First Fossil Hunting Trip: Finger Lakes, NY

[jonchowe]

Last week started normally, and ended with me driving from NYC to the Finger Lakes, the chauffeur for my fiance and her maid of honor for a half-week getaway (after 6 months of lockdown). With no plans of my own, I read a little about the area and saw mention of trilobites being found. My dad has a trilobite on the mantle when I was growing up, so I read further and saw many were found in a stream bed near where we were staying, and all of a sudden I was making plans to go fossil hunting.

 

Luckily I found this forum and other resources in my quick search and learned the stream in question is on private property. I identified a number of public that looked similar/nearby on google maps terrain, and decided to look there. 

 

I made a few outings myself while they did their thing, and we all made a few stops along our drive and looked together a couple times. It was my first time, and it started slow. At one road stop my fiance found what might have been coral? Then I found a worm-looking thing at a roadside waterfall, but it cracked when i picked it up again. It was when I/we went to Clark Gully and Bare Hill Unique Area near Lake Canandaigua, and Kashong Creek near Lake Seneca that we really found some neat things (which I'll start posting below).

 

I know very little about fossils but have ordered a book and started reading through this forum and other resources to learn more about what I found. I know the area is known for Devonian fossils, so I'm working from the assumption that these are from around then. In the meantime, I've given them all a gentle cleaning; I tried scrubbing gently with both dish soap and vinegar, the former seems to work better, but I'm trying to be as careful as possible to not damage anything until I know what I am doing.

 

These first three fossils we found at Kashong in the stream bed. We found lots of amalgamations of shell imprints/other things, but these 3 really stood out. The first one you can really see the difference from before and after cleaning, in terms of the detail. Im afraid to do much more, and am open to any suggestions as I post some more!

 

 

 

(Before cleaning)

 

(After cleaning)

 

 

Front view, before cleaning

 

(Before cleaning)

 

 

(After very, very gentle cleaning)

 

(After cleaning)

 

 

Thanks to this forum for helping me quickly brush up on the basics and find these guys, it was really fun!

 

 

[FossilsandScience]

Nice! Those are some great fossils for a first-time hunt 

[Ludwigia]

Very nice finds!

[JamieLynn]

Congrats!! How fun! 

[jonchowe]

 

Slowly getting more pictures; my space is very limited. And now I obviously need to get more... time to buy storage bins.

 

 

Some kind of imprint, plus some shells imprinted here and there.

 

 

Also from Kashong.

 

Kashong.

 

 

One very prominent, and many many smaller things.  From Clark Gully.

 

One very prominent, and many many smaller things. From Clark Gully.

 

 

 

From Clark Gully.

 

 

From Clark Gully.

[Pagurus]

Congratulations on your most excellent finds.

[HemiHunter]

Holy cow!  You hit it out of the park for a first timer!  Very impressive.  Congrats on great finds!

[Jeffrey P]

Nice partial Greenops trilobite there. Congratulations. Your finds all appear to be Middle Devonian in age. You should join the New York Paleontological Society and next month meet us up in Schoharie to access a wonderful quarry that is otherwise closed to the public. 

[JonnyNYC]

Very cool!  I was in that area about a month ago just to escape the downstate monotony.  Didn't know about the fossil hunting, but nice scores!