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Hello all I have recently got this ammonite and I think it's perisphinctus sp, Jurassic from Morocco. Does anyone know if I am collect or do I have the wrong id? It is 3 inch diameter. Thank you

After a fair amount of research which paid off quite well for a beginner, I finally began to mesh some of the "bookworm" experience with the "on site blundering around in the desert until I got lucky" experience. The research said - large ammonites in this location. Okay. Many trips later, I suppose 6 inch diameter ammonites are considered Large. Found some, check. Another fossil collector's blog said the same thing so I went there. It just happened to be on the other side of the big ditch I was previously hunting in. Okay, the ditch was 20 plus miles wide with the Morrison Formation filling the ditch all the way to the other side. Turned out this opinion of what equates to a large ammonite was more in line with what I was thinking. 10, 12, 15, 20 inch diameter ammos sure fit the bill to me. When it takes two to carry one to their vehicle...yeah...you have a BIG ammonite. For me even the partials were amazing when just 3 or 4 chambers of an outer whorl were found. Doesn't take much to realize this 3 pound whorl section belonged to 350 to 500 mm diameter squid in a snail shell! Kinda like finding a Meg tooth or raptor claw...one definitely envisions the original owner's size. This is another chemical prep after gluing the loose parts securely. I used muriatic acid and a soft bristled toothbrush with a tub of water to rinse after each pass. This whorl section had been previously dug some years ago, IMO, and left behind. It has a few small lichen patches on the "back" side which I left as is. The largest lichen patch is 1 CM wide which equates to 1 mm a year's growth over 10 years of sunlight exposed rock. More or less. No other connecting parts were nearby when I collected it. I made one pass, rinsed, then a second pass with fresh acid followed by a rinse, repeat until the stopping point. As found. First pass. Second pass and rinse. Third pass and rinse. Final pass, rinse and stopping point. I was looking for some color contrast from before and after...or rather...coated with calcite and coating removed down to the "chocolate" with some areas still showing the calcite coating. Top view of the keel area. Backside with lichen patches showing. Drying after final rinse and inspection. Dry the next day. Freshly applied Paraloid coating. It cured out slightly less shiny except for the smoothest spots. Besides just liking these partial whorls of large ammonites, It's good practice for these guys awaiting preparation. The one on the right is a concretion of over 100#/45 + kg. The bucket on the left side has a 56 pound concretion with a 10-12 inch ammo in it. So the research boiled down to who considers what's big and what's REALLY BIG. I like them all but it was nice to find some that make me think I found something " DINOSAUR big" and not snail shell big.

I found this and as I polished the outside layer this little black line showed up and just checking to see if anyone knew if it was a parasite? Thank you

well, it can't ALL alliterate after all.... Texas is so incredibly blessed with a ridiculous amount of fossils, and it's also a BIG state, as we Texans like to remind everyone. So I don't get up to North Texas as much as I would like, but it's definitely worth the four hour drive for some new hunting grounds! Happily, I have a friend in Fort Worth who let me stay with her and she was excited to show me a new spot she'd found. I've showed her around Central Texas a few times and when I said I was heading up her way, she said..."well..there's not really any spots I know of to take you", so I was going to scout out a few spots when she called back..."I found a spot! 10 minutes from my house!". She showed me a few things she'd found and I was excited to see it was Grayson Formation, which are not common exposures to be found in Central Texas. It's a super non-descript spot, practically a ditch, but it was obvious no one had hunted it before, which is AMAZING considering how many fossil hunters are in Texas. It was littered with tiny heteromorph ammonites called Mariellas. I didn't find any that were well preserved but they were everywhere! And I know with this formation, you have to look CLOSE. REALLY CLOSE. It's a lot of micromorph fossils, interspersed with large oysters. It's hard to see past the oysters sometimes. It was actually pretty late in the day and we hunted till the sun set, so some long shadows. Erich Rose called it Echinoid Light - that early morning and late evening long shadows which show up surface decor so well. A Mariella - it's about 3/4 inch long As I mentioned, none of the Mariellas were well preserved, but they were surprisingly intact...up to 6 whorls sometimes! We found a couple of little ammonites Otoscaphites but they were also pretty worn. My first great find was a complete Engonoceras serpentium. I have found fragments of them, but had yet to find a whole one. It's tiny but complete! I was on the lookout for any echinoids, but didn't see anything until just as we were starting to wrap up....I was walking back to my bucket and my eye caught that telltale round shape. I was VERY VERY excited, because I've only found a couple of these echinoids at the Waco Pit which is no longer open to collectors. I have one decent sized moderately crushed one and one tiny good one, so to come across this monster in perfect condition made my heart do a little flip flop! A Goniophorus scotti. One of my favorite little echies. I have to admit I was feeling a little bad that I was hoarding this echie, because my friend who generously shared the site with me didn't find one....but then SHE FOUND THE SHARK TOOTH....not a foot away from where I found the echie. So she was happy and I was happy and everyone was happy. hahahah Found a couple of other nice samples of the fauna typical in the Greyson (also known as Del Rio in Central Texas) - a really lovely Neithea texana: A good sized Plicatula and an interesting worm tube cluster. Pyrgopolon squamosus And of course, I brought back some micro matrix to look through! That Grayson/Del Rio stuff is hard to process because it is primarily clay mud. But I was happy I did because I found a few good things! Another tiny Goniophorus (sadly, crushed) and some pretty little gastropods of unknown genera Plus found ONE single Comatulid Crinoid - Roveocrinus sp. But this was a real surprise! I have not found Baculites in the Grayson, but this little piece was in the Micro matrix! And one of my favorite things to find...a little starfish ossicle! I'm still hoping to find my "whole brittlestar" someday.... But thankful for friends who love fossils as much as I do. Hunting alone is nice, I enjoy the solitude very much, but it is also really nice to hunt with friends.

