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One man's junk, is another man's treasure. We all have our own perspective; on what is good enough, big enough, etc. I never wish, to fail to appreciate; the smaller or more common fossils. Every fossil tells a story. Does anyone else, feel this way? ***Edits are now made to the above original post; because apparently, I suggested the exact opposite of what I was trying to say? I never wish to overlook the smaller or.more common fossils. Dog gone late night posting..... Either that, or I'm just getting old?

I got out for a little while this afternoon, and gave it the ol' college try.

If so, how was it? I believe I am going to try it out this coming weekend and just wondered how it is, and what is commonly found there.

My younger son Mel just led his first fossil trip of the year on our Eocene/Oligocene M&M Ranch in Nebraska last week. My sons, Mel and Marco Jr., are starting to get back from their prepper some of the fossils that they found on our ranch in 2018. Not all fossils go to the prepper. Mel preps some of the specimens himself. Below is a picture of the specimens Mel found in 2018 that he will prep. Here are a few pictures of 2018 specimens just back from the prepper. Mel found another saber cat in 2018 that is in prep. Below are a saber cat skull found by Mel and saber cat skeleton found by Marco Jr. in previous years on the ranch. They have found seven or eight so far on the ranch. I'll probably be going out to the ranch a couple of times this year. However, I spend most of my time at the ranch taking matrix that contains micro squamate, bird, amphibian, and mammal specimens. I'm currently working with seven researchers on this micro material. Marco Sr.

I’ve recently remember that I like dinosaurs and fossil and got back into it again this time I actually bought fossils and have a small collection, on to the main topic, I was wondering if there are any things with information you would recommend. Example: sites, posts, studies, documentary, books or a place with news relating to new discoveries, fossil or paleontology, I enjoy facts or interesting information, If there’s something that you enjoy and think it’s not that big of a deal to others I would also like to know what that may be. Other Things I would enjoy: -learning more about the technical side of paleontology like why they name true bone with letters and numbers -Formation and what makes the fossil there unique if there is any -Scientific things like Taxonomy, genus and species (quite interesting in that stuff but can’t seem to find a place that compiles the information to an easy understandable thing to read, though I’m sure it’s not that complex) Any info is appreciated!

These were both found on the shore of Lake Michigan in Illinois. They are chain coral. From what I have read, chain coral is rare from Lake Michigan. I have seen pieces sell for about $50. Are these really rare? If so-why? Thanks

This weekend was the MAPS (Mid America Paleontological Society) Show, held at the Orr Building on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. The actual show started on Friday and ended today. Prior to the start of the show, there was a hotel show that started on Wednesday at the Fairfield Inn. I arrived on Wednesday and left on Saturday. As usual, both venues were fun and it was nice to see friends that I knew from shows in the past. There were a number of forum members in attendance including @stats, @crinus, @ParkerPaleo and @fiddlehead. Like most shows, there were exhibits, a kids corner, fossil ID’s and lectures. The keynote talk was by Dr. Jed Day (Illinois State University) and his talk was titled “North American Records of Devonian Extinction Events”, and it outlined the key features of the Fras, Kellwasser and Hangenburg events. Here are some miscellaneous pictures that I took. There were also a number of fossils for sale from the Dr. Bruce Stinchcomb collection, below are a few. Continued on next post.

Hey hi Everybody! I like the unusual teeth. And posterior teeth are some of the most unusual in any given species. So I thought I would start a thread for posterior shark teeth of any species. To kick it off..... Here are some from Shark tooth hill (round mountain silt). I think these are Carcharodon hastalis and (?) planus. The smallest one is just under 1/8th inch wide. So, if You have any posterior shark teeth - please post pictures here. Thanks, Tony

what is the best way to clean and store fossils?

Happy almost Halloween! Show us the scariest thing that has ever happened to one of your fossils or something about fossils that is related to halloween. Mine is this. I'd bought a fake mosasaur jaw but I didn't know it was fake. I'd put it in the sink to clean it off and then the whole thing crumbled. I did get some mosasaur teeth out of it though.

My violin professor organizes (or more correctly has me organize ) social events for his students. Today, we’re going on a hike, and he’s bringing his kids (6 and 8 y/o). His son adores marine biology. The last few times his son spent time with us, he rattled off marine biology facts at super speed to whoever would listen. Reminded me of me… In any case, today, I’m giving him some shark teeth from my collection. It makes me super proud to pass my love along to a kid who reminds me of when I was a kid! I’m hoping he gets hooked . I’ve told my professor about the paleo stuff I do, and he’s told his son, who really wants me to take him fossil hunting some day. Hoping I can inspire him to cultivate his interests!

