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Hi all ! Figured I should check in with the experts before our visit. Amateur fossilers here, our usual haunt is Monmouth Cty, NJ and have been to Central-ish PA for shale ferns before they closed the site. I pretty much love anything old that sparks the imagination, and dh loves teeth. We get particular enjoyment out of finding things new to us. So anywho, we are heading to Arcadia, FL for 9 days next week to see what we can find. I have been researching many websites, forums, etc and have gotten our licences. We are familiar with what to bring but will mostly walk banks or shallow river beds to get to a good spot as we will not have kayaks unless we rent, but dh has bad shoulders, a bad back, etc. So I guess really, a big question of mine, since I don't want to get arrested or eaten by alligators is, where there are bridges crossing the river, can we pull off the road and walk in to the river from the bridge? Looking at sat images all the way to Bowling Green, it looks in many spots like people have done this. And is it kosher to go to someone's door and ask if we can access the river from their property? Also, are there other areas within an hour or so of Acadia that are worth us checking out? Other than the Gainesville area, I'm not seeing much info. Would like to check some of the beaches but am aware of the red tide and seaweed issues. Will post some of our Jersey finds when I can figure out how to make the pix smaller. Thanks for any and all wisdom you can share !

Just back from an epic hike in the Talkeetna Mountains after a recent storm passed through. The snow line was at 5,500 feet and at this time of year the snow is referred to as termination dust because it will stick in the higher peaks foreshadowing winter’s arrival. I have enough confidence now to name some of the fossils I have encountered on these hikes and would like any corrections on IDs if I misidentified them. The background geology I gleaned from Geological Survey Professional Paper 432, Upper Cretaceous (Campanian and Maestrichtian) Ammonites From Southern Alaska. An early morning start to take advantage of the spectacular weather. Castle Mountain, volcanic deposit which overlays the fossil bearing layers I will be hiking through. The Wrangell Mountains in the distance overlooking the Copper River Basin and Talkeetna Mountains in the foreground. Landed a ridge and tied down multiple times as even though good weather was forecast I need to have the plane where I left it so I can return home. The fossils on this trip are in the Matanuska Formation, specifically in member 3 and divided into two faunal zones. The lower, Inoceramus schmidti zone and upper, Pachydiscus kamishakensis zone. I believe this is a Pachydiscus sp. ammonite and have seen these before. Many of the concretions contain fossils and locally abundant. Having said that it was many miles hiking before a came across an intact ammonite. Bits and pieces to look at and ponder. Canadoceras sp. but so broken could have been a heteromoph and a completely different ammonite species. I mentioned the good weather for this trip and here is an example of what a storm can do. Normally you do not see what the silt stone looks like in un-weathered condition as it take quite an erosion event to expose the rock from the overburden. The preceding week had some heavy precipitation with this area obviously receiving enough to cut down to the bedrock. All the small gullies I crossed on this hike were also affected by the recent run off and snow at the higher elevations. This is at the base of the silt layer where it is overlain by the volcanic rock. The Dall sheep use the steep gullies and cliffs as escape habitat from predators. Kobuk, (my dog) was interested in the sheep and I recalled him so as to leave the ewes with their lambs to their solitude. Continuing on to my objective where I saw what looked like more silt stone exposure with concretions from the air. I like this picture which gives a feel for how steep the exposures are. You never know what is on the next one! Uncommon but I have found some petrified wood in this area. I could not determine what layer this was associated with as it was just laying in the tundra. If you look in some of the pictures you will see numerous caribou trails with this calf cruising by on one while Kobuk and I were having lunch. Caribou can be quit curious at times and this one approached to 12 feet. Notice Kobuk’s paws are ready to go! Still curious and had to take another look at us. Blue berries are ripe now and a bonus snack while in the mountains. My objective for this hike was this area and exposures. From the air it looked like numerous concretions in the silt stone but turned out to be chunks of conglomerates from the layers above. Four and one half miles from the plane so will loop back and check a few more exposures out. The six mile ammonite! Patagiosites alaskensis. The exposure on the right side here immediately caught my attention as I could see concretions. Getting closer and some more caribou, cow with her calf. More importantly definitely concretions here. Abundant Inoceramus in the float at the bottom of the cliff. Will come back another time to see what might be on the face but need to get new soles on my boots as my current ones are rounded and it’s hazardous when like that climbing that steep of an exposure. These Cretaceous deposits are very similar to those of Vancouver Island and the Chignik Formation on the Alaska Penninsula. In rereading the professional paper after this hike I got a better understanding of the geology and concretions there. Some of the concretions have thin crystal layers which look a little like shell in cross section. These are described as cone-in-cone concretions and are likely calcite layers which form concentrically in the concretion and their white flash appearance can be seen in the distance when looking shell material. Looking back from where I traversed can see the Chugach Mountains and recent snow. Nine miles and almost back to my ride home. Hope you enjoy as much as I did, what a day!

