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Well I decided to stop again at the Garage Sale at an ESCONI members house. It had been a rainy night and before it opened at 10 am I along with another gentleman helped the owners daughter remove tarps that were covered with a lot of water. After that, I and a number of others began to look around for new items that had been placed outside since last week. I found a couple things that caught my eye, I don’t know if the prices are good for a couple things that I purchased , but it was to help the owner and I was willing to pay the price that I did. These trilobites appear to be from the Ordovician of New York, but I would not be surprised if they came from Canada, maybe @Kane can confirm. For these pieces I paid $130.00 I believe that they are Ceraurus and Isotelus. I got 3 Ceraurus- And then these Isotelus. I also got this box of Agatized Coral from Florida for $50, I have never owned a piece of this. To be continued-

I will be receiving soon what looks to be a large youngshunensis trilobite, while I am aware of fakes from china I'm not sure if specimens of this trilobite like this just have real rough prep work done to them or if maybe there is some sort of carving involved. Any knowledgeable feedback to whether its a keeper or not will be greatly appreciated, always wanted to nab one of these.

Both my brother and I celebrated graduations this year - my brother graduated from college and I graduated from law school. In celebration of our graduations, we decided to take a 13-day road trip to see some of the United States after I had taken the bar exam but before I began work. Our journey ultimately took us through Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Dayton and Pittsburgh, before returning home. Our days were jam-packed, with us often not arriving at a hotel until 9/10pm, but along the way we did find some time to make a few quick stops to collect some fossils in Georgia and Texas. My brother is not a collector, but I was really excited to try to find some examples of the infamous Georgia trilobites, Texas echinoids and Texas ammonites. I want to thank @BobWill, @smt126, @facehugger, and @JamieLynn for answering my innumerable questions about Texas fossils. We ultimately did not have enough time to check out all of the places you suggested, but I will certainly store the knowledge for my next trip - hopefully in cooler weather. Our first stop was at Tibbs Bridge in Chatsworth, GA. Having heard the rumors about the potential illegality of the site I was a little worried when we arrived. We could not initially find parking and when we pulled off, we picked the wrong spot. The homeowner we parked near came out yelling at us about collecting beneath the bridge and threatening to call the police. Having driven all the way from New Jersey I was not yet ready to give up on the trip. We decided to pick another spot to park and given that my brother doesn't collect, he waited in the car in case something happened. We could not stay at the site for longer than 90 minutes, so I tried to find as much as I could. As a funny aside, I was soon joined by another group of collectors from Georgia, one of whom had recently spent time in my hometown in New Jersey. Small world! I was hoping to find some better preserved trilobites, but I had to ultimately settle with some nice impressions and a couple of smaller fragments of exoskeleton. I did find one large trilobite that still had all of its exoskeleton, but it was fractured and I could not put it back together even at home. I was able to keep the impression of the trilobite though. All of what I found were Aphelaspis brachyphasis. And the large trilobite whose exoskeleton was simply too damaged to repair

With fall just around the corner, I was able to get in a hunting trip with my friend Jeffrey P, to the wilds of upstate NY: Specifically, the Deep Springs Road Site, in Earlville. I met up with Jeff at our usual meet up place, and time, (6:00 am at a park and ride near Jeff - about an hour away from my home.) and loaded his gear into my vehicle. Off we went. We enjoyed some very nice scenery, once the morning fog lifted. Hills, streams, farms, and wildlife. We both saw a bald eagle flying by, and some turkeys, chickens, and a deer or two. After a stop for gas and some food in Roscoe, NY, we headed up to Earlville. It was, as usual, a good ride, punctuated with some great conversation, and some interesting music. We arrived at the site around 9:50 AM. The place looked like it had be worked quite a bit, with large areas of rubble from other people's digging. The weather cooperated nicely, - it was beautiful, with temps in the low 70's, and we enjoyed sun and some cool breezes. We got to work quickly, and finds came in drips and drabs. We both made some decent finds, (pics to follow.) Jeff getting ready to start the day. We hunted until about 5 pm. With a 4.5 hour drive ahead, (for me) we got on the road. A brief stop at everyone's favorite Scottish Restaurant, and a quick stop for gas, we finished the day out with more good conversation and music. Traffic was great until after I dropped Jeff off. I spent about 25 minutes in stop and go traffic on I-84 through Southbury. I got home at around 9:45 PM. Jeff is such a great guy to hunt with. Informative, supportive, knowledgeable, and often quite funny. I always enjoy hunting trips with him. Thanks again for another great trip, Jeff. Please feel free to add your finds here, Jeff. Hope you enjoyed the report and finds. Until next time, Kind regards,

