Was At St. Clair Today And Got Some Great Material!

[beaver]

very nice

[RandyB]

I have lived a short drive from that site for the past 15 years, but had never gotten into fossil collecting before. I stopped by the site recently and wandered around without any tools and still got a few interesting pieces. Can't wait for a mild dry spell after hunting season to go back with tools to see what I can find.

The first time I ever saw the white ferns was as a little kid visiting my grandparents house. My grandfather used to run a coal breaker with his brothers and when he and my grandmother built their house back in the 1940's she had him bring home a big piece of the fern covered rock for her flowerbed. It graced their garden for almost 70 years. This past summer my grandfather asked me to take it as I was the only one of the grandchildren to ever express an interest. It's 17" x 32" and completely covered in ferns, the biggest single plate I have seen from St Clair. But after all of those years exposed most of the white has washed away on the 'top'. I have long wondered if the piece would put up with a careful attempt to chip off a fresh layer to expose the bright white fossils still inside. I know they are there based on chips around the edges, they seem to run through the entire piece. Maybe someday I'll work up the courage to try, but in the mean time I'll continue to enjoy the piece as much for the nostalgia as I do for the fossils.

Thank you for sharing your finds and inspiring us new comers to get interested in making discoveries of our own.