No Excuses For Not Knowing Where To Start Hunting Fossils!

[abctriplets]

On 3/5/2014 at 8:43 PM, Ray Eklund said:

 

WHY not have a Permit System that is paid annually by any Amateur Collector, citizen or not, to have the opportunity (although I feel it is a right) to collect at will on Paleontological Rock Bearing Formations that are not already protected by National Park or National Monument status? This is for "surface collecting" permits. If a quarry is needed... this can be provided with a control as to who is responsible to restore the quarry to its original, or better, natural state.

 

Popping into an old, but informative, thread. We spent the past year learning about a similar situation with a separate field of collecting - mudlarking on the Thames. The river banks around London are one of the largest open archeological sites available to the public, with 2,000 years of historical artifacts waiting to be found. People could generally surface collect at will (and then reporting/logging significant finds with the museum), but they'd have to pay for a permit to scrape or dig to acquire historical artifacts. Just this past week, though, they went to a full permit system, where everyone now has to pay to have a permit to surface collect. It'll be interesting to see the fallout from this decision, and whether or not it actually solves whatever perceived problems they had. 

[Cluros]

What a great discussion. I would like to add that the old State Geologic Reports are great and many are available as PDFs. I've found some great info in geology club newsletters from the 1930s and 1940s that were digitized. Another great resource is Google Earth as you have satellite imagery and you can overlay topo maps, geologic maps and old report maps as transparent layers. These have been very helpful in my prospecting. I also use Google Street view on occasion to get a peak at property.