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Hello fellow fossil peeps, I am finally adding myself on here as I was told to do by Asa Kaplan almost a year ago. I love finding fossils and making new discoveries or new to me discoveries. I love to learn and I am joining here to learn more and possibly spread some of the things I have learned as well. I live in Missouri south of St. Louis in Jefferson County. This is primarily where I collect in various groups and formations including the decorah group, plattin group, kimmswick fm, warsaw fm, fern glen fm, and St. Louis fm. Favorite fossils right now are cyclocystoids. I have found the one in my profile pic and several hundred more individual submarginal ossicles and 2 more partially articulated rings (one that is also nearly complete). 2nd favorite thing to hunt for is either cephalopods or trilobites and it depends on my mood and location I am searching. Locally we can find a lot of straight cephalopods such as endoceras, actinoceras, cameroceras but coiled nautiloids and ammonites are rare to non-existent in these formations. In Missouri full or even close to full trilobites are also rare finds although I have been lucky to find a few over the past 2 years they are still very rare. Bryozoans and the wild diversity are also a favorite and very diverse in my area. Archimedes, Evactinopora radiata, diplotrypa, and others are prevalent locally. Thank you,

Hello! I'm new to the forum and fossil hunting. I've actually come to it by way of hiking. I've been hiking for years and grown curious about my finds. Most I've come across are easily identifiable, but these two have proven more challenging. A geologist friend suggested that they are a type of echinodermata. But since the first has six rays I thought it might possibly be evactinopora radiata. However, the examples of evactinopora radiata I have seen online are significantly smaller than this example. I know I should have photographed a coin or something next to them to give them scale, but I didn't do that with my early finds. The first fossil, with six rays, was about six inches across at the widest point. The second, with five rays, is about four inches across. I found them next to each other embedded in the rock north of Barcelona at the following coordinates: 42° 08'08.20" N, 2° 14'22.17" E I don't know if it is of any help, but I added the third photo as an example of other fossils I found in the area. Any help is appreciated!