Montana Public Land Fossils

[jj_MT 80]

I spent a few hours fossil hunting on two separate trips on Forest Service land in Montana. The first trip was this past spring looking for Late Oligocene - Early Micoene flora about 90 minutes outside of Missoula. The second trip was during at stint over the summer at a fire lookout tower in the Flathead where I spent just a few hours one morning looking at Devonian and Mississippian marine layers.

 

Besides the obvious, the trips were quite different. The spring trip was a drive to a road cut on a Forest Service road while the summer trip was a seven mile hike in. Additionally the medium is completely different; flakey, brittle shale compared with big, blocky limestone. You can keep non-vertebrate fossils as long as you don't plan to sell them. Prior to heading to an area, I look through publicly available research, lectures, field trips, etc. to find possible localities.

 

I only found limited information on possible identification of the Late Oligocene - Early Micoene flora and most of if was unpublished graduate work from a nearby site with only some overlap on species. Please feel free to correct any id's or throw new ones out!

 

I believe these are cercocarpus, a mahogany.

 

 

[jj_MT 80]

A member of the pinus genus.

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Perhaps a sequoia.

 

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I didn't find anything that looked similar to this one.

 

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I think a member of the Acer genus, maple trees.

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And a handful of unknowns (to me) or indeterminate. 

 

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The lookout tower sits on Mississippian with a few outcroppings below the actual summit. The false summit is closer to the Devonian. And a few pictures of the fossils by the lookout.  

[jj_MT 80]

Large Mississippian coral formations. I found a few smaller ones to bring home.

 

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A much more manageable piece.

 

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And then a few from the Devonian strata.

 

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And a slightly smokey sunset from the tower. 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[FossilDAWG 4,351]

13 minutes ago, jj_MT said:

And a slightly smokey sunset from the tower. 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

Thanks for showing!  Beautiful landscape, and beautiful photos!

 

Don

[Fossildude19 10,376]

Good report, and Nice finds!  

Thanks for posting them.  

[ynot 7,084]

Nice!

Thanks for sharing.

[Innocentx 878]

What a beautiful place with many interesting fossils!!! Thanks for sharing.

I'm especially curious about these:

 

1 hour ago, jj_MT said:

 

[jj_MT 80]

@Innocentx I think those are small-ish stromatolites. 

[Tidgy's Dad 9,798]

Lovely photos of the landscape and some beautiful fossils. 

Love the stromatolites. 

And some of the plants are wonderful. 

[Bronzviking 208]

3 hours ago, jj_MT said:

I like this pattern. Is this shale and a plant fossil? Do you have to split the rocks to reveal these fossils? Thanks!

[Bronzviking 208]

3 hours ago, jj_MT said:

And then a few from the Devonian strata.

 

I see turritella in this one, very cool. What else is in this piece? Thanks!

[jj_MT 80]

@Bronzviking The first picture may be worm burrows or another trace fossil. It's actually from the Devonian limestone. Sorry I didn't caption it. And in the second one, I believe it's mostly gastropod fragments in varying arrangements, turritella definitely looks like a good fit.

 

Typically the marine fossils in limestone are already exposed fragments consisting of chunks or pieces.. They also tend to be on top or near the top of mountains (at least in Western Montana). The leaves and other flora are in very fragile shales that easily cleave. Some are so fragile that it feels as if you are holding a dried leaf from the past fall, unfortunately they break as you touch them.