Humble beginnings: Where was your paleo passion realised?

[MeargleSchmeargl]

I remember exactly how I got pulled into the world of paleontology. It was back in the third grade when my passion was ignited by my teacher at the time, Ms. Sisler (kudos to her). She was running through the day's science section, and she told us about the process of fossilization. I do not know how this hooked me, but after class I asked her for more about it. She pointed out a large 300 page book with many multiple photos and descriptions of various fossils and said "dig in". I did not put the book down once for the rest of the day. And that is where it all started for me. You got a similar start up story? Share it with us below!

[ynot]

I was born in New mexico and My Father's family lived in the Albuquerque area. When I was 2 years old the family took a trip on the Sandia peak tram to the crest of the Sandia mountains. While walking the trail along the ridge, I found a mississippian aged brachiopod, that had weathered out of the limestone My mothers family was living in Santa Cruz and I had been to the beach where I found clam shells, and I knew that "clams" did not belong on the top of a mountain in the middle of the desert!! My parents could not give a good explanation of the process that had put the brachiopod there. This left Me with a burning curiosity.

After that I looked for rocks wherever the family went. And whenever the family went to visit Grandma I insisted on a trip to the crest of those mountains. By the time I was 8 I would sneak off to climb the cliff face in search of the fossils that had weathered out.

 

Tony

[izak_]

When I was 4, I went to a lighthouse in Wollongong Harbour (Australia). I found a nice spiral gastropod cast, and thats where I started. I have expanded my interest heaps since then.

[LordTrilobite]

Probably because I watched The Land Before Time a dozen times when I was a little kid. The obsession for dinosaur stuck with me a long time. And then eventually developed into an interest in palaeontology as a whole.

[Kane]

It was a confluence of factors that sparked my interest. As a kid growing up in east Ottawa, I was spoiled to have all these lovely black or chocolate brown shales with their pyritized nautiloids staining out gold and orange in any road construction, or the shales in the Rideau and Ottawa rivers. Not really having friends, I took an early interest in the natural world, and would spend a lot of time upending rocks looking for bugs. At the age of 6 they did a test and decided I was a very advanced reader and so I was the only kid allowed to use the upper year elementary school library, from which I took out some fabulous books on fossils (and, of course, dinosaurs). There was this rather thick and fairly comprehensive book I remember checking out again and again, quite luridly illustrated with photo plates but also fairly detailed - wish I could remember that book. By about grade six I gave myself "research projects", one of which was to catalogue all the trilobites I could using the public library resources - which entailed a lot of searching and making line drawings of each species, followed by some pertinent descriptive data. This was not for school, but in my spare time. On the way, I would encounter a big pile of Ordovician rock I'd go through, collecting some nautiloid pieces, some of which in that area can be quite large. And the two other contributing influences would be school trips to the Museum of Man (now renamed Museum of Nature) and perhaps being the youngest person to visit the Geological Survey of Canada and getting permission to access their library stacks of journals. All that changed when adolescence came as I set that aside to do the usual adolescent things. I'm just glad I rekindled my old passion after what seemed a long hiatus

[JohnBrewer]

Initially it was when I was 4. I found a third of a pretty big dactylioceras at Charmouth beech. My mother has it on her kitchen windowsill now. Collecting seriously has just been in the last three years. 

[Ptychodus04]

My spark was ignited by my father both times. First, was when I was 5 and he took me to collect leaves in the Chuckanut Formation in northwestern Washington. I spotted a nice palm frond on a 4 ton boulder and couldn't understand why dad wouldn't let me take it home.

 

The interest fizzled after a few years and at the ripe age of 21 my dad came to town and wanted to go fossil collecting with me. I obliged and that trip rekindled the fossil fire as well as began reconstructing a broken relationship with my father. We spent the next 14 years collecting together regularly. 5 years ago, I lost my father at the age of 56 and now I get to remember him every time I see a fossil or read about them here.

 

Fossils tell a great story but they are nothing compared to the relationships that can be built because of them!!

[Guguita2104]

Since I could remember of myself, I've always loved the nature...When I was 3 I knew some dinosaurs and reptilians "scientific" names (Diplodocus,Pteranodon,Tyranossaurus Rex...) and I was really keen on the primitive Earth inhabitants.However, I grown up and with 6 years old I started to watch and study birds .That's when I lost a part of my interest on these creatures.Then, the "passion" ) reappeared when I was 8 (I think).So, I started to fossil hunt and discovered the first one (a very poorly-preserved belemnite, that I still keep like an ultra-rare treasure) when I was nine.Thenceforth I'm an "addicted" ...

Regards,

 

P.S-I was with my great-grandfather (wich is now 91 years old) when I discovered that belemnite.He was helping me.This makes it even more special.

