some exploring. I had thought that my visit would last only a few hours, but, after walking the section of creek several times looking for the sand dollar bed and making several trips to my car to bring in more tools and carry everything out, before I knew it was already the late afternoon. While the turn of events meant that I could not visit some of the other sites I had planned for the day, it did mean I had the opportunity to meet both of the owners. I showed them what I had found and they asked if I would send them one of the sand dollars, which I was happy to do. With an invitation to come back whenever I wanted and some holiday wishes, I hit the road to my planned stop for the night. Not much to see when first found, but when they are properly prepped... Far more abundant than the sand dollars where the wealth of shells, corals, bryozoans, and other tiny fossils. I ended up washing and screening some excess matrix I collected. I was astonished by what I found, including tons of tiny shells, fish otoliths, fish teeth, crab claws, bryozoans, juvenile sand dollars, shark teeth, etc. Calyptraphorus stamineus Cirsotrema nassulum Venericardia apodensata Glycymeris idonea Eburneopecten scintillatus Nucula spheniopsis Balanophyllia irrorata Flabellum cuneiforme Endopachys maclurii Platytrochus goldfussi Crab Claws Arm Plates of Comatulid Crinoid Himerometra louisianensis Sea Star Ossicles Juvenile Periarchus lyelli Negaprion gibbesi Fish Vertebra Paralbula marylandica Ariosoma nonsector Preophidion meyeri Sciaena aff. Sciaena pseudoradians Jefitchia claybornensis Orthopristis americana Day Three With a quick change of plans in light of the expected weather later in the week I drove through Mississippi into Northern Alabama to hunt the Mississippian Bangor Limestone. When I had told a friend that I was planning a road trip through Alabama he had recommended several sites in the Bangor Limestone worth checking out. He recommended going in the winter time though since one of the sites was only exposed when the lake is drained. With six sites on my list I knew that I would have to be efficient with my time. While I could have easily stayed longer at some of the sites, an hour and a half to two hours turned out to be just enough time for each site. While I had heard that the Alabama Paleontological Society had been to two of the sites only the week prior, some recent rain had helped refresh things and there were plenty of fossils to be collected. I was thrilled to find some Mississippian blastoids and crinoids. Some in-situ photos of the blastoids Pentremites pyriformis Pentremites godoni Zeacrinites wortheni Pterotocrinus depressus Onychocrinus pulaskiensis Phanocrinus bellulus While I had added several Bangor Limestone sites to my list in hopes of finding Mississippian crinoids and blastoids, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Mississippian trilobites Kaskia chesterensis I also found. Crinoid Cup and Trilobite Tails A visit to the Bangor Limestone would not be complete without adding some Archimedes bryozoan to the collection. I found this plate with one large piece on it. At the end of the day, as the sun was setting, I made a very quick stop at an exposure of the Hartselle Sandstone. Using whatever light I could use, I contrasted the loose rocks with the sun and added a few Mississippian ichnofossils to my collection. Olivellites implexus Lockeia cordata Lockeia siliquaria Day Four The same friend who recommended I visit several Bangor Limestone sites also recommended I visit a couple of Monteagle Limestone