a Day of Fossil Hunting turns Intresting.

[jeff of pa]

First Thing This Morning I headed to Pick Up My Fossil Hunting Buddy.
A Friends 13 year old Son)

3 Years ago He Became intrested & had Nobody to Take Him, So I'v Been Doing it With Him.

We Both Found Some Intresting Fossils.
He More Then Me As I'm TOO PICKEY.?

About an Hour After we Got There We See 3 Large White Vans Pull in.
All 3 say SWATHMORE UNIVERSITY BIOLOGY CLASS.

Next Thing We Know We Have about a Dozen or More College Students Looking Also.

We Took The time To Show them our Finds Which they were Very supprised at The Things we were finding.
It was Obvious the Ones I talked to Had No Idea where to start. They Had NO Tools & were Just Picking up Rocks & looking at Them.
So I described To them How to Look & pretty much had a Great time Finding & Sharing.

I also Got to Explain Metal Detecting to Them & talked about The Intresting Things They Could
Find with one.

Here are A couple of My Finds.

Any Word on What They Are & Age Is Appreciated.

The TRILOBITE? (LAST PICTURE) is the Only One I Know, & ufortunately, The Body is Still Imbedded in The rock & I'm afraid to try & Unearth it from the Rock.

First 3 Same Fossil Both Sides What is IT ?

It's Just over 1 Inch Long.

ALSO SEE SPINE TYPE FOSSIL on same Rock

1 3/4 Inches of it Showing

Thanks For Looking,
I will Move it To The Fossil Page Tomorrow.
Jeff

 

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[jeff of pa]

.Trilobite Head about the Same Size as a Penny on the Round

 

[SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS]

Jeff,

very nice, and interesting. Always wished I knew more about fossils, one of these days.

have a good un...........
SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS

 

[bakergeol]

The first 3 photos are gastropods(marine snails). The lower photos are too blurry for accurate identification. However, the elongated imprint in the center photos may be an imprint for a crinoid. The lower yellow shell is either a brachiopod or pelecypod(clam)-probably a brach. The physical difference between a brach and a pelecypod is that a brach would have a mirror image if a line was placed down the center.

Nice fossils- glad you had fun.
George

 

[EyeShine]

Well... I'm at work and the monitors aren't great but it looks somewhat like a cocoon/chrysalis on a twig... probably nowhere close to correct
I'll give a better look once I get home.

 

[jeff of pa]

Thanks George. The Shell has Lines just like you'd Expect to see on A shell. UP & DOWN, Not Around Like a Clam Shell of Today.

Nothing That Looks Like it May Be a mirror Image Tho, So I'm Guessing pelecypod.

But, ?

One of The Young Women, With the College, Shown Me A work Sheet She Had That Showed Pics Of What They Were Expected To Find at this Site, And One of the Things Resembling the Long Line On The First 3 Was Described as Some Type of Spine.

I can't Get Better Pics But it Has Lines In it Like a Spine or Worm.

the one you described as a possable crinoid, is a Fairly Deep Hole , Wider Then the one I described above & also has Sectioning .

THANKS for your Help, I'll Do some Searching on the Net For These Names You Gave & Maybe I'll be able to ID them, Definate, By Comparason.

? Here is the Site I found Them at & some Info.? http://www.fossilguy.com/trips/swataragap_nov2004/swataragap_nov2004.htm

THANKS AGAIN.
? Jeff

 

[comfyinvermont]

Nice fossils Jeff. George seems to know what he is talking about. I was just going to say the first one looked like a snail.. I think I will stick to buttons and coins. Congrats..Lance

 

[SugarSand]

That's really neat! ?I wish I was a kid again, I remember finding stuff like that over 30 years ago, but now I'm too busy with silly things like work. ?Football sized chunks of limestone-somethings FULL of little creature's fossils just dug up from farmfields, and salamanders, and tadpoles, and, ok I'll stop. ?Thanks for reminding me Jeff, that is really cool.

 

[jeff of pa]

SugarSand,

When I was a Kid I used to Be able To walk the Old Mining Roads Behind My House & see Big Lumps of Slate, Already Broken in Slices, & I could Peel Layer After Layer Off & Look at Large Fern Fossils Everywhere on them. So Much So, I never Brought them Home.

Now I can't Even Find The Old Roads In the woods Let Alone Them Piles Of Slate & I want to SOOOOOO BAD

 

[SugarSand]

Go find them Jeff! The farmfields and creeks I played in during the early 70's are under concrete now. Even the creek runs through concrete storm sewers. All in the name of "progress", making the land developers some money I guess...

 

[MalteseFalcon]

Wow...nice finds!

If you find certain rare types of trilobytes they can be worth big bucks!

When I was 10, our fifth-grade teacher (a crotchety old woman at times) shared her love of rocks and minerals with our class. There was a lake not far from Wichita, Kansas called Santa Fe Lake, and there is a place there with some small limestone cliffs....you cannot turn over a rock without finding some kind of fossil...so I had a lot of stuff in my rock collection from there.

Don't know what happened to the rock collection....it was long gone by the early 80s...
Oh well. Your finds bring back some memories!

 

[futzman]

Nice finds, Jeff! The first is definitely a gastropod. Second one I'm not sure about. Could be a crinoid mould but can't tell from the pic. I pretty sure the last one is a brachiopod. If you can get a better pic I'd like to take a closer look.

Richard

 

[battlecat]

okay Jeff since I also have no idea where to start and also would just pick up rocks and look at them... what do I do??
what tools are needed? help

 

[jeff of pa]

Since there should be some old Coal fields up there,
walk around lookinng for large hunks of slate.

in some cases you should be able to i.d. it as it will be in layers of
flat rock just start peeling the layers away like pages of a tablet.

most of what you find will be fern fossils.

I wouldn't know where to look for TRILOBITES up there.
Farest North I'm aware of is ST.Clair, But, that dosn't mean the
St. Clair Fossil layer Dosn't run up your way.

I was told what I was Digging was part of that Fossil Bed, even though it's 40 mile south of St. Clair. (The St. Clair Fossil bed is known world wide)

Tools ? a small rock Hammer & a pair of padded gloves wouldn't hurt


http://www.suffolkgem.com/Discovering%20the%20Past.htm


http://booksgeology.com/fossils.htm

 

[battlecat]

thanks Jeff I will see how it goes

 

[Jowlz]

thanks Jeff I will see how it goes

You might want to look at the old mining area of north and east of Georgetown (about 15 mins from you).I mention this as no one will hassle you or kick you out if you go you out there. If you go out there, becareful of the bootleg mines. Bears inhabit most of them now. There is a large amount of shale mixed with the coal out there. There is also exposed shale beds at varying elevations as you climb the mountain. If you have a quad it would be a help, as it is not accessable by car. If you have a lifted 4x4 you can get pretty far out there, but would still have to do some major hiking. Basically if you find the main coal road and head east or up the mountain, every chance you have, you will run into a small creeks that cross the trails. You might want to take a look up those creeks.

While you are out that way, you could also MD the old mining town that burned down out there at the turn of the century. No quad needed to get to it.

If you know anything about this area, give me a yell. I build off-road cars as a hobby, and run up through there when I have time. I have never been able to find or see any signs of any mining company buildings. I think they might be a great place to MD. Any questions feel free to shoot me a PM.