This morning I made a trip to a local spot. Wenlockian. Gravicalymene celebra, measures 4cm This one was difficult to work with, as dolostone always is. Ommokris obex cephalon, which turned out to be partial, and a small ventral calymene. The arrow points to the tongue-like protuberance which I was able to extract in one piece and glue back on, giving this trilobite a gargoylesque appearance. And last but not least, a mystery find...

I've been tardy on making a report on a three-day dig at Penn Dixie with @Malcolmt. We had a real hoot. It all began when Malcolm picked me up from the train station and we sailed through the border as we were lucky to have a Homeland Sec official who recognized Malcolm from the May Dig with the Experts. A border guard who collects fossils? Awesome! We definitely put in our efforts. We joined up with @JamesAndTheFossilPeach and @DevonianDigger to start slabbing out rocks. I can say that our area was not the best as the matrix was brutally hard and not yet subjected to any weathering, which meant slabs would shatter more than split. That aside, it is amazing they still let us crazy canucks in as we carted out about two buckets each of trilobites. Malcolm found a lovely Bellacartwrightia, and I found a double Greenops. We loaded up on the usual complete Eldredgeops rana, prone, enrolled, and semi-prone.

Hi gang, I'm working fervently to prepare a post about the astounding time I had at Fossil Mountain in Utah during my fossil run back in July. (Will take me months to process and identify all these samples from four states.) I found a few partial trilobites at the upper layer of the Lehman formation, but I'm having difficulty identifying them. I freely admit I'm exceedingly weak at trilobites ID. these aren't the best pictures or even the best specimens, but I was there solo and the scree around the cliffs was pretty unstable so I erred in the side of caution. Anyway, Any suggestions much appreciated. I'll post better pictures tomorrow when I get my camera back off of my microscope at work.

Hey everyone! It’s been a crazy busy June, July and beginning of August for me! I just finished moving into my house and I just got married on August 9th so my life has been a tornado. As a result I haven’t been able to comment, participate and keep up with all you fine folks on the forum like I usually do. I was still able to get out collecting here and there and I met up with fellow forum member @DrDave and did some exploring for the lower Devonian eurypterid Erieopterus. I won’t report on that until I have something to share. I think me and Dave found the right horizon now I just gotta search till I find something. Anyway I’m just gonna share the highlights from 3 trips to Briggs rd and 3 trips to DSR and a bonus day at Penn Dixie. Ill do the highlights from Trips on 6/30 7/06 and 7/28 to Briggs rd first. I found some pretty important specimens. Briggs rd is a very interesting site and you can find 3 different species of trilobites here. The Eldredgeops is the most common by far but the greenops and dipleura have made some appearances. This has got to be my most impressive greenops in a long time. This is actually a complete specimen!! The pygidium is tucked underneath. I have the right eye safe in a small ziplock bag. It came off in the counterpart and I saved it to try and glue back when I get the nerve. here’s a picture of the back. I have the counterpart for the pygidium and I’ll need to glue and prep if I want it perfect. Some of the material is attached to the counterpart. Im really excited about this specimen because the quality is good enough to compare with the greenops from DSR and Buffalo area. These eastern New York greenops are considered an undescribed species so I’m glad I have something quality I can use to really eye out the differences. After @Darktooth and his rock club went to Briggs I happened to be there the next day and found this awesome half specimen of a large dipleura! When I got there I found the body segments in 2 pieces and they looked like they went together. After awhile I came across the counterpart in rubble and realized “where is the cephalon?!” I went nuts looking for it with no luck then decided to try and pry a pieces of the wall off and BOOM! The cephalon was still in the outcrop lol. Super lucky. This was my best dipleura from Briggs so far. I’ve found some nice partials but this is the best I’ve found so far. @DrDave was kind enough to gift me this perfect un weathered cephalon. This specimen came from very fresh rock and is nearly perfect. I told Dave I’ve been trying to collect some quality cephalons from Briggs for comparison. I’ve noticed most specimens are usually missing a well preserved exoskeleton. This makes it hard to really compare with the western New York Eldredgeops that grow much much smaller. It’s interesting to me that the greenops are considered a different species and the Eldredgeops are not as you go east across New York State. I’m not here claiming everything is a new species only pointing out the discrepancies in species distribution across the state. Somehow the greenops change species as you go east while the Eldredgeops rana stays the same across the state. It’s not like the Eldredgeops from the east and west are identical either. The eastern New York Eldredgeops can grow to 3 inches! Just food for thought. I think about weird stuff like this a lot ha. anyway...here’s a close up of the undamaged cephalon. A tiny amount of with with an air abrasive and the eye detail will be perfect. here’s and example of a typical Briggs rd cephalon. The eye lenses are very 3D and preserve well even when the exoskeleton is weathered away. It’s hard getting a fresh specimen. just a couple nice cephalopods courtesy of Briggs rd. I love trilobites but I appreciate a quality cephalopod should a complete on present itself lol. Next is DSR highlights! Phyllocarids on the menu

