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Hi again, it has been a long time since my last post. I think I have found another trilobite Pygidium today. It is quite small so I am unsure if it is truly a fossil or just a weird rock formation. If it is, does anyone know what type of Trilobite it may have come from? I found one a few years ago and Kane said it was likely Anchiopsis anchiops. Could it be the same? Any help is greatly appreciated! I am also wondering if the rest of the Trilobite could be hiding under the matrix.

New here, love fossils. My collection in attached images. Coral and others I can not identify. Beautiful pieces.

Staying at Bobs lake in Ontario this week for the family’s summer trip. Unfortunately the area we’re staying at is unfossiliferous, being compromised of Precambrian granite and gneiss, however scouting out nearby Kingston and I’m hopeful at my prospects. I have a few sites I’ve scouted out and plan to hit in the following days, but I’d like to ask more about the laws/do’s and don’ts before I start any digging. I’ve read a few articles online and it’s started to make me rethink digging, so any further information helps out. Thanks for reading, and I hope I can follow this up with a successful post!

Good morning Any information pertaining to this would be appreciated. It was found along Lake Erie in Ontario, Canada. I believe it may be coral but not 100% sure. Thank you

Found around the yard. I had thought it was some old concrete they had dug up. I hadn't really noticed the one out front till tonight, and then I noticed the pebbles? sitting on top of it and I remembered reading about them eating pebbles. What does anyone else think?

Hey everyone, Looking for help with identifying this fossil. I found a really special rock months back. I knew it was a fossil but couldn't identify. After months of obsessing over the rock, I decided I need more detail so I placed in vinegar. It reacted really quickly with the vinegar, removing the white lines from the stone and bringing out details. I did not remove all the limestone, so there is additional detail to get out of it still. Note I put a bit of grape seed oil in order to make it shine as after the vinegar bath, it is quite matted without it. It appears it has soft tissue, what I can see as a vascular system of some sort. The details and colors are really well preserved. I can't find any fossil online like this regardless of age. I didn't these type of tissues could preserve themselves this perfectly. You can tell this animal had got bitten on its one side, and it looks like that may have had a blot clot or something from this damage. It has lines around the base and I believe that is the easiest way to help identify it. It was found in Guelph, Ontario, Canada as a rock just below the surface. The area through here is Silurian (426M years old). There are a number of soft tissues fossils preserved in this area. This area was part of barrier reef around the Michigan basin and possibly close to land at the time.

Hi All, I'm new here and to finding fossils in general. These are all from my first trip to the Etobicoke Creek yesterday. Anyone able to help identify some of them? Also, has anyone found anything along the Grand River? I go to school in Waterloo and wondered if its a good place to find some other fossils?

Found in the French River. Possible Crinoid?

Hello, I’m not very good at this but I was looking for frogs with the kids and found this. I think it is a cephalopod. I found it near Lion’s Head, Ontario, Canada. It is 14-15” in length. Please let me know if this is what it is and approximate age range. Thanks, Matt

Hello to the Fossil Forum, I am an independent paleo worker from Ottawa, Ontario who first became involved as a recreational collector at a young age. My father Dimitri was a mining geologist and my mother Polly was an economist who created artworks from gems and rocks. Rock hounding was a favorite family pastime and as children we searched among the rocky breakwaters of the Quebec City shore for quartz crystals which Polly would use in jewelry and collages. On these limestone boulders were also trilobites of Ordovician age that became imprinted on my young mind and fueled an interest in fossils. Later in life with skills and knowledge acquired over the years I began working for museums as a paleo technician. One of these jobs was at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History where I was employed by the Dept. of Vertebrate Paleontology to boost their casting program, mainly reproductions of Dunkleosteus, the giant predatory arthrodire that dominated the Devonian seas. This led to field work, lab preparation and collaboration on research. After returning to Canada I tried to fashion an independent career in paleo that would allow me to support work on the family farm. The most convenient path was to build a fossil preparation lab for contract work that would also make it possible to earn money from selling fossils on the commercial market. I remained committed to the science of paleontology and continued working collaborations with researchers and museums across the world. While deeply gratifying, contributions to science rarely create a living income outside of a museum or university. In this respect, a healthy commercial market for fossils was very helpful, both in supporting myself and subsidizing the research projects through donations o f material and field data. It is no secret that this economic model is marginal at best. In 2013 I made the discovery of rich fossil beds at a Tomlinson quarry near Brechin, Ontario that were significant enough to attract research collaborators and might produce fossils in an abundance that would cover the cost of developing the site as scientific resource. The occurrence consisted of reef communities of marine invertebrates, mainly echinoderms, that established themselves on hardgrounds and were subjected to repeated burial events. Some of these were catastrophic in scale and preserved entire faunas at the moment when disaster struck. I hoped to find collaborators at Canadian universities but was unsuccessful in attracting interest. Instead, I was able to persuade Carlton Brett of the University of Cincinnati to become lead investigator on a project that would involve graduate students as well. Dr. Brett had begun his career in paleontology with some post doc work on the same fauna of the Kirkfield formation. At the time I was a research associate at the Cincinnati Museum and the connection seemed natural. The project lasted some ten years and generated multiple abstracts, a PhD thesis for Tim Paton at UC and a subsequent paper (Paton et al 2019) that described the occurrence. A second paper formally revised the stratigraphic record of the quarries in the Lake Simcoe area. Among the goals of the project was to generate a collection of material that would become part of a Canadian museum collection. Happily, this coincided with a project by the Royal Ontario Museum to build a new invertebrate gallery. The present curator of Invert paleo, Jean Bernard Caron became a valuable collaborator and now the collection cabinets are and exhibit spaces of the ROM are well stocked with important material from this research site. Recently we published a paper (Moysiuk et al 2022) describing a new arthropod, a marellomorph named Tomlinsonus dimitrii (after the quarry company and my father respectively) showing exceptional soft tissue preservation. The specimen itself was collected by Marc Haensel (pictured on my profile page in the background photo) who made important contributions to site work since 2019. In the end it is important to note that the project was very costly to undertake and even the acquisition of a collection of material by the ROM was only made possible by a personal subsidy of my own. There are few ways to make a decent living in the world of paleontology. Competition for jobs is extreme and markets are also very competitive as well as complicated by the specialized nature of fossil collecting. To conclude this introduction I would like to express my gratitude for the support received from academic colleagues and individual collectors. I have not yet visited the ROM to see the specimens I excavated and prepared on display but hope to soon. I would encourage anyone passing through Toronto to stop at the ROM to see the new gallery and marvel at the work of so many individuals brought together to show the fossil heritage of Ontario. Images show representative fossils from the site George E. Kampouris

