I Still Have My Very First Fossil. Do You?

[Phossiker]

I was about 13 and the family was visiting friends near Melbourne (Australia).

We had a day travelling around country roads, looking at galleries and craft shops. I was getting tired of appreciating more bathroom art and for some reason I was sent out side to sit by the road and wait.

The road was dusty and had recently been covered with a layer of crushed rock.

In the sun I could see that some of the rocks appeared to have feathers fossilised in them. The more rocks that I hit the more feathers I found.

When I showed my parents they told me that it was nothing and some rocks just looked like that.

I did tuck one of the better pieces into my pocket though – and I still have it.

Now I know that it is a fossil but not a feather - a glossopteris leaf.

Every time I get it out I am surprised at how small a chip it actually is.

Here is my first fossil find.

Glossopteris

[Rockin' Ric]

Back when I was just a kiddo, I found fern and shell fossils. Evidently they were not important to me enough to keep them so I have no idea where they are, however I think moving a few times had something to do with it. When I got to high school age, I was walking down an old logging road near an abandoned coal mine when I came upon these 3D Calamite fossils. Back then I had no idea what they were the internet wasn't available, I knew they were fossils of some type tree! 25 years later while hunting fossils with my young nephews we came upon a mother load of Calamites fossils on a construction site, got on the internet and found out what they were. I've held onto the fossils over time and now part of my permanent collection! Hunting with my nephews got me started collecting seriously, they've now since moved on because girls are more important than rocks. Old uncle Ric still find these rocks fascinating!

[NZ_Fossil_Collecta]

mine was a fragment of a pleistocene tree mold, that was made when lava encased the tree. broke a bit off, and bingo, 200,000 year old fossil.

[PRK]

Cool, how long have you had it?

[Plantguy]

Hey Paul, yep you alls finds are much more cool than the one that attracted my eye as a kid back in the late 60's...

a Monterey formation clam...

I've got to go find some stuff to display for the next local fossil club so if I run across it in the mine tailings I'll snap a photo and tag it here.

Neat seeing this stuff that we all have held on to!!

Regards, Chris

[mikegold82]

This is my first fossil, I was 14 and was helping change a tire when I saw this funny looking rock at the base of a road cut.

[John K]

my entire collection was destroyed in a fire when I was in the service, but just by luck this little guy was at a friends house at the time:

this is the only known shark tooth I've ever heard of found in Western Wisconsin (!) We were around 13 or 14 when my friend and I found it in a local sand pit. We found it embedded in cretaceous sandstones mixed in with Pleistocene glacial gravels and Ordovician limestones - a real mish-mash of stuff

[fossilized6s]

This isn't my first fossil, but it was my first big find that made my knees knock with joy and at the same time terrified!

I've been picking through rocks since i can remember and loved fossils! One day i went to my friends house ( i was about 5-6) and i had taught him to be a rock hound, so we were under his parents porch looking through their gravel and i came across the best crinoid i have ever found! I was so excited, but knowing my friend i knew it was such a good specimen that he would claim it as his because i found it in his gravel. So i bottled my excitement and hide it behind his garage until my Mom picked me up! Lol