If Only I Were A Photographer

[Lloyd]

Ok, going to try to post a few pictures of my collection but, have to apologize up front for my apparent inability to take good pictures inside.... I'll start with the place I've collected the most: Florida. As you can see, I keep my displays simple with Riker Cases. The picture with the multiple cases are mostly from the Peace River somewhere in Hardee County, the exception is the frame to the right which is from the Hogtown Creek basin in Gainesville. The other two frames are single day collections by the wife and I: one is from our anniversary in 2003 and the other is from my birthday in 2004.

[Lloyd]

Made some business trips out to Scottsdale AZ this past year. On three occasions I stayed two weeks so had a weekend to go out and massage my Rock Hound obsession. The only fossil collecting I did was on BLM Land near St. Joseph AZ. They let you collect a "reasonable" amount of Petrified Wood at some locations, reasonable being defined at 25lbs a day plus one piece. I did pretty good because I got 23.5 pounds plus one 8 pound piece that is out in front of the house in a garden border. Anyway: here are the few pieces I display, the one I'm holding is the only one I found with bark.

[Lloyd]

My youngest son and I went to Kentucky to collect Geodes <I am primarily a Rock Hound> during one of his spring breaks back when he was in High School. As a break from carrying buckets out of creeks we visited a Rock Quarry in Louisville KY. The picture on the left is a few of the Brachiopods, middle is some of the Coral and the one on the right is the entire display of what is left after a few rounds of trading.

[Lloyd]

Back to Florida for a moment, this is the best type of specimen of all because it satisfies both my Rock Hound and my Fossil obsessions: this is both halfs of a Coral Geode from Tampa Bay.

Edit: Almost forget, this is on opposite sides of a shelf of Coral collected from a couple of Florida sand quarrys.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Lloyd

[Lloyd]

Another Spring Break trip to hunt for Geodes in Kentucky, this time with my oldest son. The quarry break this time was in Parsens Tennessee where the good folks at Vulcan Mines let us wonder through the field where they dump their overburden. The picture on the left is Crinoids, the one on the right has a piece of a Trilobite and some Brachiopods.

[Lloyd]

More Vulcan Mines Quarry finds from Parsens Tennessee. Left is a display box full of mostly Brachiopods, some coral, a trilobite and a cephelopod <spelling?>. The middle is the Trilobite and the right is a Brachiopod with both sides intact.

[Lloyd]

Another Brachiopod from the Vulcan Mines Quarry in Parsens TN. I found a handful of bottom pieces of this species but only this one with both halfs intact.

[Lloyd]

The wife and I, as I have mentioned, have gone up to St. Clair PA twice splitting shale. Here are some of our finds.

[Lloyd]

St. Clair PA.

[Lloyd]

I traded for these from a fellow collector. They come from Breton Bay, Nova Scotia Canada.

[Roz]

You have a lot of good fossils in your collection and good you have gotten

to hunt in a variety of places. I tried to find that quarry in TN. once maybe

5 or 6 years ago but could not find it.. I am glad you did..

[Lloyd]

One more closeup of a Fern Fossil from Breton Bay, Nova Scotia Canada.

[Lloyd]

Thank you Roz.

My sweet talking Uncle David was responsible for that trip to the Vulcan Mines Quarry. He somehow was able to convince them to let us in <they normally only open the gates to the overburden piles to clubs>. He drove so I don't really know where it is exactly either... I could ask him though if you want.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Lloyd

[Lloyd]

The picture on the left are fossils given to me by a friend from Lee Creek, Aurora NC... he had moved from NC State to U.Texas at Austin because his PhD mentor had changed school, but his is now back in NC in a post doctoral position at <I think> Duke so I'm hoping I can finally take him up on his offer to take me to hunt here for myself. The picture on the right is from a business trip to Ft. Hood in Killeen TX... drove down the road until I found a nice road cut and these babies were just laying around for me to pick up.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Lloyd

[Lloyd]

A couple of random pieces: the one on the left is from a I-75 roadcut just south of Cincinnati that I couldn't resist a look at while on my way to a Reds game... the one on the right is a trade from another collector out west, plants from Oregon.

[Auspex]

Nice variety! I like that you organize by location, too.

[Lloyd]

Thanks Auspex. I never really thought about how it was organized, the location thing kind of just happened when I set up the room my collection is in. When we lived in Florida our stuff was all over the house with only the Florida stuff more or less concentrated in one place <hanging on the walls in a hallway>. Then while we were moving up the East Coast following jobs, it all languished in boxes in one storage unit or another. Now that we are in Pennsylvania, we actually were able to dedicate a room to my obsession <which I affectionately refer to as the Man Cave although the wife participated in much of the collecting> so up went shelves and when the boxes were unpacked, I did try to group like material together so thewhole locational thing just happened for the fossils, but, for the minerals, not so much. I have Quartz from three different locations on one shelf and calcite from goodness knows where on another.

I'm going to take more pictures tonight. Not shown so far is the rest of the Florida material, mostly shells, but also a shelf with some random pieces. I know this is a fossil page, but I was wondering if posting pictures of the minerals would be ok?

[Roz]

Thank you Roz.

My sweet talking Uncle David was responsible for that trip to the Vulcan Mines Quarry. He somehow was able to convince them to let us in <they normally only open the gates to the overburden piles to clubs>. He drove so I don't really know where it is exactly either... I could ask him though if you want.

How very generous of you Lloyd! I really appreciate that.. I won't be in that area

though but thanks again..

[Fossildude19]

Lloyd,

Very nice collection.

Thanks for sharing with us!

Regards,

[Lloyd]

Thanks Tim.

[astron]

Back to Florida for a moment, this is the best type of specimen of all because it satisfies both my Rock Hound and my Fossil obsessions: this is both halfs of a Coral Geode from Tampa Bay.

Edit: Almost forget, this is on opposite sides of a shelf of Coral collected from a couple of Florida sand quarrys.

Very nice collection, Lloyd. Thanks for bringing it here.

And your wife's cooperation ideal...

This type of corals is my weakness. It's really stunning!!!

[Lloyd]

Thank you Astron.

Yes, I'm blessed to have a wife that shares my hobby.

That's the only piece I have left from that location, which is now a housing subdivision.

[dudeman]

Nice collections Lloyd, I love the fact that you found most of them yourself. Thank you for sharing and looking forward to your future finds as well.

[Lloyd]

Thanks dudeman. I do have a modest little collection from the Green River formation that I either purchased or traded for. Maybe at some point I'll take some pictures of them as well... this time I focused on my own finds because, well, even though I have some nicer stuff that I didn't find, it's the ones I hunted for myself that mean the most to me. I guess I have to use a Stephen King quote as an analogy here: "it's the journey, not the destination."

[Wrangellian]

Some nice stuff Lloyd... but speaking of photography, are you wetting some of these for the photo? (or worse, did you coat them in something permanent?) That generally makes it difficult to get good pics because of the glare. Also depending on the fossil, water will dissolve away certain amount over time so I'd be careful about that. Try different lighting angles and different exposure times etc. and always a tripod.

Cheers.