Hi all, My girlfriend and I are planning a trip to New York State sometime in September, and although her main motive might be shopping, mine is - you guessed it - fossils! Does anyone know of a place on could find Olenellus or Elliptocephala in New York? I know they can be found around Albany, but I can't find any obvious outcrops... Aside from where to find Lower Cambrian trilobites, any other suggestions regarding great fossil outcrops in eastern New York are much appreciated! Cheers, Marc

As my life in college is imminent (I head to Milledgeville Thursday), I wanted to fit in one last pre-college trip to my favorite bug spot (An idea that was really given life when I heard about a Schwimmer paper that got into PALAIOS about what may be the oldest nesting behavior ever discovered (https://www.georgiasfossils.com/new-2b-a-trilobite-nest-in-georgia.html)). I can say with confidence that yesterday scored in the upper tier of my trip list to the site. I arrived later in the day than I usually would (got there around 6:00 or something), and the river was once again quite low. As a matter of fact, I think it was as low today as I've ever seen it: I went to work right away splitting some slabs from one of the lower layers that seems to give me the best results, and before long, I was getting quality split after quality split. By the end of my relatively brief 1 hour stay, I had quite a few nice pieces to take with me: Cont.

I’m wondering if anyone has collected at the Spence Gulch site outside Liberty, Idaho, in the last year or so and would be kind enough to give me a status report. I have a chance to go before long, but random internet opinion seems pretty evenly divided between “great place, lots of fossils” and “bad quality rock, lots of work for little reward.” I’d be grateful for any help/info. Wendell

New member here. I am from central Indiana. The glaciers turned the northern half of our state into a flat pancake, and destroyed almost all the fossils. There are a few fragments locally, left over from when Indiana was a warm, shallow sea. I collected them compulsively since childhood, not much to look at. Just a bit south of here, there are layered beds of the former shallow sea, and excellent trilobites, horn corals, and marine shells. The shells wash out of the clay on the side of cliffs, and you can sometimes scoop them into a bucket, just like any other ordinary beach. I have boxes from that location. Due west, and there were low islands in the shallow sea, and clumps of sandstone can be found with beautiful carbonized imprints of ferns. The fern leaves turned into the thinnest layer of coal, and look like someone pressed them into a book. I have boxes and boxes of fossils I've collected over the years, as I was reminded when I swept out the garage last week. Yesterday I was kayaking on White Water river, and found a rounded scrap of coral, and an interesting molar tooth on a gravel bar. Looking up the tooth on the internet, I came across your forum. Glad to meet fellow rock hounds. I'm the only person I know who picks up rocks everywhere. My kids are used to it, but the rest of the people in my family think it's weird. Usually when I come back to the house after a walk my pockets are bulging with seed pods, fossils, or flint cores. I'll enjoy reading the posts here. Thanks for the photos you people have posted. Looks like the tooth is from a cow. I'll put it in my treasure box with the trilobites, beaver skull, and shed snake skin. Just read a few more of the posts here, and a 'burn test' was recommended. I applied the flame from a lighter to the root of the molar, and there is a very faint smell.

I bought this morrocco Trilobite from an antique shop recently, and I have had a tough time identifying it. I believe the cephalon might be broken, so that complicates matters. Any help would be appreciated.