Today i came to Lo Valdés, in Chile. A Jurassic formation based on abundant and relatively diverse ammonite assemblages. I found this!

I found this fossil in lo valdes, Chile.

Figured that I would share some photos of part of my collection so far. Fairly new to this game and sure that many of you have collections that are amazing! Please share some photos of some of yours, or your prized pieces. Would love to see them! The vertabrae with the doc numbers is probably my favorite piece other than what I have recently collected. It is from Bob Ernst's collection.

Hi everyone! On our most recent fossil hunt (the one where we found the teeth), we found a very interesting bone. We are trying to identify it, but there is an insane amount of ironstone on it. Are there any tips on removing ironstone? We are hesitant to try scraping it off, because we are afraid we might damage the bone surface. Any tips are welcome!

Won the bid on these books. Has anyone read, or own the same books? I didn't pay much for them, so no big loss if they aren't good. Just curious if anyone has read them and their thoughts.

Ok guys. I am new to this and really enjoying it. Figured I would share a few photos and hope that someone would possibly help me out here. The 3 fossils I have no clue about were found within 30 yards or so of one another. I appreciate any help, and thanks for looking! Ordovician

A friend found this on the north shore of new orleans in landscaping rocks , she want to know if its a fossil

Hello everyone, Im Jp. New to the forum but super excited to have found it. Was already able to ID some unknowns from other post, confirm some hunches, and this fossil ID section might be the coolest part of it all! Below are some pieces from the collection that I’m either unknown on or need better opinions on than my couple of books on Florida’s fossils give. Please let me know if you know anything about them. Everything was found in the Peace River in Florida. Mixed medium size to fine size gravel. Location in the river system can be surface layer of the bottom up to 3’ down into the riverbed and gravel bars. All species come from the same general area as I only really hunt the north and north central river. I’m new to the layout system here but hopefully I can get these in order. First are these teeth. As long as they aren’t human I’m excited! : 1.) 2.) Next this jawbone is a mystery. The tunnel on the bottom matched a couple large rodent type species in my book but I couldn’t tell. 3.) What do we think these are?? I thought dolphin at first for the upper one but it’s kinda different. 4.) The curved one looks kinda like a unkempt dogs toenail?? Switching gears to these bones… 5.) The white one looks like the upper part of a Dugong rib but also kinda dolphin??? Kinda figured those grooves were for capillaries or nerves?? 6.) The darker second bone? Is interesting because it appears to still have the periosteum on it. Or it’s wood or coprolite, and I treasure poop. : ) 7.) This seems like an old massive gators tooth but it’s got way more character than my other gators teeth. So I’ve wondered if it’s different. (The peace river starts on Lake Hancock with more 10- 13’ gators than you can possibly imagine. Around Arcadia and Nacotee they get thick and huge again. So both sides of where folks hunt the river. I can’t imagine how many have traveled the peace to change locations over their massive lifespan) 8. ) These have puzzled me. Why is this napping type stone 2’ under the peace river bed? 9.) Why has this rock been shaped and grooved like a plumb Bob or a weight? 10.) Is this a bird point or can I just stop wondering? 11.) Under the See..Under the sea… so I actually thought these were stingrays inner barbs but I learned on this forum that those spines are dorsal and pectoral fish fin internals. 12.) The tiny crab claw tooth (also 2’ under the river bed) and 13.) coral are complete mysteries. 14.) Black thing? 15.) Let me start by saying if these are Geodes, I really hope the rest are still there. I collected a bucket worth in a spot but set them down to do something different and forgot to pick them up before I left. Literally last hunt of this year for me and the water in that spot is easy 6-8’ deep right now. 16.) I’ve located fish scale plates in my books but nothing exactly like this?? 17.) What kind of sharks teeth are these? I find various versions of both types and a decent amount. Lastly, if you lost your keychain, I found it. Guessing it went missing somewhere mid 70’s. (Also found deep under the bottom) Thanks for looking into these! Thanks for knowing stuff I don’t and please let me know how to do better with posting future find questions. Here’s my box with the stuff I’ve kept. My better half has pretty strict rules on bringing new stuff in. Can’t have repeats, which is fair enough. Thanks!! Jp

i have collected a lot of old bones. some are modern moose and others are mammoth and older mineralized bone. what is the best way to clean them? what tools should I get to use? can anyone recommend a good book on general information and cleaning fossils and bones for a middle school age child? (13) thanks

Only two weeks ago, when i was out rock hunting on the south western coast of Norway, I found two rocks with fossils inside them. In Norway, fossils are only found in Oslo, Trondheim and on the northern part of Norway. The only fossils found in the west are in Ritlandskratere, an ancient meteor crater, four hours away from where i found mine. The fossils are some brachiopods and clams, a trilobite tail, a belemnite fragment and a belemnite phragmocone. There could maybe be some new species or sub species. I am waiting for the response of the Natural History Museum in Oslo. I will update on the response I get.

