Is It Possible For Fossils To Be Forming Here?

[Dinodude101]

From the extensive research I've done, I found that I live over the BGB(Baltimore gabbro complex) layer in Maryland and I'm finding fossils near my house (no more than a 2 minuet walk). Mostly shells, but I've also found other sea-life, and one piece of petrified wood that has a crystalline coating on one side. Is it even possible for fossils to form here? Unfortunately, I wasn't able to upload any photos because everything i took was over 2MB.

[Fossildude19]

Welcome to the Forum, Dinodude101.

I use PHOTOSCAPE, a free download photo editor.

It is a very powerful tool for manipulating pictures.

It is easy to use and very intuitive. Resizing your pics is easy as sliding a bar to the percentage you want to increase or decrease in size - I usually edit my 2mb pics down to 35% of the original size and crop to have mostly fossil in the pic.

As to whether there are fossils in your area, if you can pinpoint your location on this Geologic map, it may give you some insight as to what kind of rocks you can expect to find - and keep in mind, there may be erratics left over from the glaciers.

Hope this helps some.

Regards,

[Dinodude101]

Welcome to the Forum, Dinodude101.

I use PHOTOSCAPE, a free download photo editor.

It is a very powerful tool for manipulating pictures.

It is easy to use and very intuitive. Resizing your pics is easy as sliding a bar to the percentage you want to increase or decrease in size - I usually edit my 2mb pics down to 35% of the original size and crop to have mostly fossil in the pic.

As to whether there are fossils in your area, if you can pinpoint your location on this Geologic map, it may give you some insight as to what kind of rocks you can expect to find - and keep in mind, there may be erratics left over from the glaciers.

Hope this helps some.

Regards,

Well, I already use iphoto, and I would have to crop to a point where no one can make out the image. The reason being, I shoot with a DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T3). The image size increases dramatically with the larger sensor. But I'll see if I can find a macro image.

I did a lot of research and found exactly where i live (BGB in howard county), but fossils don't form in gabbro. I don't think maryland has/had glaciers and even so, the matrix rock looks pretty consistent.

[Fossildude19]

Well keep in mind, that there could be pockets or outcroppings of sedimentary rock that haven't been mapped out by geologists, and that the Bedrock maps may not be totally accurate.

Regards,

[Auspex]

Resizing a large file is easy. Crop to eliminate extraneous background, set the image to 72 PPI, and resize it proportionally to a largest dimension of about 1,000 pixels. This is more than adequate for normal purposes here.

[snolly50]

Well, I already use iphoto, and I would have to crop to a point where no one can make out the image. The reason being, I shoot with a DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T3). The image size increases dramatically with the larger sensor. But I'll see if I can find a macro image.

Hello Dinodude, that's a nice camera you have. Obtaining a small enough image is not a matter of cropping alone. Indeed a very large image (file size) may be resized with very acceptable results for viewing onscreen. It is not only an issue of reducing the image content, but of reducing the info packed into the image. As Fossildude points out this may be easily accomplished with the proper program. I use Photoshop Elements because I do a lot of post-shot processing, but resizing is a basic function that can be handled by a great many programs. My icon, while cropped, was also originally a file of probably 3 or 4 MB size. Resizing the image, not cropping, accounts for the majority of the reduction.

I look forward to seeing some of your shots. I think the DSLR is one of the greatest tech devices of my lifetime. I was slow to give up 35mm photography, but my daughter passed a DSLR to me when she upgraded. I loved it and have recently moved to the full-frame Nikon D600. I am really enjoying it.

Edited May 5, 2013 by snolly50

[lfsxdth]

Right along rt 100 headed west when you get off I95 there is a patch of clay on the north side of the highway before the Rt 103 exit. It always has looked the like grey clay of the Arundel Formation to me. Never stopped to investigate though. From the car is looks the same as sites down in Jessup along Rt 1.

Look forward to seeing some pictures.

[lfsxdth]

As I drive past this area five days a week, I decided to stop. Walked through the woods North of Brightfield Rd. I did not see any fossiliferous

areas. This is a wooded area with a very very tiny stream. There was hardly any gravel in the stream and nothing that looked productive for me. Once in the woods there is hardly any undergrowth thanks to the deer.

I did not cover the whole area, but unless that is a patch I am missing one would need to dig as there were no areas to surface collect.

[painshill]

As others are saying, it really depends on exactly where you are and the specific geology of the area. There’s a better set of maps at the link below. After you select Howard County you can keep clicking on the map and it will keep zooming in to give you more detail:

http://devonian.org/geologicmaps/index.html

Maps and geology are only ever part of the story. You also need to use your eyes to observe what else might have been going on in the area. Quarrying, mining, construction, dumping and so on. You can’t always assume that fossils found loose in a particular area actually originated there unless they are firmly attached to the bedrock.

For example when they dug the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal that cuts across Maryland, they excavated 40 feet down to previously unexposed Cretaceous formations containing belemnites and bivalves. Piles of that material can be found at various locations on the North side of the canal (but they have no geological right to be there).

Edited June 7, 2013 by painshill

[RichW9090]

It is almost useless to just randomly dig in an area which has no evidence of producing fossils. It is hard enough to find fossils in exposures of formations known to have produced fossils unless you actually see bone (for vertebrates) or shells, etc. for the inverts.

[lfsxdth]

Talked to a friend who grew up in Howard County. He says that there use to be sand quarries in the area where the golf course is not far from this "site." Much of this area had pits that were filled in and have been built over. Not sure if this area is one of those areas.

Hopefully if there are fossils in this area, more specific information or photos can be posted. The purpose of my post was to save others a visit since this area does not seem like a good area to find fossils.