I have lived in California most of my life learning how to prospect for gold and silver, decided I wanted a new adventure in my life have lived in Wyoming, Montana, and now Utah! Learning about fossils, and rockhounding! Very inexperienced but love an adventure! Brought to this forum by Misha we met on Instagram talking over trilobites, so far I have found some good things other then gold and silver, fossil fish, trilobites, fossil sea shells, a fossilized pine cone! Mostly about the adventure of finding things and working hard to get them!

I have just returned from my first visit to a new fossil locality in the Northern Territory, central Australia. The location is around 400km north-east of Alice Springs along some rough dirt roads and once reached, runs for about 10km along the side of the road. When visiting the location today one finds themselves in the very center of Australia and a landscape of flat desert and scrub land, about as far from the sea as possible. In the middle Cambrian the site was very different and home to a vast shallow sea filled with ancient life. Arriving in the late afternoon we set up camp and got prepared for the morning of fossil hunting ahead. I had read about the fossil location from a small local out of print fossicking guide from the 1980's. That lead me to read some of the work done by John R. Laurie who has some papers published online detailing the formation and it's biostratigraphy. We managed to find some good examples of Xystridurid trilobites and stromatolites, all found within a red/white siltstone. There were also a smaller species of Agnostid trilobite, but we found many less of these. Below are some quick images I took of some of the finds, many more yet to properly examine. Also we have some larger slabs of siltstone which we plan to work on. Trip Image Album: The fossil site is found in the location below https://www.google.com/maps/place/21%C2%B042'53.0%22S+135%C2%B039'38.9%22E/@-21.71473,135.66081,1873m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d-21.71473!4d135.66081 In the publication below, NTGS Elk 3 bore samples refer to the location visited. Great trip! Very pleased with the finds and learning more about the geological history of central Australia.

I’m going to U-Dig, the surrounding area and Cowboy pass in Utah Late September. Let me know if you’d like to go. This is some of what I’ve found there but I have found so much more.

Hello gang, As promised this is where I will share specimens from my personal collection, my grandfather's collection, and the collection that was donated to the university I work for. The latter is interesting as it is literally boxes of rock and fossils, with no information and my university does not have a geology or paleontology department. I'll be updating it every so often. Enjoy! NOTE: Some of the donated items have old school "labels" on them. If you see initials or such that you recognize, please PM me, as I am doing my best to properly catalog them properly as part of my job!

Tim (Fossildude19) and I got together Monday the 1st for the third time this year to head up to Central New York, an over three and a half hour trip from Southeastern New York where I live. The weather was bright, sunny, and warm in sharp contrast with our last trip there in early May for the TFF gathering when it was cold and raining. Instead of going straight to Deep Springs Road Quarry, both our favorite collecting site, we decided to stop first at Briggs Road Quarry, a somewhat smaller quarry with a slightly older Middle Devonian marine fauna- the Upper Ludlowville Formation. Some excellent fossils have been found there recently and Tim and I decided we would try our luck. As typical of my experiences there we found a large number of partial Eldredgeops trilobites. I believe Tim found one complete roller. I brought this one piece back with a few partials. However, my best find there was this phyllocarid; Echinocaris punctata, the first phyllocarid I ever found at Briggs Road.

Last week, I made some incredible trips with my kids to the middle Cambrian U-Dig site, the Fossil Lake lagerstatte in Wyoming, and a muddy, rained-out attempt at the Late Cretaceous in Colorado. This was our first time visiting all of these sites - such amazing times! Here are some pics starting with Utah. My best find, a triple carcass Elrathia kingii Fossil Lake, first started splitting slabs in the Green River formation. This is where we were working. A large plate with three Knightias and a Diplomystus. Later we cut the plate down so could transport home. 18 Inch Layer: My son made the best discoveries at the 18 Inch Layer: a fly and a bee Bee under magnification. Incredible preservation detail! Some fish under scope We made it to the Cretaceous locality but it began raining. You can see the storm clouds approaching on the left. The roads were too muddy to continue and we were running out of time as we had a plane to catch unfortunately...another time perhaps! A beautiful drive. When we returned home it appeared the TSA searched my checked luggage! Luckily nothing was missing or destroyed. Thanks for reading.