sites while I was in the area. While my first two full days of collecting had brought riches, including beautiful sand dollars, blastoids, and crinoids, today was the first unproductive day. Having driven quite a distance to get here and having spent by then several full days out in the field, I was ok to take a bit of a break. With a gray sky and a light drizzle, I stopped at four sites, with only one of the sites being fruitful for a quick stop. Although my friend promised crinoids and blastoids, I only found a few loose brachiopods, crinoid stems, and bryozoans, and a single crinoid plate. Schellwienella sp. Punctospirifer kentuckiensis Punctospirifer transversa Inflatia inflata Petrocrania chesterensis Hederella chesterensis Agassizocrinus conicus Seeking to not waste the day and with still many hours in the day left, I decided to make the most of things and visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville. When you drive into Huntsville on the highway you can see two massive model rockets standing up in the horizon- it is really a sight to see. As I learned from the museum, while Houston has Mission Control and Cape Canaveral has the rocket launch pad, it is Huntsville that builds and tests rockets. I am really glad I got the chance to visit. Full Size Models of Saturn I and Saturn V Rockets Prototype of Saturn V Rocket Used To Test Lifting Mechanism Before Sending Apollo Astronauts To The Moon Apollo 16 Command Module Day Five Today marked the first of several days I would be focusing on the Upper Cretaceous Period. Having grown up collecting in the Upper Cretaceous of New Jersey, the Upper Cretaceous has always had a special place in my collection and I was excited to see what the Gulf Coast could offer. Ralph Johnson, the curator of the MAPS Collection, had asked me to collect a few representative samples for him to compare against the ones from the Atlantic Coastal Plain in the MAPS Collection, so I had added reason to fit a few stops in. My first stop was a stream exposure of the Eutaw Formation, Tombigbee Sand Member. I had heard rumors and got confirmation from the President of APS that the owners of the property can be a little careless in their target practice, so I made sure to fit in a stop to the site in the early morning on a weekday and to wear an orange vest while there. Prepared for the worst but hoping for the best, I was happy to hear nothing while I collected. After grabbing a few echinoids and finally speaking on the phone with the owner of a property I had hoped to visit later that day, I made my way to my next stop. Hardouinia bassleri Trigonia sp. Inoceramus sp. Exogyra upatoiensis Flemingostrea cretacea Ostrea sp. My second stop was a roadside exposure of the Prairie Bluff Chalk. I was really fortunate to get permission to visit when I did because the site abounded in phosphatic molds of bivalves, gastropods, and ammonites. The ground was literally covered with fossils. I was excited to see many fossils that I recognized from my collecting in New Jersey. Discoscaphites conradi Trachyscaphites alabamensis Eubaculites carinatus Baculites lomaensis Baculites sp. C Dunnicrinus mississippiensis Ossicles Turritella tippana Turritella encrinoides Longoconcha sp. Anchura noakensis Napulus sp. Bellifusus sp. Ellipsoscapha mortoni Graphidula sp. Eoacteon sp. Gyrodes spillmani Gyrodes petrosus Anisomyon sp. Crassatella vadosa Cucullaea capax with Cliona microtuberum boring sponge trace Solyma sp. Veniella conradi Scabrotrigonia thoracica Granocardium lowei Cyprimeria alta Spondylus sp.

