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Hello everyone, I am new to the forum, and new to fossil hunting, and I was wondering about what the process of fossil hunting is supposed to look like. A couple days back, I went to fossil hunt at the Deep Springs Road side. There was a fossil that looked like club moss which went into the rock wall near the top of a ledge. Because I wanted the whole fossil intact, I attempted to excavate the fossil out of the wall by levering up the shale above the fossil using my rock hammer. I figured that this would be okay, but I was still left wondering whether excavation of fossils out from the rock wall was allowed or not. Is it frowned upon to excavate fossils from the rock formation? Should I only be splitting rocks that have already fallen from the wall, or is it fine to dig out of the formation? Here is a picture of the club moss looking fossil, if anyone more knowledgeable wants to identify it for me:

Today I spent a wonderful day fossilhunting with my 3 boys. The weather was really nice until about 2:30 when the clouds started to roll in and along with it, the rain. That's ok though as we spent about 3 1/2 hours fossilhunting the Devonian of New York. We started off at Cole Hill around 11 am. When we arrived I saw that they had bulldozed an area around one side of the roadcut and played down a drainage pipe. This bulldozing removed some of the talus pile while exposing large slabs that had been buried for years. I spent some time looking through the slabs. While there were some interesting pieces I only grabbed a few Dipleura pygidiums because they were in nice condition. I definately over dressed for the day as it was windy when we left the house so I wore extra layers that I didnt need. I started getting warm fast. We spent about an hour and a half there and I decided to drive over to DSR and see how things were over there. It takes about a half hour to get there from Cole Hill. When we arrived we saw a vehicle and 2 people. As I gathered my tools I yelled over " Hello" and asked how they were doing. As I approached I realized that the young lady was @rachelgardner01 and she was with her husband. So we chatted for awhile. Those 2 had opened up a pretty good area but she said that she wasnt finding much. I started looking around after awhile and picked up some brachiopods and bivalves. I was surprised that my boys were all looking together for a while and they seemed to actually be enjoying themselves. After about an hour Rachel and her husband left and then we left a half hour later. While there were no spectacular finds an had a great time with my kids and found enough goodies to keep me satisfied. Heck, I was happy just being able to get outside 2 days in a row. I will post pics shortly, I have to resize some of them first.

Also from @Kane, i'd like a little help to determine those devonian ones 1) From Deep Springs a) 2.4 cm hight, 3.2 cm width Grammysioidea arcuata ? b ) Modiomorpha ? Grammysia ? 4 cm hight, 2.5 cm width 2) Widder formation, Eifellian : a) 2.5 cm hight, 1.7 cm width b ) 4.7 cm hight, 2.9 cm width for the taller and 1.5 cm of thickness for the other one.

Hey everyone! I finally had a day to go out and enjoy a Saturday fossil hunting with no time limit!! I decided to check 2 middle Devonian locations that have yielded nice dipleura specimens in the past. I’m still looking for “that one” specimen....eventually I’ll find one. I didn’t find the trilobite I tasked myself to find but I did find awesome stuff on Saturday . So here is a little trip report from Saturday September 28, 2019 plus some extra stuff I found earlier in the month. I’ll throw it in at the end. I got up really early so I could get to Cole Hill by sunrise. I had 2 sites in mind from the start. My new house is now only 30 minutes away from CHR which was a nice surprise! Early morning view I’ve had some tough outings at Cole Hill. This rock is so hard!!! I’ve tried clearing overburden just to get to more immovable rock. Anytime I get things moving I find something decent so that was the goal. Find rock that moves!! I ended up finding a spot way off the main outcrop and I got to work. I immediately found a plate with 5 cephalons!! It’s not being very photogenic so I took a picture after making them wet. the right shot shows 4 cephalons stacked in between the white scale bars....the left one shows the 5 hidden cephalon that Is under another cephalon. The bottom piece is just a cheek but could continue I’m not sure. Not very photogenic but rare to find an assemblage like that. I was able to find an area with more weathered rock and I found around a dozen cephalons!!! These are the better and bigger ones. I have a few nice juveniles but they are half covered in rock. I liked these 2 a lot. The left one is very 3D (also came in 10 pieces lol) and the right one has all the cephalon margins intact!! some nicer pygidiums I found. I found 7-10 total in various conditions. I found a lot of associated fauna as well!! The Gastropods came from mostly one bedding plane. The same spot I found the cephalon hash plate these were not far behind littered all over. I also found a bunch of bivalves! Way more than I usually do. I collected more on this trip than I have in the past. The rock kept moving and I kept finding!! After I worked the shelf back far enough I decided I wasn’t going to try and find a new spot. 4 hours of collecting and it was time to go to Deep Springs Rd. Even though I didn’t find exactly what I was after I found lots of amazing specimens compared to past trips . Kept my finder crossed that DSR would be as kind. DSR next post.....

I had an amazing day today hunting with @Darktooth and his two sons. He could not have been more generous with his time and knowledge and my mom and I had an amazing time. There were too many finds to have ready for a post today but here is a quick sneak peak. Tomorrow I’m on to penn Dixie with @DevonianDigger

My last trip to Deep Springs I brought back a large dis-articulated Dipleura. While cleaning up the specimen, which had mud on the bottom, I discovered two things. There was more to the Dipleura then I originally thought. This part I will save for another topic. The other thing was a part of the matrix flaked off to reveal a fossil in which I have never seen before. I am wondering if this is possibly fish related. Maybe @Jeffrey P or @Fossildude19 may have seen this before on your previous hunts there?

I made it back out today with my boys. The weather made it into the 50's with full sun, so it was a very nice day to be out. I managed to grab some of the goodies I left behind yesterday plus some of what I found today. I have moved a lot of rock these past two days and there are slabs and hash plates everywhere. Hopefully they will get a chance to weather before I get back there to split them. If somebody else gets to them first then that's just the way it is. Dylan did good on the trilo parts today. Devin just kind of did boy stuff. Similar to the last time I brought them out. Here is todays haul. A Small Greenops,a Eldregeops cephalon, a couple Dipleura pygidiums, a few bivalves and a brach. Nothing fancy but a good day in my book.

I am currently getting over the flu so I decided to put off my trip to New Jersey till I am more ready for a long roadtrip. With that being said, I needed to get my fossil fix and decided to hit up my favorite local site. I left the house at 5:30 am, during which it was lightly raining. I got to Deep Springs by 6:40 and was surprised by how much snow was still lying around even though it hasn't snowed for around 2 weeks. Luckily the snow was melted on a good portion of the site, particularly the ledge that I wanted to work. I managed to find a nice piece of fossil wood around 14 inches long. While I did not find any complete trilos, I did find a dis-articulated Dipleura thorax and pygidium around 4 inches wide, a Small Dipleura thoraxand pygidium, and a Small but decent Dipleura cephalon that popped off the matrix. There was many other things that I found which I left behind. I plan on going back tomorrow with the boys to get what is left and hopefully get some new material.