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My first trip to big brook with the boys yielded lots of cool stuff. I’m a fossil noob but read all the forum posts, facebook, big brook website, fossil guy sit, etc before posting. I have some other pictures to post but these i feel are the strongest change of “being something” What is everyone’s thoughts? coolest stuff i think we have, crab arms/claw, a shrimp?, jaw bone, enamel from dinosaur teeth, shark teeth, fossil clams, impressions of clams, sea turtle bone. I am least sure of 9d though i’m hoping it is a tooth of some kind, could very well be a rock!

Newbie here, to the forum and fossil hunting. I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and have a couple spots within an hours drive, however so far have only visited Big Brook on a few different occasions with my family over the past month. Definitely addicted! Thought I would share some of my finds. All are fairly common, but totally amazing to me. Not sure on the ID of a few of them, and some I'm not sure if they are even fossils. I find your mind tries to make something out of nothing, especially with rocks. In any case, thanks for looking, and appreciate in advance any feedback, good or bad! 1979 3 3/4" Boba Fett for scale

Just found this while hunting today at Big Brook. Not sure if it's fossil or modern, but I'm pretty sure it's a bear claw. Can anyone tell me what I've found here? Thanks!

Hi everyone, This is the first fossil plant I’ve ever found at big brook in NJ. I found an orange colored rock in the stream bed and saw some odd patterns hidden within. Later when I got home, I tried to take off a layer of rock, and to my suprise, there was a leaf impression. There were other plant impressions within other parts of the rock. I would love to know how old it might be, or if it is more recent and not a fossil at all. Thanks! FullSizeRender.mov

Hello all, I just found this bone/fossil in big brook NJ. It is about 3 cm long. I originally thought it was a modern bone, still a neat find, but then after further inspection I found it was not porous and thought it might be a fossil. Anyway any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

Hello! We found these two items in Monmouth County, NJ over the weekend. They were in a stream. They may just be rocks, but they look different than anything else we found! If you have any idea if they are rock or something else, I would love to know. Pen included for size. Thank you!

I've been collecting a few times a year at Big Brook for years now and have a pretty large collection of NJ fossils. I would love to bring some of my stuff to them to get their thoughts and to see if there's anything they would be interested in taking into their collection, but they seem to have virtually no online presence... is there a way to link up with them?

Found this on a trip to Big Brook yesterday and having a tough time figuring out what it is. The tooth is missing the tip, but appears to be quite narrow, with a strong curve that would eliminate xiphactinus as a possibility. It looks too narrow to me to be a mosasaur tooth and has no visible carinae. Is there any chance it could be a plesiosaur tooth? Thanks for the help!

Found this on a trip to Big Brook today. I have found a piece of devonian coral at the Brook before that I was told here had probably been carried from the devonian deposits in upstate NY by glaciers, any chance this is another?

I found this fragment of what I think is bone at Big Brook yesterday. Is there any way to tell what it might be from? The shape and density of the fibers kind of remind me of some of the pieces of mososaur jaw I've seen posted, but I don't know if there's any way to ID it from such a small piece.

Found this tiny fragment on a trip to Big Brook yesterday. I've been visiting Big Brook for a long time, and have never come across anything like it. Appears to be a small shard (about .5x1cm) of bone or enamel with a scale-like hexagonal structure on one side, and a bony texture on the other.

Hey all, Could I get another set of eyes on this (circled tooth)? I found this probably 2 years ago at this point in the cretaceous exposed Big Brook. I have had this labelled as "Enchodus" but relooking at it it seems a little off with my other Enchodus teeth. Is this just a weathered Enchodus? Is it simply a different tooth than the fang and curved tooth pictured along side it? Or am I off by what fish this came from? Appreciate the second set of eyes!

Hi guys, I found this partial tooth in Big Brook in Monmouth. It's very worn but my best guess from looking at the squished in bottom shape seems to point to it coming from a dino theropod. Possibly dryptosaurus? Please let me know your thoughts.