Hello Everyone, It feels like Deja Vu .. but it is that time of year again .. again. Wait, have I posted this already. A photo dump, of the few photos I snapped, of some of my more interesting finds. The Crowne Plaza had some enourmous mineral specimens and some fantastic fossils on offer this year. Though most were way outside of my budget. But photos are FREE ! The cutest fake fossil ? Yes ... and I almost bought one. I kick myself still for not pulling the trigger. Selfies with minerals anyone ?? .. yes please. Children for scale. I like it and I'm sticking with it, because I'm a rebel. Who needs a proper scale anyway. 1 FINN Height Unit (well, you can't see his feet) My daughter found her favorite, but alas we could not roll this one home. Moroccan tooth. Most likely Auriculatus. Fantastic price for such a nice tooth. They are normally quite beaten up. My other Moroccan finds. I love these for stocking stuffers The dealer I frequent from South Carolina. They are black water divers and have the best cetacean teeth and other bits and pieces. Great for school visits etc ... this stuff is sold by the pound. A sloth tooth partial. Mastadon (or Gomphothere ? .. probably a Gomph tooth) Tooth Cusp Extinct Billfish Vertebra Cheers, Brett

Hello fossil hunters! Found some interesting fossils from the late Cretaceous in Europe. In the south of the Netherlands (Limburg), Cretaceous sediments occur. At and around the ‘Schneeberg’ (border between Vaals and Germany), the Kalksteen van Vijlen (Vijlen chalk), Orsbach Kreide (Orsbach chalk) and Kunrader Kalksteen (Kunrader chalk) or Vetschauer Kalksteen are present. Fossils from these sediments consist of belemnites (Belemnitella junior (Nowak, 1913), Belemnella (Pachybelemnella) sumensis (Jeletzky, 1949) and/or Belemnella (Pachybelemnella) cimbrica (Birkelund, 1957), some intermediate forms are described as Belemnella ex gr. sumensis/cimbrica, sea urchins (Echinocorys sp. including Echinocorys gr. conoidea (Goldfuss, 1829) and Cardiaster granulosus (Goldfuss, 1829), oysters (Pycnodonte vesicularis (Lamarck, 1806), shark teeth (for example Carcharias sp., Cretalamna lata (Agassiz, 1843), Squalicorax pristodontus (Agassiz, 1843) and Pseudocorax affinis (Münster in Agassiz, 1843) and other fossils. Many fossils are from the Vijlen Chalk (early Early to early Late Maastrichtian). Fossils from the Vijlen 0-3 and Vijlen 4-6 (Vijlen chalk) are approximately between 70.6 and 69.3 million years old. The basis of interval 0 of the Vijlen Member could be dated at 70.6 Ma. Lithology and bioclast contents for intervals 5 (upper part) and 6 of the Vijlen Member at Mamelis (Mamelis 62D-78) have indicated an age of 69.7-69.3 Ma. According to recent research the base of the Vijlen Member is dated at 70.4 Ma and the fossils from Vaals and nearby places could be between 70.4 (the base of the Vijlen Member) and 69.7 or 69.5 million years old (Lixhe 1 Hz. and mid-Lixe 1). Including the latest part of the late Late Maastrichtian, Cretaceous fossils from Limburg and its capital Maastricht (where workers and fossil hunters found Mosasaurus hoffmannii (Mantell, 1829) are between 70.4 and 66.02 million years old. Above: photo with Cretaceous fossils from Limburg (Vaals). These fossils are the remains of animals that lived in the shallow sea that covered Europe between 70 and 66 million years ago. A comparable American site is Big Brook Park in Marlboro New Jersey where these kind of marine fossils are also found (belemnites, oysters, shark teeth and other Cretaceous material). The six belemnites are possibly Belemnitella sp. (Belemnitella junior (Nowak, 1913), the white oyster is Pycnodonte vesicularis (Lamarck, 1806) plus one fragment, the black object is a 'Steinkern' from the sea urchin Echinocorys sp. (possibly Echinocorys gr. conoidea (Goldfuss, 1829) and the seven teeth are shark teeth (mixed species, I think a few Carcharias sp. The bigger one I don't know. I do not think it is a Paleohypotodus bronni (Agassiz, 1843) because the crown is not really twisted. Internet https://www.somniosus.be/Homepage_set.htm Literature Birkelund, T. (1957). Upper Cretaceous belemnites from Denmark. Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Biologiske Skrifter, 9, 1–69, Copenhagen. Christensen, W.K. (1995). Belemnitella from the Upper Campanian and Lower Maastrichtian chalks of Norfolk, England. Special Papers in Palaeontology, 51, 1-84. London. Felder, P.J. & Bless, M.J.M. (1994). The Vijlen Chalk (early Early to early Late Maastrichtian) in its type area around Vijlen and Mamelis (southern Limburg, The Netherlands). Annales de la Société géologique de Belgique 116: 61–85. Felder, W.M. & Bosch, P.W. (2000). Geologie van Nederland, deel 5. Krijt van Zuid-Limburg. NITG TNO, Delft/ Utrecht: 192 pp. Gallagher, W. 1997. When Dinosaurs Roamed New Jersey. Rutgers University Press. Jagt, J.W.M. (2005). Stratigraphic ranges of mosasaurs in Belgium and the Netherlands (Late Cretaceous) and cephalopod-based correlations with North America. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences. 84. 10.1017/S0016774600021065. Jagt, J.W.M. (2012). Belemnitellid coleoids (Mollusca, Cephalopoda) from the type Maastrichtian, the Netherlands and Belgium. Scripta Geologica. Special Issue, 08, 93–112. Jagt, J.W.M, & Jagt-Yazykova, E.A. (2012). Stratigraphy of the type Maastrichtian – a synthesis. Scripta Geologica. Special Issue, 08, 5–32. Keutgen, N., Jagt, J.W., Felder, P., & Jagt-Yazykova, E. (2010). Stratigraphy of the upper Vijlen Member (Gulpen Formation; Maastrichtian) in northeast Belgium, the southeast Netherlands and the Aachen area (Germany), with special reference to belemnitellid cephalopods. Geologie En Mijnbouw, 89, 109-136. Jeletzky, J.A. (1949). Über den taxonomischen Wert einiger morphologischer Elemente des Rostrums der belemnitellenartigen Formen (Familie Belemnitellidae Pavlow, 1913), sowie über die Gattung Belemnella (Nowak, 1913,subg.) Jeletzky, 1941, ihre Phylogenie und einige Vertreter.Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geologie und Paläontologie, B9, 257–287. Keutgen, N. (2011). The belemnite zonation of the uppermost Cretaceous in the Maastricht-AachenLiège, Brabant-Méhaigne and Mons areas (Belgium, southeast Netherlands). In: Jagt, J.W.M., Jagt-Jagt. Belemnitellid coleoids from the type Maastrichtian. Scripta Geol., Spec. Issue 8 (2012). Keutgen, N. (2018). A bioclast-based astronomical timescale for the Maastrichtian in the type area (southeast Netherlands, northeast Belgium) and stratigraphic implications: The legacy of P.J. Felder. Netherlands Journal of Geosciences, 97(4), 229-260. doi:10.1017/njg.2018.15 Nestler, H. (2002). Die Fossilien der Rügener Schreibkreide (4. überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage). Die Neue Brehm-Bücherei Bd. 486., Hohenwarsleben (Westarp Wissenschaften-Verlagsgesellschaft mbH). Schulz, M.G. (1979). Morphometrisch-variationsstatistische Untersuchungen zur Phylogenie der Belemniten-Gattung Belemnella im Untermaastricht NW-Europas. Geologisches Jahrbuch, A47, 3–157. Van der Ham, R. & van Birgelen, M. (1992). Zeeëgels uit het Maastrichtien van de Schneeberg en omgeving (Aken, Duitsland). Natuurhistorisch Maandblad, 81(8/9), 139–153. Vellekoop, J. & Kaskes, P. & Sinnesael, M. & Huygh, J. & Déhais, T. & Jagt, J. & Speijer, R. & Claeys, P. (2022). A new age model and chemostratigraphic framework for the Maastrichtian type area (southeastern Netherlands, northeastern Belgium). Newsletters on Stratigraphy. 55. 10.1127/nos/2022/0703.

My grandson who plans on being a marine biologist is fascinated by the marine fossils that can be found in Texas. 30 years ago, on a staff development trip to McDonald Observatory. While we were there, they took us on a trip to collect fossils. It was a road cutout so it was legal to collect the minor fossils. I remember that the mostly we found fossils imprinted in the shale. They were simple fossils but even for we teachers, it was so much fun to use our rock hammers, split open a piece of shale and find a treasure. My grandchildren would love this so much. Unfortunately, all I remember is that it was somewhere in the Fort Davis, Texas area. Is there anyone that could tell me where I could find this place? Thank you

I am figuring this “Fossil ID thing”! Please let me know if these pictures are clear enough/large enough. I see so much in this obsidian,.... but I don’t know what they are! So, is there obsidian in these fossils, or are there fossils in this obsidian?