[erose]

Like Guguita I have always been a nature lover. Growing up near Dayton, Ohio I would go hunt snakes, salamanders and most other creepy crawly things with my best friend Bobby. I was about 10-12 years old then. As we searched in the tallus for snakes and salamanders we would run into theses cool things in the rocks. We knew they were fossils and pretty quickly started bringing home rocks as well as critters. That tallus was from a very productive section of the Brassfield Formation (Lower Silurian) and that was where I cut my teeth. Bobby and I took hat stuff seriously and we labeled and mounted our fossils in old cigar boxes. 

 

After the age of 12 I moved into the city of Dayton. Access to open spaces was was more limited but what bedrock I did encounter was all Cincinnatian (Upper Ordovician) and, again, it was loaded with fossils. There was a nearby railroad cut, a few city park exposures and even residential retaining walls (lord did I get in trouble for that!) to collect from. I joined scouting and had even better access to collecting. All through high school and into university I kept up a low, but steady level of interest. 

 

I finally hit my stride a number of years later when, while living in New York City, I was designing exhibits for the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Georgia. While researching the geology and paleontology of that state the fires were rekindled. I dragged fossils back to NY every time I visited home and then got involved with the New York Paleontological Society. From that point forward I describe myself as an avocational paleontologist. I take it very seriously doing as much research as possible about the places I collect from, I keep detailed records on location, and I make major efforts to identify and catalog all of my specimens. 

 

Currently here in Austin, Texas, I am very involved with the local club (PSA) and am very excited to be working on what may be some new species yet to be described in the literature.

[Ridgehiker]

 

Nature and collecting.

I always collected 'stuff': Bottle caps, , stamps,  pennies, Hallowe'en wrappers, etc.  I had a few fossils as a young child but my interest took off when as a young teen we moved to Europe.  I met my favourite uncle... He Had been RAF in the War, single, had a motorcycle.  

My uncle  seemed to have a thousand RAF mates in London. I got a backroom tour of the Natural History Museum and saw some specimens and notes written by Darwin. Then a similar private  tour and saw journals of  Captain Cook at The Admiralty. My two heroes had been Darwin and  Captain Cook.   Then he took me to a curio shop  and an ex squadron mate of his said  I could pick anything from the shop!  I chose a box of boy's adventure  books.   Later reading those books there was a mention of a Boy Scout adventure to Lyme Regis.  That was it.  I was hooked and had to go!

It was July, 1969.  I only sort of remember the Moon Landing but vivid memories of   hiking the coast at Lyme Regis. Fossils and Girls! Girls and fossils!  The Beatles on the radio.  

A few months later we moved to the Ruhr Valley in Germany. I'd spend hours walking along the railroad  steel rails. I'd find lots of Carboniferous fossils in the crushed gravel used between the ties.  Then we moved south to the Black Forest along the French Border. The same.  Sometimes I'd leave my bicycle at home and walk about 8kms to school and back to look at rocks (Jurassic) along the tracks.

 

 

Then back to Canada for university. No doubt what I wanted to study.

[KimTexan]

I love hearing people’s stories about what motivated or inspired them to do something or how they chose their careers and such.

 

TFF is kind of a little community of fossil enthusiast/addicts. I think knowing one another’s stories helps build and strengthen bonds and our sense of community, which can be very enriching to us.

So, I’d like to hear your stories of what started your pursuit of fossils or the love of them. Or what got you interested in a particular kind or geologic period, what got you hooked on TFF or whatever you may chose to share.

 

I’ll start. 

 

I guess the moderator thought we shouldn’t have 2 dialogues on a similar theme so he moved my post and all subsequent ones under someone else’s post from 2 yrs back.

Edited August 4, 2018 by KimTexan
Comment as to post being loved.

[KimTexan]

Hum, I always feel so long winded. Hope I can keep it reasonably short. My appologies in advance for too many words.

 

It started with rocks.

Part of it was my dad’s and my paternal grandmother’s love of rocks, nature and the outdoors.

 

When I was 6 we moved to 40 acres in Arkansas that was very remote. My dad built our house from the ground up himself. The nearest good size town was an hour away. It was hard for my dad to find work. So long story short he got a job with a company that would contract to plant trees for paper companies and the National Forest and such. It required lots of traveling. When I was 9 my mom, 2 siblings and my dog joined him and we began our family gypsy lifestyle for the next 3.5 yrs. it was an amazing adventure of a childhood.

 

The tree planting sites almost always were large pieces of land with exposed rock and soil. The first site I remember planting was in the large forests near Hot Springs, Arkansas. The land was covered with quarts crystals. They were beautiful! There was even the occasional cluster of amethyst. Thus my love for rocks and minerals began.

