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Hi everyone. Haven't posted in a long long time. Been trying to get back out there to some sites in the upper Midwest. Took a day trip recently to several sites within the Platteville formation of western Wisconsin. Did a lot of research and looked at some previous posts by other members here - but I was going in pretty much blind to the various roadcuts in terms of where I should be looking. Took a while but started to have some luck. A second trip would probably turn out far more productive as I have a better understanding of the what is in the different rock strata now. I found a number of brachiopods and minor pieces, a few trilobite heads of rough quality. I did turn up a few pieces that I wasn't fully sure on - was hoping to turn it over to the community to comment. #1. Possible Gonioceras? Fossil is in pretty rough shape and a piece was broken off when I found it. What are your thoughts? Underside of the broken piece showing texture. #2 - No idea all all. Possible a "nothing". If I look at it long enough I imagine some kind of segments, but I think that's my imagination... hoping others have seen something like this.

I found this in the layers well above the trilobite bed at the Beecher's Bed Quarry in NY. It appears to be a segmented worm. I welcome opinions. Its about 5 cm long and 2 mm wide. The photos of the ends are taken through a microscope.

I have not gotten out much locally this summer due to a few issues. Forced myself to step away from my current stresses and hunt some fossils along the Minnesota Iowa border. Found some nice brachs, cephalopods, rugosa coral, gastropods, and fisherites. Nothing special, but it was nice being out again. When I returned home, I was going to hammer a little matrix away from a few of my collections. A large slab had a worn cephalopod in it and I was going to break it out and put it in with the fossils I take to the children's sand pit at a local park. With one swing of the hammer, I decided this one was NOT going to the park! It is amazing how often this happens to me. I wonder how many nice fossils have been left behind only because I quit breaking the rock. Two beautiful Maclurites and a Hormatoma laid hidden underneath the matrix surrounding the cephalopod.

On a recent trip I hunted the Jersey Road cut by the Harsha bridge over the Ohio river. I hoped to find edrioasteroids, but the site was way too large for me to even know where to begin. I did pick up a couple of hashplates I found interesting. I have collected several different Ordovician sites, and this one had all the usual types...brachiapods, bryozoans, crinoid pieces, and a few others. These needle like, triangular cross sectioned pieces were abundant. I hadn't seen them before, and couldn't i.d. them, so I brought back a hashplate of them knowing that someone on the forum would I.d. them for me. Thanks. Al;so, if someone could explain the biology of the crinoid stem piece, I would appreciate it as well. Usually I just find the "buttons" in the center, this one appears to have a disk around it, it looks rather thin, almost like flower petals around the outside edge, with a distinctive cell pattern inbetween. i tried to get the best , clearest photo I could with my camera. If you blow it up a bit, you'll see what I am talking about. I have included a side view to show its thin edge. The crinoid stem is about 1/2 " across. Center button is perhaps 3/16" or so. Thanks. And i have included another interesting crinoid section, simply because it is a form I haven't seen before...the circle, with little bead like bumps in the underlying area. Forgot to add, I was curious about the little ball with bumps all over it...It was by itself in the top of a hashplate, and popped out when I cracked the plate apart. I don't recognize it either.