Hi. New to forum. I am new to fossil hunting. Have been to Peace River and to Calvert Cliffs. Planning trip to Big Brook this weekend. My question to this group... Where do you park? Access points? (I'm am not asking for secret locations or the such). I'm generally fascinated by the fossils...the hunt, the find, and then the identification. Any help would be greatly appreciated on how to access the brook and any tips. Thanks I'm advance! Candace

Hey, so I have been to both Big Brook and Ramanessin Brook a few times now, yet every time I spend hours there my yield still gets pretty low, and the finds are usually tiny or broken chunks of teeth. I was wondering if there are tips I could use, like which areas of the brooks usually have a higher yield, or just ways you guys have learned to look for fossils quickly. Also, where can I find brachiopod fossils in NJ? I saw videos of people finding online, but have yet to pinpoint an area to find them. Thanks for looking and helping an amateur! Marco L

Dear Fellow Fossil Fanatics, I just had a great day at Big Brook, found some shark teeth but also 3 specimens that I am not sure at all what to make of. Any insights would be awesome! Best, Huttner

Hi all, me again, I wanted to share a closeup of the bone fragments that I found in Ramanessin to see if I could get them ID'd further since I know how the brook tends to make fake fossil bones i want to check that the ones I found are real fossil bone 1) the big one, i think it might be a cretaceous turtle shell, it passed the burn, and the lick test. 1A) I believe these are also enchodus jaw fragments. 2) 2A)

Stick around, this one's a read but I'll try to make it fun. So, I have been to big brook last year, and While I enjoyed it, since I went in early feb, the ground was frozen which prevented me from finding much, as the brook was stingy that day. Nonetheless I decided to try my luck with Ramanessin as i heard good things about it. Because none of my family or friends could be bothered, I decided to take a day off work and drive 4 hours to the area and spend the night so I could get the most out of the location. what follows is the result of 2 days straight of fossil hunting. which I will try to tell the story of in order. Day 1 the scoop I arrive at the site a little past 12, choosing to waste no time, I make my way down to the brook and start to sift the gravel. as opposed to when I went to big brook in winter, Ramanessin was generous with her gifts. I found 4 teeth in the first scoop. I took this time to make my way up the stream cutting back and forth sifting every gravel pile I could find. my personal method is to put no more than 5 scoops into the sifter. that was the way to guarantee I got at least something out of it. it was during one of these sifts that I found the curious reptile tooth here. I will be doing a separate fossil id post later of the teeth and bones. but this was one that i knew was something special. I also found this really nice cross section of ammonite. the sutures were beginning to separate, any longer and they would have come undone. It was also this trip that I found these chunks of bone, now I know the brooks have this nasty habit of producing concretions and discoloring modern bones to Look like fossils, but i am 80 percent sure that I found some genuine articles here. Taking the ###### at some point in this day, I decided I needed to pee. so, to avoid being spotted I ducked into a small mouth of a tributary to do my business. while I was wrapping up, something caught my eye, something I couldn't believe. the outline of the Biggest, and likely one of the best lateral goblin shark teeth I have ever found. I was absolutely giddy. after picking it up and doing a little field prep washing it off in the water it was easily 1.8 in. and as the story usually goes as I am looking in this little alcove of gravel, I see the root of yet Another massive goblin tooth root, this time submerged in the dirt. I chanted to myself "please be whole" as I carefully brushed off the tooth to reveal a gloriously intact fossil. easily one of the best and most fortuitous pee breaks i have ever had! It was on my way back that I decided to put the trash bag I brought to good use and pick up the garbage I saw on the way. I'm not going to lie here, I have found it pretty shameful how many shards of glass and cans I would find in this place. But I took it upon myself to fill the shopping bag as best I could. I didn't want to be stuck out in the dark, so I hurried back to the car and dropped the trash in the nearest bin. Lodging back at the motel, I spent the evening cleaning off my newfound loot. I took this time to carefully superglue the ammonite chunk so that I wouldn't lose it. I took one of the plastic cups in the hotel room and cleaned my fossils with it. Day 2 lost sifter After breakfast, I returned to try my luck again, but when I opened the trunk of my car I was met with the absence of my sifter. I t was then that it dawned on me that when I came back to the car I had only my shovel and my trash bag in hand, tricking my brain into thinking i had everything! realizing it was probably lost, I went back to the brook to try my luck surface collecting. The region had received some rain overnight and into the afternoon, and although it wasn't flooding, the water was considerably higher than last time. i was almost discouraged until i noticed something bright blue on the opposite side of the brook... it was my sifter. right where i left it on the top of the overbank. I was so elated I was laughing at my turn of luck. "Hang On! I'm comin!" I yelled at the inanimate object. there was a fallen tree 4 meters from the sifter, so in my full wading gear, I straddled the trunk and shimmied over to the other side and retrieved it. mosasaur it was now that I decided to make my way upstream and sift past the areas that I had already hit. I noticed a few tracks of bootprints here and there. I was initially discouraged by the fact that whoever it was got further than I was hoping they did. but that all went away when as I was sifting through a pile of gravel, I noticed a sheen of blackish enamel. picking it up I realized this was likely yet Another reptile tooth, and the chances that I bagged a mosasaur had effectively doubled. (did I mention yet that this was my 1st time to Ramanessin?) check your spoils as I made my way upstream, I came across the ruins of some old concrete structure in the middle of the brook, either a dam or a bridge foundation of some sort. to my right I saw a large spoil pile. out of curiosity, I started to look at it trying to see if there was anything the previous person missed. and boy was there. I found another huge lateral goblin, and (Pictured separately) a massive sawfish rostral tooth. it was crazy to me thinking about missing not one, but Two easily trip maker sized teeth in your spoil pile. let this serve as a lesson to newbies, to double check spoil piles you see, just because you never know what the last guy missed! crow island I waded and sifted my way upstream past the concrete structure, tactically using my shovel as a sounding stick of sorts and pointing my toes in the direction of the current so as not to lose footing. I stopped just past a footbridge where there was a little island of gravel that had accumulated over the weeks. as I scanned the shore, I saw another trip maker: an absolutely huge Squalicorax prisodontus tooth. it is at this point that I notice that I want alone, there was a group of boys that went bicycling overhead. now, all through the day I was completely alone, talking to myself about the stuff i was finding and being a general silly guy. I'm sure that if anyone came up to me while I was like this, they'd think I was insane. I took this brief encounter as my sign to start heading back to the car. the wade back the wade back I made it a resolution to not sift bit surface collect only. the thing is, that in the hours between when I got there and now, it had stopped raining. and when the rain stopped the waters started to recede after an hour or two. So here I was, walking back to the car past effectively virgin shoreline, with only an hour of sunlight left. I was delaying myself left and right with tooth after tooth that I would find on the shorelines. some being decent sized in their own right! after I returned home, I spent the remaining hours of my sanity cleaning and sorting the finds of the day. this is the total finds for day 2. Aftermath below is the combined total of fossils. of the identifiable items I found approximately 234 goodies over those 2 days. my display case for Cretaceous NJ was looking a little sparse before, but now its looking a little fuller as I am writing this. if you notice any special things in the pictures I missed, please let me know, I love educating myself on these things.