We traveled all the states in the south. Up the east coast up to West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and then out to the Rockies in Colorado, Idaho and Montana. I think we traveled to 38 states or so doing that. You can only imagine all the rocks we saw. 

I wish I knew where all those rocks were today. Probably stored away at my parents house.

  

[Wrangellian]

1) Trips to the local river on hot days... finding fossils in the shale banks (unplanned).

2) Already had an interest in rocks/crystals as a kid, joined the Rockhounds after visiting their display booth in the Fall Fair (I was 7). Fossil field trips were part of their thing,

3) reading books on fossils from the Elementary school library. We have Mesozoic fossils here but hardly any Paleozoic - the Paleozoic stuff interested me as something exotic would.

4) Learned about B.C.'s Burgess Shale somehow (I forget how). Family trip there in 1990 (I was 14).

 

#2 and 1 might be switched chronologically 

 

[Dan 1000]

 

 

I have always had an interest in fossils since I was little but It was on an off. But one day when I was 13, I was watching Jaws with my family which made me start thinking about shark teeth...which lead to thinking about fossil shark teeth. Straight away I went to my computer and spent hours trying to find places in Victoria where I could find fossil shark teeth, which lead me to Beaumaris. I remember heading down to Beaumaris with my dad not expecting to find anything but returnig with many fosdil echinoids. My first finds. From that day onwards, I was hooked. I started researching new fossil sites around Victoria, met new people, joined the Australian Fossil Club and the Fossil Forum where I have also met new enthusiasts from all over the world. 

 

Thanks for reading,

Daniel

 

[Miocene_Mason]

Some have already heard this, but why not: I always loved science, perhaps owing to the documentaries my mother showed me at a very young age, but couldn’t figure out how to find a place close enough to hunt for fossils, so I remained without any fossil collection or in depth knowledge of them. That changed during a fossil collecting trip to a Devonian site in West Virginia, and it’s hard to describe the feeling I felt picking up that first bit of shale that had brachiopods on it. I was hooked. Went back there a few times, got confused by some fossils so I looked for a place I could learn about them. That’s when I found TFF, and in turn came into contact with many great, helpful people who helped me fossil hunt in Maryland. I soon got a chance to meddle in the Miocene, party in the paleocene, dig the Devonian, crawl around the Carboniferous, swim the through the Silurian, and have a merry time in the Mesozoic. Who knows what’s next? 

[Walt]

My story is pretty straight forward.  I went to collage after leaving the military and took my first geology class. I was hooked. This was in Arizona so rockhounding opportunities were plentiful. Fossils too, but I never gave fossils much of a thought until I was introduced to Delta, Utah. After that, trilobites became my favorite. 

[Wrangellian]

45 minutes ago, KimTexan said:

I guess the moderator thought we shouldn’t have 2 dialogues on a similar theme so he moved my post and all subsequent ones under someone else’s post from 2 yrs back.

I knew in the back of my mind I had already told my story somewhere!

[Wrangellian]

27 minutes ago, DanKurek said:

I have always had an interest in fossils since I was little but It was on an off. But one day when I was 13, I was watching Jaws with my family which made me start thinking about shark teeth...which lead to thinking about fossil shark teeth. Straight away I went to my computer and spent hours trying to find places in Victoria where I could find fossil shark teeth, which lead me to Beaumaris. I remember heading down to Beaumaris with my dad not expecting to find anything but returnig with many fosdil echinoids. My first finds. From that day onwards, I was hooked. I started researching new fossil sites around Victoria, met new people, joined the Australian Fossil Club and the Fossil Forum where I have also met new enthusiasts from all over the world. 

Thanks for reading,

Daniel

Usually it's dinosaurs, it seems, but it surprises me how many people started with shark teeth. For me it was ammonites and trilobites that were (initially) at the top of my list.

[KimTexan]

Where I spent most of my childhood in Arkansas there were no fossils. But there was this one creek maybe 25 minutes away where we would go have picnics with our church friends and go swimming in the creek. The water in the creek was so clear. In the particular spot where we would have our picnics the creek was deep and swept clean to the bedrock. I remember swimming and looking at the bottom and seeing all kinds of shapes in the rocks that looked like animals. I didn’t know what they were, but one looked like a snake. I am thinking it must have been a crinoid stalk with a cup that I thought was a head or something. I was very intrigued and curious about those shapes. I would love to go back there and visit that creek, but I’m not sure I could find my way to it. It was to the north of a little wide spot in the road called Witt Springs, AR. Now I know there is a Witt Springs Formation in Arkansas and I know why it’s named that.

 

I have told this story before. So those of you who have heard it can skip this post.

 

 

My pursuit of fossils began in earnest the summer after my freshman year of college. 

