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The Trip That Nearly Didn't Start (Lengthy image-intensive trip report follows) Tammy and I had planned a fossil hunting trip to Wyoming for the third week of September to redeem our day of digging (splitting rock) at the Green River Formation quarry that @sseth had earlier so generously offered up as a prize on an auction to benefit TFF. We had our airfares, a rental car reserved, and a series of hotels booked across the state ready for a monumental fossil hunting trip. The one small problem was the not so small storm named Hurricane Irma that tore through the northern Caribbean and had its sights set on the Florida and being wider than the peninsula, no Floridian was going to miss the effects of this storm. Earlier in the week the forecast had the centerline of the cone of probability for the track of the storm hitting Miami and traveling up the eastern coast where Boca Raton sat squarely in the cross-hairs. I guess that if you are going to be in the path of some major destruction it is better to be the target early in the week rather that toward the end when the storm is at our doorstep. Thankfully (for us, but not so for those in the Lower Keys and Southwest Florida), the storm's turn to the north was delayed and though we were now on the stronger NE quadrant of the storm, the eye was significantly far away to the west that we escaped the strongest of winds. The storm unleashed squadrons of tornadoes and micro-bursts which had us ducking into our safe room for cover. During the storm unidirectional winds first blew from the east and then from the south as the storm passed us to the west but the tornadic winds were something else as the trees started whipping around in all directions quite violently. Luckily for us, the house survived with no structural damage. The newer more sturdy pool cage that replaced the original one that Wilma had crumpled and stuffed into the pool back in 2005 (shockingly) did not even lose a single screen panel. The damage on our property was limited to toppled trees and broken limbs and branches. We lost power even before the eye wall had made first landfall in the Florida Keys. As soon as it was safe to go outside, we started the portable generator and ran extension cords throughout the house to keep refrigerator, freezer and a box fan and a few lights powered. We've cooked on our outdoor grill and Coleman camp stove in previous power outages caused by the rash of hurricanes in 2004/05 and so we were well prepared and never at risk of starvation (we actually ate rather well). While Wilma had run over the house in late October, 2005 when the temperatures had cooled somewhat from the hot muggy Florida summer, we were not so lucky this time. Outdoor temps in the low 90's were soon matched by the 88 degrees inside which made sleeping difficult (even with a fan). We spent the days cutting up the downed foliage and stacking it into many piles along the street in back of the house as well as a towering mount in the cul-de-sac in front (which is still growing in size to this day and is due to be cleared by FEMA sometime in the next 2-3 weeks). Taking frequent breaks inside to lay down on the floor in front of the fan to avoid all-out heat exhaustion, both Tammy and I worked to clear the property as much as we could and monitor the progress of power restoration in our county. Over 70% of homes and businesses were left in the dark after Irma but Florida Power & Light had learned a few things after performing poorly in the 2004/05 hurricane seasons. They had staged a bunch of replacement parts and crews fresh from working in Houston were in the state working to get the grid back online. We couldn't leave on our trip unless we got power back and we watched the percentage of customers without power slowly but steadily decrease until one evening our power flickered and within a few minutes was restored for good. I had been waiting till the last possible minute to cancel my plans and try to get refunds for the reservations we'd made for this trip. I was tired of a week of hot sweaty yard work clearing debris and I was ready for some cooler Wyoming temps.

Here is a Hoplopteryx lewesiensis fish scale found in the lower chalk at the end of Yaverland Beach Isle of Wight. (1 mile walk from entrance point), I only saw a tiny bit of black on the surface, so that went into my rucksack and after a lot of careful prep this complete scale came out. Well worth the slog to get there.

Hey guys, I need to pick your collective brains on this tiny fragment I picked up from Beaumaris the other day. Although clearly sea washed, it shows some detailed feathering down the profile. I'm getting a fishy vibe of this but would appreciate any thoughts. & if anyone is wondering how I got the shots with a a phone, I borrowed the idea of taping a jewellers lens to my phone. Thanks to whoever it was that suggested this on the forum, pure genius.

New Jersey campanian. Found this a while back and haven't been able to get a good grasp on it's ID. Of course when I first found It I thought it was a jaw piece with teeth. Yay! Then I put on my glasses. Hmm. The fish spines I've found aren't serrated. It's obviously split but maybe someone has seen this before. Any insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks Jeff Edited: I believe this to be an enchodus jaw section thanks to the folks answering below.

A friend of mine had a relative find this recently. We are trying to figure out what made that pattern. Fish? Plant?

We are driving from California to Utah on US Highway 50 ("The Second-Loneliest Road in America") to dig for trilobites in a couple of locations. We stopped for lunch today in the remote mining town of Austin, Nevada, and after lunch went over to Nevada Trading Post to look around. They had lots of turquoise jewelry and also a few fossils. Among them was this one. The owner recently purchased the store and doesn't know anything about it. It was priced at $280, which was out of my budget, but I told her I knew just the place to see if we can identify it. I said we don't do appraisals but she would be happy with any info we can provide. I took a quick look with a loupe and it isn't obvious there has been any restoration or painting on it, but I will leave it to the experts to say for sure. And if anyone is driving through Austin, be sure to stop in and say hi to Julie, she was a very nice lady. The sign out front might still say Jim's Trading Post, she is still in the process of changing the name. It's right near the Toiyabe Cafe (great cheeseburger!) on the east side of town.

I found this little tooth while going through some bulk sample from Jacksboro, TX, which is a Pennsylvanian area. I have found shark teeth there, but this looks more like a fish tooth. It reminds me of an Enchodus tooth, but I am not aware of any that were in the Paleozoic. Any ideas? The scale hash marks are 1mm. Thanks for any help.