I've been doing some prep on smaller fossils, mostly ammonites, and have decided to finally tackle my big project, which has been sitting outside for almost a year - since last August. We found this behemoth on the walk back from our fossil tour at Charmouth, within view of the heritage centre, so figured it was worth it to carry it just that bit further, despite its weight. My gear includes: 1. DeWalt safety goggles 2. M3 dust/particulates mask 3. noise-cancelling earbuds 4. Dremel 290 engraver 5. anti-vibration gloves 6. ZOIC engraver tips. I do not have access to an air scribe, mostly because I live in London and absolutely do not have the space for a workshop/storage. I also don't have a tile cutter or a larger blade to trim off big pieces of stone, unfortunately. So, my question becomes, what should I do with it? My plan was to take off the lobes (term?) from the edges in order to show off some of the inside, but then leave the 3 (the distinction between 2nd and 3rd lobes is hard to see in the photos, but easily visible in person) central lobes as it's just too much stone to remove with the Dremel. You can see in the first and second images where I started with this edge removal process. Very fortunately, the stone/matrix is quite soft, so it's not a difficult process to remove, just extremely time-consuming. I would appreciate any comments/suggestions/advice as I'm very new to fossil prep! Thanks for reading.

I got this one from an auction recently. It has been glued back together as it arrived damaged. However, I wonder if it is real or just a fabrication made from stone. I would appreciate your input! Thanks!

I don’t post on this forum and much as I probably should so here’s to changing that. Had quite the eventful afternoon hear in the Dallas area in the Eagle Ford. Found the most crabs I have ever found in my life, no ID on any of these but feel free to give me your thoughts. This was the first find of the day and got me stoked for what else I might be laying around this sight. Within 5ft of the first find I found another decapod. This was when I realized what I was in for, Crabapaloza! These next two were found within 2ft of each other. The next surprise was this assortment of fish bone, this is my first time finding any bone at this location and is currently the oldest bony material in my possession. Along with the visible fish bone was another vertebra not pictured and what I believe to be a small lobster or shrimp barely visible. A reoccurring theme, this carapace was found not to far from the fish bones as well For about 20-30ft of the exposure there wasn’t much, but again, I found more crab, center of palm, along with a gastropod shell and two pieces of ammonite, in this shape I typically don’t collect them but are a good example of the shape most ammonites and baculites are in. At this point things started to slow down, but again, another decapod. And again not to far from the last fossils, another crab and a decent ammonite, for the area, within 3ft of each other. And yet another decapod for the bag And at last, on my way back and on the way out, I gave a quick look behind where I inserted into the exposure and to my surprise, one last crab, including parts of its legs. I don’t get to this site too often, as it’s quite out of the way for me, (and is wishy-washy in its production rate) so when I do go, I make the most out of it - and today I can’t say I’m displeased at all.

Hi all. Both ammonites found in Bristol, UK, BS31, as we're the shells and coral. Not much else to say but would be nice to get a bit more info from the pros?