Hello all, It's been a long time since I've been on here, but my interest in collecting Ontario trilobites has been renewed over the past few years. One of my goals has been to find a trilobite piece on a job site. I was near Port Hope last week and went to check out a fill pile on my break when I flipped over a rock and found this little guy. Since it was in a fill pile I have no idea what formation it's from, or its age, and so I'm having a hard time id'ing this specimen. I would appreciate any help. Thanks. Location: Fill pile near Port Hope, Ontario Age:Unknown Formation: Unknown Size: approx 1cm x 1cm

Hey everyone, I've been a member here for a little while but haven't properly said hi yet! I am an amateur fossil collector and aspiring preparator from Ontario. My earliest fossil memories are of walking through housing construction sites as a three year old with my parents and finding large pieces of intricate Devonian corals scattered around. Even then I was moved by what they were and the timescale they represented. Hope to get to know all of you better!

Hi All, I am a recent fossil enthusiast and am excited to be a new member of this forum! I got bitten by the fossil hunting bug during a recent trip to Alberta. Yesterday, I took the kids fossil hunting around lake Ontario in the Toronto area and my 3 year old helped me find this interesting specimen. I assume its some kind of coral? Would love to know what you think it is!

Hi everyone, new member here. We went camping at Rock Point provincial park here in Ontario and we were amazed with the amount of fossils along the beach. From what I’ve read, the fossils are from a 350 million old reef but couldn’t figure out how to identify some of the items we found. The first one looks like a conical shell, the second almost looks like a pill bug? And finally, the last is possibly the cross section of a plant? Hoping someone here can help satisfy the curiosity of a first time fossil finder! Thanks!!

I am beginning to compile a treasure map. I am basing my information on a document that was written in 1962. Many of the roads, townships, places mentioned are different today. I have bought a book that hopefully will give me some insight. This book was written in 1982 and covers 40 years of history in the region. Even if I can find all the locations mentioned in the 1962 document, chances are they are private property. The easiest one is on a public road and so if all else fails, success is guaranteed. My second aspect of the trip will be to see the foliage in full colour. Planning to trip about September 15th. It is amazing when I get stuck in a rabbits hole, how much I learn in a very short time. I am documenting this search for reference, but it is under wraps until later. I likely will only show the products later. Also, the well publicized location, since it is already out on many sources.

Found what I am pretty sure is a trilobite hidden in this matrix, but am completely new to fossil prepping. Any advice on how to possibly remove the matrix? Thanks!

Hello, I'm a new member and would appreciate some help ID'ing the following imprint, found along the Credit River in Mississauga, Ontario. Thank you!

Found this on a walk. Very porous with channels filled with tiny crystal

Hello everyone, my first post here. Am I correct in calling this a cretaceous trace fossil? Found by me probably 50yrs ago, in a local sandpit, I think, or on Lake Ontario shoreline. Looks to me like images of cobbles from Faringdon, England. (I've got an odd assortment of interesting rocks, artifacts and fossils from my childhood explorations, but only now trying to learn more about them. ) All help very much appreciated! Hope to learn a lot here. Thank you.

I found these at base of escarpment in Milton Ontario near Kelso mt and rattle snake point , I'm new to the trade can any one help identify these fossils they were at base of mountain where clif top had crumbled down .