This summer has been great for me. After learning so much about fossils on the forum I decided to convince my wife to make a few side trips on our way from Ft Myers to Shawano, Wisconsin for our 50th anniversary celebration...she has no interest in fossils, but indulges me, so you can see why our marriage would last 50 years. At anyrate, our first stop was the little Conasauga formation near Dalton, Ga...north of Atlanta. I've been there before, and so decided to simply fill a box with pieces of mudstone to take back for door prizes over the year at my local fossil club meetings. That was fun because I know almost every little chunk will produce some nice trilobite fossil. From there I had convinced my wife to stop at the Jersey Road cut by the Harsha bridge over the Ohio River. That road cut is even larger than the well known one I hunt near St Leon, Indiana. I had stopped there because I had read there were edrioasteroids there, it having been part of the sea floor....oops...The road cut , like many, cuts through lots of differernt layers...and is terraced. From the images I had found on line, I decided to hunt the very top section. The formation I was looking for was the Bellevue Formation, but I have no idea where it was. The site was overwhelming...no, that is a wrong word, awe inspiring is better. I didn't have alot of time, so I looked and carried out a backpack of 70 # or so....of layered sections so I could crack them at home. (And that pattern of operation would serve me the rest of the trip as well. ) I will post a few of my interesting pieces for this site on this note, nothing great, but interesting to me. From there, we drove to New Salem Illinois to avoid the Chicago corrider. On our way from New Salem north, I realized we were close to the site of the famous Mazon Creek nodules. Once again, my lovely wife, agreed to stop, but on our way home. We had rented a house on a lake near where we both grew up, and had our children's families come stay with us for a week of fishing, and visiting. Great time. My children live in Michigan and Maine, and my grandchildren rarely get to see their cousins unless we arrange things like this. So it was gratiying to have them all so thoroughly enjoy each other. We had a great time. After the cottage, we decided to head through the middle of the state for a 4 day visit to my sister near Madison. ( me checking out possible future fossil sites and my son-in-law who is an avid bird watcher, hoping to see the endangered Whooping Crane. I had hoped to be able to fossil hunt near Madison and had asked on the forum for help...being told to look along highway J. There wasn't time. Though we did underetake a trip to Cave of the Mounds near Dodgeville, and lucky me, on the way back to Madison, I noticed a quarry by the side of the road. We stopped and I was able to look for a half hour, picked up three stones from a discard pile for inspection and cracking later, and headed on. Leaving Madison the next day, I was excited to be able to visit the Mazon Creek site...I had been told , nodules are hard to find in summer with all the overgrowth, but wanted to make this bucket list stop anyway. Again, as on the Ohio, the site can be overwhelming. Having asked for a good place at the reception desk, and following the advice I had received from the Forum associates, I headed out. Once again, I wish I had someone along who knew what to look for...I mean, when you are picking up rocks to open later, you don't want to pick up and carry a bunch of things that are rocks, and not nodules. To hedge my bet a bit, I decided to crack a few rocks I thought promishing, they looked somewhat like they had layers. If I found something, I'd be ahead of the game in knowing what type of rock to pick up....Success....I cracked a rock along a seam and there inside is "something"....LOL, I know, I know. Can't tell what it is , but it is something, so I picked up a bag of similarly looking rocks and headed back to car to add yet another collection to my growing car rockpile for searching later. By the way, many of you suggested the best time to hunt is in early spring or fall, and that sometimes the workers plow areas to upturn nodules at the Mazon site. Where I hunted was a washout from rain. And the receptionist said the rangers sometimes burn the vegetation along the edges of the ravines at these wash outs so they don't get so overgrown as to prohibit collecting....I came across one such ravine, and could have stayed all day. Well, I am back home safely, now planning my annual trip to the Apalachicola and Chipola rivers to search for Miocene shells. I am back on my home turf and somewhat know what I am doing here. I believe that is one great advantage for the forum as well....that is, to be able to meet someone in another part of the country who is familiar with an area to hunt, and then hunt together. We often see such trips happen, and I am so proud to be a part of a group that accomplishes such service to one another. Now that i am familiar with the areas, I too , may well arrange a trip with a buddy, when I have more time to explore. The few images attached are from the Jersey cut. I thought the crinoid stem, with little bumps around the outside was interested...and the crinoid stem center with stalk material around it was really interesting to me. While it doesn't show in the photo, under my loop, the material around the core is made up of a pattern like that of a sunflower seed head...intricate, and wonderful to contemplate. The other hashplate has those little triangular cross-sectioned needle like pieces...and I don't know what they are. I am hoping someone lets me know. Thanks. (oh, and one Whooper)

Anyone with knowledge of Northern NY Ordovician trilobites within 2-3 hour radius of Lowville, NY, I would appreciate any advice on sites to search. Please PM any replies, which will be kept confidential. Interested in soft tissue pyritization. Will share success stories with anyone with specific suggestions. Thanks!

I was bored this last weekend and decided that I would take a quick 4 1/2 hour drive to Southern Indiana to collect Ordovician fossils at St. Leon and areas around Lawrenceburg. Despite some rain, it was a good couple days of collecting. I found numerous horn corals, various species of brachiopods and bryozoan, Isotelus and Flexi trilobite parts and some really nice hash plates containing all of the previous mention fossils, plus other finds. Here are some pics of some of my finds-

I was in the St. Leon and Lawrenceburg areas of Southern Indiana over the weekend doing some collecting and I came across this little concave thing - I am at a loss on what it is, any help would be appreciated.