So, I had planned a long trip for this year and built a vehicle for it. However due to some health issues I had to cancel. However I still had the time off from work and the weather here in Omaha was not good for recovery. so I got some help packing up the new to me fossil hunting Jeep and headed west to San Diego. Plenty of time to burn and a vehicle with AC helped, so I took a long and inefficient route to SD where the VA has a better cardiovascular clinic. As I could only drive for a few hours a day and due to heat and wildfire smoke, I took stopped frequently and mostly stayed in hotel. However, it was cooler in the higher altitudes with much lower humidity so… Stopped at Fossil Mountain to camp. Couldn’t do much on the mountain itself where the good stuff is at, but enjoyed a cooler evening and morning. Didn’t get any fossils worth reporting, but was nice spot to relax. From there I stopped at Crystal Peak and scored a few pygs in a wash near the road.

Salutations FF! Sometime next week I'm planning to come down to the Central Oregon Coast (Sort of around the Newport area). I'm planning on hitting Beverly Beach, Agate Beach, and South Beach in hopes of finding some shells and with the blessing of the fossil gods, maybe an aturia. Was wondering what kind of experience people have had at these beaches, and if there are any other places worth hitting in the area.

Last year, to celebrate finishing my undergraduate degree, my girlfriend and I went on a long (9,000+ mile) road trip around the western US and at long last (a little over a year since their discovery) the last of the fossils we found are out of the refrigerator and I’ve finally gotten all of them photographed. Here are some of the highlights and best fossils we found. A rough map of the route of the trip While the trip wasn’t entirely fossil centric we wanted to hunt at a few cool spots along the way. We chose to visit 5 fossil locations, the first of which was Clarkia Fossil Bowl in Idaho, a fantastic location for Miocene age leaves (Langhian Stage, ~15Mya) tucked behind a motocross track. These poor fossils have been through it all in the year between when they were found and when I finally got them dry. They’ve been soaked several times, gone mouldy twice, frozen at least once and flown across the Atlantic Ocean, all before spending the last 8 months in the refrigerator. Amazingly all but two of them survived perfectly including one of my favourite finds, a tiny flower. A maple leaf (genus Acer) still partly covered in matrix but with the stem intact. At some point I hope to get this one prepared. The best leaf find of the trip, with beautiful red coloration and mottling from fungus. A partial leaf, with beautiful vein preservation. The next spot was the American Fossil quarry in Kemmerer Wyoming to look for Eocene fish (Green River Formation, Ypresian Stage, ~53-48Mya). Splitting though the material left out by the quarry we found a few fish, primarily Knightia and Diplomystus. The best Knightia, including the best fish of the day with its head still partly covered. Some of the Diplomystus. The first needs some repair as it broke through the tail. The second has a counterpart as well and I’m hoping to frame it soon. And a mystery fish, I don’t know what species this is, it could just be Knightia or Diplomystus but it doesn’t look like the others we found. The star find came close to the end of the time at the quarry, a section of a puddle layer packed full of Knightia, at least a dozen fish piled on top of each other. The quarry manager was kind enough to let me take the blocks without splitting them thinner since the material is full of fractures and likely would not have survived. The layer as it split in the quarry (US size 13 hiking boot acting as a rough scale). The three pieces I managed to recover. The blocks are currently in a storage unit in Washington until I can figure out how to get them prepared. I am hoping the first two pieces can be reunited and the part and counterpart can be mounted side by side but I’m unsure about how to accomplish this. If anyone who prepares Green River fish has any ideas please let me know. The third locality we visited was Westgard pass in Inyo California, hunting for Cambrian archaeocyathids (Poleta Formation, Cambrian Stage 3, ~ 520Mya). We were only there a short time as there was a lot of driving to do that day, but I still managed to find one example in cross section. My girlfriend was more lucky, finding four examples. These are our favourites, particularly the third, which exhibits some dimensionality in addition to the cross-section. I’m absolutely thrilled to find anything Cambrian, and to make things even better the fossil locality is just down the road from the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, home to living trees more than 4,000 years old and one of my favourite spots on the whole trip. We also visited Capitola Beach to search for rolled cetacean bone. I found two examples with one clearly showing the cancellous internal bone texture. To cap off the trip I wanted to do a fossil hunt in my home state of Washington. Since I still don’t know where to go to look for the elusive Pulalius crab, we decided to search the West Twin River site for shrimp concretions (Pysht Fomration, Oligocene, ~22-33Mya). We found over a dozen of these containing partial shrimp. I think they are all Callianopsis clallamensis since this is a common species at this locality. The first concretion that I found after identifying the right material. Another shrimp nodule containing a large section of claw. The head of a shrimp. Two non-crustaceans, a gastropod internal mould and a beautiful white bivalve in a small concretion. A mystery concretion with something eroding out from both ends. And last, one of the strangest concretions I have ever seen. The outside is hardened but the inside is a soft clay consistency with several bits of shrimp shell, completely the opposite of the hard in the middle concretions I’m used to. In all, it was a fantastic trip. I would love to go back to all the sites we visited, and there is so much more to explore next time I’m stateside. I’m looking forward to getting out hunting again. Stay tuned for the next big trip to celebrate finishing our masters. Benton

Yes, that title is correct I finally got my video finished and uploaded from last year's trip to South Dakota. This is a trip my son and I started making back in 2009 when he was 8 years old. Its always a fun time, with road trips and tourist trap stops, camping, exploring on top of the fossil hunt. The trip was awesome with us digging at a new quarry wall, lots of great fossils, but my gopro overheated a couple times and ate some of my footage. So I ended up putting this video edit on hold while I tried to decide what direction to take, and then I started prepping, and then I wanted to wait until I had the biggest pieces finished out to show.