hafa adai, I'd really like to buy one or two of those detailed trilobites with spines, appendages and all, either Russian or Moroccan. I see prices all over the map, and have observed a few really bad fakes. I'm sure that there are also a lot of really good fakes (hence the wild price differences). Can anyone recommend a checklist/things to look for and/or a reputable dealer (preferably one that doesn't charge mortgage-level prices)? I don't want to keep bothering folks with repeated queries of Is this one good?" "How about this one?" I've read a number of posts in this form, and they tend to refer to individual specimens. I"m looking more for something that I can save to my HD and refer to while I"m shopping online. thank you in advance, hemi

Hey everyone, I'm touring colleges in Ohio from tomorrow to Tuesday and I wanted to know if there would be any opportunities to go fossil hunting in areas nearby the colleges I'm looking at. I'll be touring them in this order- -Wittenburg University in Springfield, OH -Denison University in Granville, OH -Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, OH -The College of Wooster in Wooster, OH Let me know if there are any good sites that would be accessible in these areas. Thanks, PN

It was a planned family get together at my sister's ranch in Kentucky to celebrate my father's 90th birthday. I was travelling from Southeastern New York by car. Made it to Harrison, Ohio the first day, right on the border with Indiana. Next morning, weather was pleasant and I was out to the famous St. Leon road cut, a place that I've wanted to visit for years. Finally made it there. Spent the entire day. Despite the site's fame, didn't see another collector and except for one brief shower the weather was perfect though a little on the warm side. I explored the entire exposure though the best was just below one of the terraces where the brachiopods and corals were weathering out of the shale complete.

Hey TFF Members! I was able to do something very different from the normal Florida fossil hunting the other day. On the way up to Michigan for my Mother's wedding I stopped in Northern GA to hunt for Trilobites! I was saying the age wrong throughout the video, I thought they were Devonian. But turns out they are actually Camrian... even better! Hope you can check out the video when you get a chance. I had an amazing time doing this!

Hey everyone, This past weekend I was out in Buffalo, NY for my bachelor weekend. My brother planned a fun fishing/hiking/fossil weekend at an air b&b on Lake Erie in wanakah. We had the house from May 30th to June 3rd. Buffalo is like my Mecca. I need to go there at least once a year and get back to my roots where I first starting being fossil crazy. I did some form of fossil hunting every day. I came out to buffalo early and stayed late to get extra time in! One major highlight from the weekend would be 3 pygidiums and a cephalon w/ 3 body segments of the rare pseudodechenella rowi trilobite!!! I also found some top notch big brachs!!! Heres general list of what I did. Thursday 5/30 -type locality of wanakah shale (lake shore) -smokes creek, Buffalo (wanakah shale) Friday 5/31 -fished bear lake. Caught 7 bass -Hamburg beach surface collecting Saturday 6/1 -Penn Dixie Sunday 6/2 -18 mile creek highland on the lake (big bust, water levels) smokes creek, buffalo (revisit wanakah, hiked all the way to windom shale) Monday 6/3 -Smokes creek, West Seneca (wanakah shale) -Francis rd, Bethany Ny railroad cut (big bust, now posted trespassing). Went on the way home. -purchased a few Eurypterids from a friend in Rochester. -Got back to Utica New York 8pm. I can’t show every single thing I found cause I took a lot of material with me. I did however find a lot of amazing stuff!! I’ll break up the findings by each day. I’ll mention locality and if it’s from the wanakah or windom shale. I’ll show the best stuff (still lots!!) and spare everyone the extras haha..... Bear with me. I’ll be uploading pictures in chunks throughout the day. Thats everything. Looking at each column from left to right. 1. Wanakah shale type locality 5/30. 2. Smokes creek (wanakah) 5/30 3. Hamburg beach 5/21 4. Penn Dixie 6/01 5. 18 mile creek (lake shore), smokes creek (wanakah, windom) 6/02 6. Smokes creek, West Seneca (wanakah), Francis rd, Bethany (2 small specimens). Ill upload the highlights and extra details later today. Stay tuned!

Hi. i recently purchased the “little pile of stuff” in the for sale section. And as I was looking over the slab I’m finding “heads” off of 5 trilobites (you can see one on upper right corner of the picture) and I’m getting more and more excited when I notice a discoloration on the side. So I carefully split it there. At first I’m thinking “oh cool! A leaf!” But as I’m looking at it I notice the strange structures right at the edge..now I’m not so sure anymore. What the heck did I luck into?