Distinguishing Between Bone, Teeth And Petrified Wood?

[BenDill93]

Hey guys,

My grandfather had a large collection of fossils, rocks, and minerals and he has become more focused on his civil war button collection and has put the other collections to the wayside. The majority of these collections have ended up at my house and being a collector myself i find it very interesting. I'm new to fossils though and am just starting to go through them and organize (everything is sort of jumbled together) the stuff. Im starting with bone because it seems to be the smallest portion of the whole collection. But im having trouble distinguishing between the bone, some of the smaller petrified (or fossilized, i dont really know the difference) wood pieces. and also he has a lot of fossilized sharks teeth and stuff and am thinking i might be classifying some of the less obvious teeth as simply bone. Also is there ways of classifying different types of bone? Any information on any of these topics would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Ben Dillenbeck

Also if anyone knows of good crystal/rock/mineral forums i would love to know about them also

[Auspex]

Welcome to the Forum!

Let's see whether we can help you catalog your fossils (this part we love!)

Bright, sharp photos, from several angles, along with a ruler for scale and all the location data you have on them ought to make short but pleasant work of it.

For your minerals, you'll have fun at Mindat: LINK