Western US Ideas?

[KingUnderTheMountain]

So my father and I want to go on a small trip to find some fossils. Looking to do a short trip 2-4 days in length around a weekend. We are from the north east so most of the formations that we have gone to are Silurian Ordovician or Devonian in age. We were hoping to take a trip to find some more varied types of fossils, one idea that I had was to go out west and look for some newer fossils, hopefully vertebrates and further more something terrestrial instead of the aquatic stuff we're used to out here (however fossil lake would be fun for the fish fossils). We both have passports so going to say Canada or Mexico would also be fine, but we'd rather stay inside the US.

 

My understanding of hunting for something like dinosaur bones in the badlands is that they are embedded in rock that is very hard and very difficult to remove the specimens, it seems that finding dino bones on such a short trip seems unlikely.

 

What do you guys recommend? should we stay home? Go south (I know nothing about the formations in the south)? Make the trip west? Wherever we go some site recommendations would be cool too. Thank you all so much for any help you can give!

[caldigger]

So you have no limitations as to where out west you are going?  There are numerous places. You've already covered Dino digs, I believe there are pay to dig sites, but I am not in the know as to which or where. There are sites in the White River formation for Oligocene critters, again someone else will have to give you direction there.

Get on the web and look up fossil pay to dig sites for some ideas.

[Macrophyseter]

Like Doren asked, you don't have any limitations to how far you can go?

 

I'm not an expert on fossil sites and services as I only hunt locally, but I can give some suggestions.

 

The southeastern states (Carolinas, Georgia, Florida) are well famed for their abundance in shark teeth. These areas are rich in Oligo-Miocene age shark teeth (including megalodon!). Some of the best sites I have heard of are Summervile, Lee Creek, Calvert Cliffs, Bone Valley, and Venice Beach (I heard that Lee Creek may have closed a while ago, but I don't know if they reopened or not)

 

Directly west to Texas, I would say that the more famous fossils found here would mostly be Mid-Late Cretaceous fossils, mostly marine fossils including marine reptiles like mosasaurs. Examples I can think of are Waco Pit and the North Sulphur River.

 

In Wyoming near Fossil Butte National Park, there is a place called American Fossil, which is run by one of the members on this forum (sseth). It's a pay-to-dig quarry that supplies everything for you, and you can dig right in the Green River Formation, which is known for their exceptional abundance of complete fish fossils (If you've seen a brown-colored complete fish fossil in lighter matrix, its probably from there)

 

In Utah, there is a place called U-dig, which is a similar pay-to-dig quarry that holds trilobite fossils.

 

In California, there is the Ernst Quarries, which is also a pay-to-dig site that holds the best shark teeth in the area.