Big Brook, NJ (Late Cretaceous): Rock, bone or other? Eight pictures attached.

Hi. Hope everyone is well. I found this really cool fossil last week at Big Brook. Has some really great detail and seems not to be water worn. Never saw anything like it. I did research and my best UN-educated guess is an osteoderm? Maybe from a crocodile? Would love some feedback on what this is. Thank you much for taking a look! The measurement is in MM.

Hi everyone. It has been way to long since I posted anything. Life has been crazy for me. I still stalk the forum everyday. Went hunting this morning for the first time since the summer. I have something that really looks like a tooth. Parts of it do and others parts does not. Really need other opinions on this one. I put it under the microscope because I just cant determine what it is. I hope it is something. Thank you for taking a look! Hope everyone is well.

I was sifting through my old finds in Big Brook and there was this curved item that was about an inch long. I have 3 pictures attached. Big Brook is known for marine type fossils. Not sure if its even identifiable but it is porous. Any idea what it could be?

Hey, last post for now but the main fossil of the trip had to be what looks like an edomontasaurus tooth fragment. There are serrations at the back of it and I suspect its most of the bottom half of one. The other bigger fossil most likely is a suggestive rock but I just included the photos haha. Could you guys confirm that the smaller fossil is possibly an edmontosaurus tooth fragment? I found them in big brook NJ, a popular fossil hunting site in a stream of water.

Hello everyone, first post in this forum! If I make any newbie mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this post/remember for next time. I have a broken reptile tooth sifted from Big Brook (a stream near Marlboro, NJ) that dates to somewhere between the Late Campanian and Early Maastrichtian. I posted this online at another point and it was identified as a crocodile tooth from the original pictures I posted. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while though and it doesn’t seem to line up with the teeth from other known crocodilians and from this area (Brachychampsa, Borealosuchus, Hyposaurus, etc). Can anyone offer a second opinion? It has really prominent anterior ridge on the front of the tooth which makes me think it’s possible a theropod but it doesn’t look like Dryptosaurus. The back half is broken which means I don’t have any serrations to use as an ID. I’ve included the files in this post. I have also included some bonuses to these image though. I believe I found what appears to be a bird femur in the brook but I’m not certain if this is a quaternary find or actually from the same formation as this tooth. Anyone have a family id or insight on how to check if this is fossilized or just turned black from the soil? I also included some images of saurornitholestine teeth which I personally thought are close in appearance to this tooth. Thinking I might be too hopeful on that ID but thought it was worth sharing my thoughts lol. Material of these dinosaurs has been found in New Jersey!