snolly (accompanied and supervised by the intrepid snollywife) spent a very pleasant, thought provoking evening at a lecture by Joel Sartore. Sartore is a National Geographic photographer, and founder of the Photo Ark project (link below). His presentation included both video and stills of his wonderful photographic efforts. With humor and self-revelation, his talk laid out the fundamental facts regarding the realities of survival for the animal world and indeed, our foolish selves. A private reception following the lecture afforded the opportunity to meet Sartore. In person he proved to be a warm, affable individual with an infectious love of the natural world. It was time well spent, and if the opportunity arises for interested Forum members, I would certainly recommend attendance of this presentation. https://www.joelsartore.com/gallery/the-photo-ark/

This past weekend my wife and I, a few friends and a few other fossil hunting fanatics braved the sweltering heat and humidity that is eastern NC summer. Forecast was for temps in the low - mid 90s F, high humidity and 50-70% chance of showers and thunderstorms. This was our 3rd attempt at accessing a Cretaceous deposit along one of the rivers after 2 unsuccessful attempts earlier this spring due to high water. With many of the eastern NC rivers running higher than normal so far this summer, we wanted to take advantage of a lull on this particular river, since there is no guarantee a tropical storm/system won't flood us out for an extended time period at any point from now through late fall. Even though we knew we were going to be hot and sweaty, harassed by mosquitoes, biting flies & gnats as well as the possible snake or 2, we had to take what low water we could get. We were all drenched in sweat (and sand / mud) the entire 2 days we hunted. Coming along on its inaugural fossil hunting trip was a new photo scale cube custom made by Ray/ @aerogrower for Mrs. SA2, in pink. She was quite surprised when a box addressed to her showed up a few days before the trip and it contained her very own cube, in pink. When I explained that its a 1 of a kind, she was even more excited. Even more importantly for me, Mrs. SA2's new, pink cube proved to have "the magic" that so many TFF members have come to expect and enjoy in Ray's cubes. Here are a few photos of it beside the massive, almost complete Deinosuchus rugosus vertebrae I found on Sunday morning. These photos were taken right after it was found and given a preliminary rinsing off. Note how nice the cube looks with pink paint. Mrs. SA2 was not impressed with my muddy finger prints on her new cube and promptly cleaned it off before the last photo. It is by far the most complete and largest Deinosuchus vert in our collection. Once I finish cleaning it and the other goodies we found, I will post some more photos. Quite a few teeth and verts of Deinosuchus and other crocodile species were found by the group as well as the normal massive amount of Squalicorax, Scapanohrynchus and Carcharias teeth. Numerous Cretaceous fish teeth and even a few Hadrosaur teeth and 1 theropod tooth were also found over the weekend. What we didn't expect when we made the trip, was for the wildlife to be so determined to keep the fossils away from us. Here is a photo of a big crayfish holding onto a sharks tooth. Determined little thing so we traded him a clean getaway for his tooth. One of our group even snapped this photo along the river bank while she was scanning for fossils. Of course, its all fun and games until you slip on the sloping, wet clay and fall face first at the snake you are attempting to photograph. (YES, that really happened.) More to come......

I think fossil collecting is great but I've encountered a snake and a scorpion while collecting and it's really made me more fearful of any rock I try and flip over. Any tips for staying safe out there?