Hi all I was given last week a little set of small fossil . A real pic n mix. They was given too me by an lady in the village , she found the teeth to be creepy. They was her uncle who sadly passed. I think they are sharks teeth, a fish tail bone and unknown fish , some different dinosaurs teeth? Unknown bones and a really cool trilobite. Any help with IDs. Her uncle did travel a lot in Africa. Thank everyone kind regards Bobby

I split this tiny fish out of my coal supply. This Microhaplolepis serrata is 100% complete at a mere 23 mm. The Fish is Mid-Pennsylvanian in age. The Cannel Coal is so paper thin I needed to mount it on stiff cardboard to handle. I haven't posted Linton material in a long time. I never seem to grow tired of discovering these little guys. Here are pictures taken in different lighting conditions. Here are some technical drawings of this and related species.

I'm working on some Green River stuff for @abctriplets that they collected on their fossil extravaganza! Thus fish is turning out to be a real gem. This is how the piece arrived in Texas. EDIT: 1st two photos courtesy of Jared. I applied copious amounts of Paleobond to both surfaces and clamped them together for several days, marking the location and direction of the fish so I don't forget. Then I went on the attack. The fish layer was about 3/4" below the surface so I used a small chisel and knocked about 1/2" off the top of the slab to reduce the depth. Then comes the CP9361for fast bulk matrix removal, being careful not to hit the fish. There is a very slight color change (darkening) to the matrix immediately before you expose the fish. Once I saw that, I switched to the Micro Jack knowing that the fish is anxiously waiting to fall apart just below the surface! These fish are extremely brittle so I'm stopping every 30 seconds or so to consolidate. Scribe, consolidate, repeat... 2 hours later and here's where it sits. I believe this is a Mioplosus sp. and it looks like it will be complete. You can see the glue where the break ran across the skull and down the body.

Hello. I found this amongst a bunch of Devonian/Mississippian age limestone. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the rock is fossiliferous limestone. These two very odd shapes, one black, one white, I thought could perhaps be the gill structures of something like a Placoderm, Acanthodian, or Ostracoderm. I know it's kind of a tough ID. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.

If you have ever collected fish from the classic vertebrate locality near Linton, Ohio or have obtained fish specimens from there, I would like to share some of what I have learned about the type of fish called paleoniscoids (also spelled palaeoniscoids) that occur there. Paleoniscoid fish have thick, rhomboidal scales made of dentine-type bone with a surface of hard enamel-like material called ganoin and on the external surface of the ganoin there are pits and fine canals. They resemble (body-wise) what most people think of commonly as a “fish-shape” except they have “armor-like” scales. They are set apart from the chondrichthyans (sharks), the dipnoans (lungfish) and the coelacanths, which also occur in the Linton cannel. The Linton paleoniscoids can be divided into two family groups, the elonichthyids (1 species) and the haplolepids (6 species). I’ve attached a pdf file called “1. Identifying Linton Paleoniscoid Fish” which describes the fishes for species identification. I tried to keep the terminology minimal, but to describe the differences some was necessary. To aid in identifying haplolepid species, I have put together an illustration called “Linton Haplolepids”. The accompanying jpegs show the illustration and most of the different paleoniscoid types. Because I no longer have any specimens (see pdf file: “2. My Linton Collection and Recollections”), I cannot provide photos of two of the species. I hope this information will be useful and bring about more interest in learning about and collecting in coal measure deposits wherever they occur. 1a Identifying Linton Paleoniscoid Fish.pdf 2 My Linton Collection and Recollections.pdf

Now that the eclipse shenanigans are over (until January when we have a lunar eclipse) it's time to get back to work. I have several projects starting up at once that I plan to rotate time on. The first is a large fish from south Texas that belongs to @StevenJDennis. He sure has a rock thumb! We have yet to 100% identify it and it needs the puzzle pieces put back together but it looks a lot like a Bananogmius but it appears to have a short fan-like dorsal fin anterior to the large sail-like dorsal fin you would expect in Bananogmius or Pentanogmius. The only thing missing from this specimen is the caudal fin. The worst part about this specimen is the matrix. It's so hard my CP9361 has to work to take this stuff off. I need @RJB's Mighty Jack!!

I found this skull on sunday, august 2017, off the shore of Maryland in the atlantic ocean. Im not quite sure on what it is can someone help me out?

As I found this yesterday,I thought that is a fish or fish fragments in the matrix,now when I cleaned little bit more it looks like a lizard ,I'm no expert in this so I'm asking for little help.

Today I have been to my fossil grounds in Popovac and I have find so many interesting stuff,I think that I found a lot of fish bones and fragments,I'll post pics now so help is definitely needed for ID Guys,sorry for the bad zoom on camera...

Hello! I have many pieces of fossilized fish elements,mostly skull elements and i have found them yesterday at Popovac Marl stone mine. They're 14m years old.I would love to trade them for all other kinds of fossils If anybody is interested in this,send me PM ! Regards

I have no idea. Found in North Charleston, SC in a recently dug pond. Any ideas?

So a family member of mine found a large bolder in an area that has been known for having some fossils of fish and tracks. It doesn't look like anything but the patterns are odd enough where I can't determine if they are fossils or just mineral marks. Any help is appreciated!

Hot long NSR trip. My legs are sore lol. Nice variety today including attached verts, bison tooth, mosasaur verts, multiple fish jaw sections, turtle shell, gastropods etc.