Mike @minnbuckeye kindly sent me a package of orthocone nautiloids from his area recently. It's one of the taxa that are sparse in my collection so I was happy to accept the offer. I'm posting them to show what a generous guy he is and to elicit more info about them that might be missing... I don't think that big one in the lower right was labeled - Is it the same as the other large one, Elgin IA?

I found this last month on a visit to an abandoned limestone quarry near Naponee, Ontario. Though I am not very familiar with the Trilobites of this area, I believe it's an Isotelus. If I'm wrong with this identification, please tell me. It looks like there could be more of it underneath the sediment, and there is some matrix covering the pleura. This limestone is flaky and darker than any I have seen before. How would I go about prepping this? Though I've heard many people use sand, should I use something less abrasive, like baking soda? Thanks for the help.

Hello again! This post will be about some beautifully preserved Triarthrus fossils (and my first complete Trilobite finds). Some of them even have the eyes preserved! I found these at a local train station, and the site of significant construction lately. I believe most of the to be E. eotoni, and the last one to be E. rougensis or spinosus. It may not be visible in the picture, but the last one has a streak of pyrite along the side of its cephalon / upper thorax. Could this be some kind of soft body tissue preservation, similar to those of the Beecher's Trilobite bed?

Just got back from a trip to New York. Started off at Penn Dixie in the mid-Devonian, then to the Hamilton group, and ended in the mid-Ordovician Trenton group in the Mohawk valley. My main goals were to find some nice complete trilobite specimens, especially the Dipleura dekayi. Special thanks to @Darktooth for hunting advice at DSR. Here are some of my finds: Eldergeops rana, from Penn Dixie. cephalon is a little dinged up but I kind of like the imperfection. Partial Dipleura cephalon found loose in talus at DSR Here's another one found by splitting the shales. It had been raining hard for about two days and stopped when I arrived early morning. After prep: Greenops boothi in situ After prep: Another Greenops, positive negative from CHR. Had to glue it back together, broke when split, but it still looks good to me. Grammysia bisculata, a nice bivalve A surprise enrolled juvenile Dipleura dekayi, mostly complete , just missing an eye And last , but not least, some Ordovician fossils found in the Mohawk valley region. Hindia parva (I think?) sponge Straight shelled nautiloid, measures about 5 inches across Triarthrus parts Thanks for looking!

The Delaware Bay and Delaware River shores are littered with lovely marine erratics. They aren't local. They aren't young. You have to dig pretty darn deep in Delaware just to get to the Cretaceous in some places. These are Paleozoic. Many pieces are limestone and probably from the Mahantango FM. But, I find just as many that are definitely not limestone. They are silicified to cert and other shades of SiO2 plus a bit of dark blue/black mineral. I'm thjingking they are ordovician, based on the Foerstiphyllum sp. corals here. The puzzle is, where do they and the other silicified corals, sponges, bryozoa etc, come from? The DE geological Survey doesn't even mention the erratics. I was told that it's been washed down from the Appalachians. Okay, there are definitely ordovician layers there that could have eroded into the river, but all I can find are formations of limestone and fine-to-very-fine grained sandstone. Been doing all kinds of searching through descriptions of geological formations in the area and I'm coming up blank. Anyone have any ideas?

Hi! My name is Alexandra. I live in St. Petersburg, looking for and preparing trilobites. As you know, we have near St. Petersburg very good places to search for fossils known all over the world. If someone from trilobite lovers wants to come and find good specimens here or if you are traveling through Russia and you will be interested to come in search of trilobites, then I can easily show you the best places to search near St. Petersburg without problems. You do not need anything for this-it will be absolutely free for you. I can explain it by the fact that I am the same person as you, and I have the same disease that can be called "paleontology" Is this interesting for you, write to this topic or search for me in Skype: Alexandra Kalinina (with bird on skateboard on avatar :-) ) and ask any questions. P.S. sorry for my English