A group of my friends went camping with my boyfriend and I. We camped on a creek. While camping we hiked down the creek. I found a large, whole ammonite, about 12-14 inches across. It was sitting at the base of a tree on the bank. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was so excited. I picked it up and proceeded to try to hike back to camp with it. The creek had lots of rocks covered with algae so it was very slippery. It was very hard to walk in the creek carrying the ammonite. I finally decided I had to put it down and leave it behind, because I was going to seriously injure myself if I continued carry it.

There were at least 3 guys with me on the hike. All were between 6’3 and 6’6”. Two of them were big guys, about 250 lbs. It would have been easy for them to carry it back for me, but none offered, not even my boyfriend and I didn’t wish to impose upon them to carry it for me.

 

School started up again. I had broken up with my boyfriend later in the summer. One of the guys who had been there the day I found the ammonite asked me over to his place. When I got there the ammonite was sitting in his living room on display!!! The ammonite was the one I had found! The guy admitted that he had gone back and gotten it for himself! I was not happy. 

After that I had to have an ammonite. Thus began my pursuit of ammonites and fossils in general.

 

[KimTexan]

36 minutes ago, Walt said:

 I went to collage after leaving the military and took my first geology class. I was hooked. This was in Arizona so rockhounding opportunities were plentiful. Fossils too, but I never gave fossils much of a thought until I was introduced to Delta, Utah. After that, trilobites became my favorite. 

Did you get a degree that used geology?

 

I took one geology class after I finished my B.S. just because I liked rocks, but my degree doesn’t use geology at all. I was just a science geekett and it was a science I hadn’t taken a class ok.

[Wrangellian]

7 minutes ago, KimTexan said:

There were at least 3 guys with me on the hike. All were between 6’3 and 6’6”. Two of them were big guys, about 250 lbs. It would have been easy for them to carry it back for me, but none offered, not even my boyfriend and I didn’t wish to impose upon them to carry it for me.

 

School started up again. I had broken up with my boyfriend later in the summer. One of the guys who had been there the day I found the ammonite asked me over to his place. When I got there the ammonite was sitting in his living room on display!!! The ammonite was the one I had found! The guy admitted that he had gone back and gotten it for himself! I was not happy. 

After that I had to have an ammonite. Thus began my pursuit of ammonites and fossils in general.

 

Nice guys!

Well at least the ammonite was salvaged by somebody.

[KimTexan]

On 9/12/2016 at 5:30 AM, LordTrilobite said:

Probably because I watched The Land Before Time a dozen times when I was a little kid. The obsession for dinosaur stuck with me a long time. And then eventually developed into an interest in palaeontology as a whole.

You are not the first person I have heard mention their love of fossils and paleontology and associate it with that movie. 

[Walt]

No, no degree at all that time around. I looked into changing my major to geology but then i had to bail on college altogether. I drifted into engineering related work but did finally go back to school and get "a" degree in Communications when I was 50.

I tell kids who think they can take time off and live a little that you only get one shot at your dream, then the reality of life takes over.

[KimTexan]

46 minutes ago, WhodamanHD said:

Some have already heard this, but why not: I always loved science, perhaps owing to the documentaries my mother showed me at a very young age, but couldn’t figure out how to find a place close enough to hunt for fossils, so I remained without any fossil collection or in depth knowledge of them. That changed during a fossil collecting trip to a Devonian site in West Virginia, and it’s hard to describe the feeling I felt picking up that first bit of shale that had brachiopods on it. I was hooked. Went back there a few times, got confused by some fossils so I looked for a place I could learn about them. That’s when I found TFF, and in turn came into contact with many great, helpful people who helped me fossil hunt in Maryland. I soon got a chance to meddle in the Miocene, party in the paleocene, dig the Devonian, crawl around the Carboniferous, swim the through the Silurian, and have a merry time in the Mesozoic. Who knows what’s next? 

So are you driving yet? Will your parents permit you to go off in search of fossils in your car once you are driving if you have the use of one?

If so I can only imagine where you’ll go and what you’ll bring home. I’d be very excited and itching to finally be able to go exploring new locations if I were in your shoes.

 

I may have asked this before, but do you think you’ll pursue a degree in paleontology?

[KimTexan]

2 minutes ago, Walt said:

No, no degree at all that time around. I looked into changing my major to geology but then i had to bail on college altogether. I drifted into engineering related work but did finally go back to school and get "a" degree in Communications when I was 50.

I tell kids who think they can take time off and live a little that you only get one shot at your dream, then the reality of life takes over.

That is so true. I was very driven to get a degree and be able to support myself right out of high school.

Some people tried to encourage me to take time off of school and work to save up money for college. I dove into college head first without a cent to my name. I knew then I’d only have one shot at a degree and being able to support myself.