Fossil and Prairie Park, Rockford IA

[Thomas.Dodson]

A little over a week ago I moved to Louisiana. On the way down I tried to set aside a little time to stop at a few places and collect. I made a couple short stops at roadcuts south of Minneapolis to some success (brachiopods, rugosa, Flexicalymene, etc.) but the most impressive stop was the Fossil and Prairie Park outside of Rockford Iowa. It's surely well known by collectors in Iowa but I found it by accident while researching my route down.

 

A town that owns it's paleontology history is always nice and the town was beautiful. I wish I had more time to hang around and try the bar on Main.

Outside Rockford is the Fossil and Prairie Park, the site of an old quarry. The Visitor's Center was unfortunately closed while I was there but there's lots of history and information online.

Fossils were absolutely everywhere and it was hard to pry myself away after only an hour there.

Easy collecting.

The trails looked nice but again I did not have time to check them out.

I still haven't had time to go through and identify and catalog everything but I have a general idea on what most are. I felt like if I didn't get around to posting this stuff this week I was never going to. Bad pictures, need to set up a light area here. I also didn't think to pack any of my scale references apparently.

A very nice place for sure and occasionally people turn up rarer things such as cephalopods. Still, the diversity is impressive even among the brachiopods.

[fossilhunter21]

Nice finds!

Thanks for sharing. 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Yum! Yum! 

[Cyclone96]

I recently visited (for about the 6th time) with my children the other day.  It sure is an amazing park.

 

[Thomas.Dodson]

47 minutes ago, Cyclone96 said:

I recently visited (for about the 6th time) with my children the other day.  It sure is an amazing park.

 

It's very children accessible (both walking and ease of finding fossils) which is also very nice.

[Coco]

Hi,

 

Nice discoveries on your way. I notice that when you want to put a rule on the photos, there is always a way ! Brief but effective ! Congratulations !

 

Coco