Admin please move to appropriate topic if needed. :-) Fillmore County, Minnesota, USA - the most fossiliferous county in Minnesota Ordovician Mostly Galena Formation Whispering Winds, Spring Valley, MN I thought I would share some pics of my fossil barn that I have been remodeling on a budget. There are some ideas here that others may be able to make use of. :-) Overview of the outside of the barn. Note the trilobite cutout an pterodactyl toy at the peak. Galena Formation large cephalopod. The hitching rail is nice to use as a comparison to the approximate size this orthocone ceph may have been. The kids love this dinosaur island in the old wooden watering tank. I give fossil tours and host fossil birthday parties. :-) The fossil prep table is open to guests. I have a grinder and brush, a couple of engravers ($7 from Harbor Freight), a dremel tool, and $5 3 magnification visors. Lori turned me onto a mini microscope for less than $5 off Amazon. I also make wire wrapped fossil jewelry here. This wall was created using pallet boards that were stained or washed with paint. Everything is pieced together like a puzzle. I had a couple of gals here wwoofing (wwoofusa.org), trading time for experience and room and board, and they loved doing this creative work. They also put up the reclaimed tin ceiling and I put different reclaimed tin down as wainscote. Note between the 2nd and 3rd window the dried mushrooms being used as shelves and decorations. I'm wanting to add shelves in the windows at the pane lines for more fossil display and greyed wood shelves supported by rusted chain, eventually. I had some 1880s cedar shingles and put them up on two of the walls around some pallet shelving. The pallets are super sturdy shelving for fossils and FREE! Some more pallet shelving and I used some cut off ends for a few papers. I keep my gear in the barn also. Sometimes I use it as a woodworking shop. I like to work in live edge cedar. Kids and adults all enjoy this old aquarium with a black light in the hood as a fluorescent fossil display. I have rock and minerals in it as well. The walk-in door to the hen house is in the fossil barn, I also raise white homing pigeons and ducks. So this pterodactyl is a lead in to the descendants of the dinosaurs. :-) Now to the gardens...

Hello. I'm attaching two photos: #1) an image of a "Rare Primitive Echinoderm (Edrioasteroid) from the Upper Ordovician of Ontario, Canada," from the following fossil website: https://www.fossils-uk.com/product/new-rare-primitive-echinoderm-edrioasteroid-from-the-upper-ordovician-of-ontario-canada-sku0918-isorophuella-incondita/ #2) a fossil that I found that looks similar and is about the same size as the Edrioasteroid from #1. Is it possible that my specimen (#2) is this Edrioasteroid? Thanks for any assistance! Camille

Hello. The attached photo shows two rocks found in Toronto, Southern Ontario, Canada, at Mimico Creek. I juxtaposed the two because it seemed to my amateur eyes that the one on the left might have some similarity in structure to the two "mallet-shaped" structures in the rock to the right. Any help in ID'ing these would be greatly appreciated. Camille

SE Minnesota, USA Ordovician Galena Formation I'm sorry I do not have a better pic but it went home with the guy who found it. I just hosted a Father's Day hunt and this was found. I would say graptolites but NO SAWTOOTH EDGES! It did not, in the field, to me appear to be crinoid. I have honestly not seen anything like it before. Maybe it is just how it fossilized, but this was a wow to me! He was pretty thrilled! I would be too! :-D Thoughts anyone?

Any recognize this? I have come across a few of these recently in the Lebanon limestone in middle TN, mid/late ordovician. Most have been much smaller. This one still has a thin layer of matrix over much of the surface (with a fragment of a graptolite), but it's the only one I have a photo of. Thanks

Found this the other day. both look inverted. Is this worth having a professional prep? Thank you.

My family and I went on a cruise in December and my 10 year old dragged me to the watercolor painting lessons during the "at-sea" days. I got hooked on painting, she didn't...Anyway, these are my first attempts at combining two of my hobbies.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to attend a very special field trip with the Eastern Ontario Natural History Society to a massive road cut in Ontario. The rock exposed was Ordovician aged limestone, and it produced some amazing fossils. I might need some id help with some of these. The giant cephalopod was by far the best thing I found! 1. Giant Cephalopod (with hand for scale) Camerocerad or Endoceras? 2. Crinoid stems, bryozoans and Gastropod 3. Partial trilobite pygidia

Hello. I found this in Mimico Creek in Toronto, Ontario. Could someone please tell me what it might be? I thought maybe some kind of cephalopod, but really have no idea. Thanks! Camille