This partial ammonite whorl was a surface find from my April 8th trip to Cleveland, Utah. In particular, it was the one I found under the foot of the guy I was helping to lift his large Ammonite embedded in a heavy concretion to carry it to his van. I could discern that it was chocolate brown underneath the calcite coating. I stuck some thick felt furniture leg pads on the back of it to keep from scratching my office desktop. Well a week later I decided to remove the coating. Here's the "as found" pic. And with safety equipment including a gas filter mask, gloves, glasses, big bowl of water, a fan and open garage door, I was ready to go at it. The chemical is muriatic acid for cleaning brickwork and swimming pool masonry. I used a toothbrush to dip into a small cup of acid next to the bowl of water. Dip, scrub, rinse repeat until I liked the results. First round on this section. Looks good. Second round. Keep going! I'm liking it so far. Round three finishes that step. Then I soaked it in a bowl of water and baking soda. Several rinse cycles, a good dry time and a coat of Paraloid after that. Then the felt pads were reattached. And I like it a lot more than before. It may only be a partial whorl of an ammonite but to me it's a lot more than that. Kinda like finding a toe claw of a raptor or a big carnivore tooth. It may not be the whole enchilada...but it's enough to think about the potential of what it was complete or once was alive.

The annual Paris, Ontario event has come yet again, and this time I left with some nice pieces for the collection. 1. A new Knightia from the Green River formation. (~16cm long) 2. A section of Orthoceras (which is not the highest quality, but was a good deal) (~12cm long) (450mya) 3. Copal amber, with some (very small) flies from Madagascar (~6cm long)(10,000yrs) 4. The brittle star Geocoma libanotica from Libya (~4.5cm)(95mya) 5. Mortoniceras sp. ammonite from Texas (~6cm)(Cretaceous, Albian stage) 6. My favourite, the skull of the sea turtle Lytoloma elegans from Morocco (14.5cm long) (~66mya)

Continuing with the teaser title... What does it mean when you find a partial ammonite outer whorl of these dimensions? 10 cm X 15 cm. 1 - I'm gonna need a bigger vehicle 2 - Just a lucky fluke 3 - Get back out there and find its siblings 4 - It's a fake plaster cast with which someone spiked the site 5 - These aren't the Ammonites you're looking for, move along 6 - Pay no attention to the peanut butter M&,M's nor the Reese's cups, I'm still celebrating!!! So I'm 3 fossil hunting trips behind and I had a 48 hour binge including two of said trips and one Astrophotography session with Orion Pleiades and Jupiter from 9 pm to 12 am; interject a 2 hour nap, then a 3 hr session with the Milky Way from 230 am to 5 am when the crescent moon rose and ended the session. Then another 2 hr nap when my wife texted me awake from home while I was snoozing comfortably in the back of my Honda Element in The Last Chance Desert. Then jump back into the fossil hunting saddle, a museum visit, plus Jurassic National Monument and more. Oh and not to forget that famous Clawson, UT UFO Landing Site. I gotta lotta catching up to do. This partial is an adult Prionocyclus macombi sp., the gracile form . I will attempt to estimate the possible diameter ASAP. Steve

Hi all, I'm a total newby but have always been fascinated by fossils, geodes (especially Brazil/Uruguay amethyst) and Roman / Greek / Byzantine coins. I have a nice collection, and have recently purchased some Whitby, Yorkshire ammonite nodules. I'm using the freeze thaw method to open them, as I tried cracking two and both are damaged. However, one nodule is brown, not the black shale as the others, and really soft - I can remove the concrete with my fingernails. My question is how a 180 million year old fossil can be so well preserved in soft mudstone, and is this something others have seen? Was it free of concretion and then collected a new one? It's in very good, nearly complete condition. I'll send a pic shortly.

Found in blue River in Kansas city.

Found in blue River in Kansas city.

Hello again helpful people! I am back requesting any information people can tell me about this ammonite I bought? I didn't previously have any suspicions about it being fake (and don't really understand how the pattern in the stone would be faked). However, I have since bought a trilobite from the same source (that you may have seen in my previous post) that did turn out to be fake and that I will be returning. I still have the option to return this one as well if it is fake so appreciate any feedback!

The Ammonites of Madagascar are globally renowned, with numerous well-preserved genera and species. However, I've never seen one of these specimens in an unpolished state, as most are heavily polished. Does anyone have a photo of these fossils in a more "natural" condition?