Took a road trip today and although it was only 28 degrees found a few interesting items. Any help identifying, even a rough direction to look would be appreciated. 1 and 2 were found at Beaver Lake in Arkansas. If I read the map correctly, which is always iffy, they should be Ordovician in age. Wondering if I should break into the squarish looking piece (#1) to see what it contains. 3 and 4 were found just across the Missouri line from Grove Oklahoma. I believe the area is Late Pennsylvanian. The limestone (3) looks like it contains traces of water worn chrinoids(?). #4 May just be a water worn rock but maybe a man made fetish? The hole goes all the way through and would make a great hanging piece.

Hi all, in a few weeks I’m going to be driving down to Charleston with my two boys and our dog. We are planning to make the drive over several days, fossil hunting at each stop. First stop will be Calvert cliffs area. It’s about a 4-5 hour drive for us. I’ve only been there twice, would love some suggestions on which area to hunt. Other than that, I haven’t planned where else to go. We will try to stick to the I-95 corridor, happy to make excursions off the route for anything that would be interesting. My kids are really excited for this, and so am I! Thanks!

Got a road trip with my son coming up last week of June (Want to be at the Elon Musk Rocket Launch 6/29 if possible). Starting in Washington DC. I know there are a ton of Fossil spots along the way but I'd really like to add a decent Angustidens tooth to my collection (Something Different than Peace River, Shark Tooth Hill or Big Brook NJ). I won't be diving and don't have room to carry my sifting gear, but I don't mind putting in a full day of hunting. If anyone is interested in meeting up or share a site I'd be grateful. Thanks, Kevin

I am planning a trip to the eastern townships in Quebec and was wondering if anyone knew of some sites between Ottawa, Ontario and the townships that may have some fossils. I will most likely be avoiding the Island of Montreal on this trip, its just too crazy to drive through. I'm not sure if there are any sites along the way, but any info would be nice. Thanks in advance for the help

My wife and I have been fossil hunting in the Calvert Cliffs region (read: some beachcombing, some sifting, some stick-your-hands-in-the-muck-and-see-what-that-is) for a year or so now, and we're slowly starting to feel like seasoned vets on that front. We're getting ready, however, to take a road trip to Niagara Falls, and we're looking for some solid fossil hunting locations to hit along the way. We'd love to hit a good trilobite site in north PA or western NY state, and possibly also somewhere for ferns and other similarly aged fossils in Schuylkill County PA or thereabouts on the return trip. The fact that it's the dead of winter may present some issues, but we are looking for recommendations for fairly easily accessible sites along our route. To summarize it, consider a straight line path from Washington (DC), to State College (PA), to Jamestown (NY), to Niagara Falls (ON), to Binghamton (NY), and back south to DC via I-81 to either I-83 or I-476. I understand that the Penn Dixie site in Hamburg is closed to the public until May. Is it possible to get to the 18 Mile Creek site at this time of year without walking through freezing cold water (or slip-sliding our way over ice)? If not, any suggestions for productive alternate sites would be great. We are not necessarily looking for a proverbial gold mine -- just somewhere that we can reasonably drive to and park, walk a ways, maybe break a few rocks and bring home some interesting things. Sending me a PM is fine if discretion about locations is warranted. Same deal goes for good sites along the I-81 Corridor in PA. Preference given to places that don't require us to own hip boots, waders, or jackhammers... One final question for now -- anyone know if there would be any customs issues if we had a bunch of fossils in our car when crossing over into Ontario? Thanks for reading and for any recommendations! Edited to add: if this belongs in a different sub-forum (i.e. this one is maybe for completed trips only?) -- sorry, please feel free to delete/move it!