Show us your common fossils

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

For many members who hunt certain formations or areas often, there are common fossils that can be found so often that they are often left in the field, or only taken in the best condition. These common fossils would often be considered beautiful specimens by others who live far away from the site. So show us what's common at your favorite hunting site, whether it be corals, crinoid stems, ammonites or petrified wood! As the saying goes, "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

[JamieLynn]

That is one of the things that I love about getting to know fossil hunters from other areas (and doing trades!) is that which I find in the hundreds are rare elsewhere! My favorite "commons" are Ram's Horn Oysters (Illymatogyra arietina), Algae Fruit (Porocystis globularis), Heart Urchins (Heteraster texana). and Bivalve Trigonia 

 

 

 

 

[JamieLynn]

@Thecosmilia Trichitoma -  where are pics of YOUR common fossils? We wanna see em!

 

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

I don't live in a very fossiliferous area, but I have many relatives in Germany, and go fossil hunting whenever I visit them. One of the sites I enjoy visiting is the Quarry Kromer in Holzmaden. There are a TON of ammonites, everywhere. You can afford to be quite picky with the ones you take, as they are in every single piece of shale. Here are a two images of ones I was able to bring to San Diego. The first one is about 3 inches, and the second one is about I centimeter, but beautifully preserved. Although not very rare, these ammos are really cool!

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

I'll photograph some Thecosmilia Trichitoma corals later today. They are everywhere in Swabian Weißjura fields, and really intricate when prepared with acid.

[Top Trilo]

I’ve only been to Florissant once but from what I could tell these branches and stems are very common. I have some that are only 2 mm wide to some that are over 30 mm wide

[ziggycardon]

I am fairly new to fossil hunting, my first hunt was little over a year ago.

I would say my main hunting area is the Maastrichtian Chalk of the Maastrichtian type-locality in Dutch & Belgian Limburg.

This region is very rich in fossils as multiple Limestone formations are stacked upon each other, unfortunatly the hunting opportunities have lowered the last few years with the loss of many hunting locations and many of the quarries closing down or becoming off limits to hunters. 
So far I have visited the Romontbos quarry once in Eben-Emael (Belgium), the Belemnite graveyard in "'t Grote Bos" in Beutenaken (Netherlands) once, and I've been searching 3 times at a small outcrop in Vroenhoven (Belgium). All these locations date back to the Maastrichtian of the Late Cretaceous and the fossils I've found there are somewhere between 70 - 66 mya (depending from the locations & layers they were found).

 

The most common find are these oysters (Acutostrea uncinella), I have found a couple of dozens of them during my few hunts ranging in size, color and quality.
These are by far the best I've found, all of them were found in Eben-Emael

 

Some Bolbaster prunella I have found at the Outcrops in Vroenhoven.
The yield there is usually very low, but it is the only easy to access location I am aware of. 
These urchins, along with some oysters are the only things I find there each trip.

 

My two best Belemnites (Belemnitella mucronata) found at Beutenaken. 

 

 

[FranzBernhard]

Nice topic!

I only collect common fossils, because I don´t find rare ones .

I would just like to revive some of my old topics, all stuff is from around Graz, Styria, Austria.

And common in my sense means: Go out and pick some up or just observe in outcrop.

Granulolabium, Terebralia, Turritella, Crassostrea - Florianer Schichten - Miocene

Corals - Weißenegg-formation - Miocene

Trochactaeon - Gosau-Group of Kainach - Upper Cretaceous

Tabulate corals - Plabutsch-formation - Eifelian - 1

Tabulate corals - Plabutsch-formation - Eifelian - 2

And, no, the rudists of the St. Bartholomä-formation are not common in this sense. You can not go out and collect one with confidence or observe in outcrop .

Franz Bernhard

[Thecosmilia Trichitoma]

The Thecosmilia corals were a bit hard to photograph, but here are two other corals I have found in the fields around Gerstetten. I may upload my entire collection of corals from this area soon. Please correct me if my identification of these is wrong.

 

Stylina sp.  I prepared this one overnight two days ago using vinegar. The white parts are the parts that were uncovered during the preparation, while the brown parts were already exposed before it.

 

 

Axiosmilia sp. The lighting and background in this image isn’t very good, but it still shows most of the fossil. I found this coral in the same field as the other coral. It was prepared by workers in the Gerstetten fossil museum using diluted hydrochloric acid.

 

 

 

 

 

[FranzBernhard]

You got some nice Jurassic corals there, @Thecosmilia Trichitoma! You said they are super-abundant, but I have never seen them before here on TFF. Thanks for showing!

Franz Bernhard