What Started You Collecting?

[seanm]

What started everyone here collecting fossils? If you think about it from an outsiders point of view (my wife's for instance), we collect rocks with dead stuff in it. For me its simple when I was the grand age of six I went fly fishing with my dad at a local lake. As we were fishing (I think I was mucking about in the water more than fishing!) I saw an odd looking rock. I picked it up and showed it to my father who told me it was a fossil snail. It turned out to be an ammonite. 30 years later im still picking up odd looking rocks and that first water worn ammonite is still pride of place in my collection.

Sean

[tracer]

hi and welcome. the only reason i collect fossils is so that other collectors in texas will feel pressured, knowing that tracer is out there, somewhere, possibly picking up a great dead thing in a rock that they personally wanted, badly.

is that wrong?

[Fossildude19]

Hello Sean,

Great Topic! Thanks for starting it.

I've always liked dinosaurs and fossils, from when I was a kid. Got my first fossil shortly after I got married 19 years ago. It was a small Knightia from a rock shop in New Hampshire while we were on vacation.

I really started more serious collecting about 14/15 years ago. My uncle has a place on a lake, in upstate NY. It's a man made lake, with Devonian strata all around. My remaining family, (cousins, brothers, wives, and children about 20 of us all in all) try to gather there every 4th of July.

The water levels were way down the first year my wife and I went. I found a Mucrospirifer in a small piece of shale on the beach... and found the counter part about 1/2 an hour later. about 30 feet from the original piece!

Didn't realize/think about/ until then, that you could actually collect fossils without being a paleontologist!

That got me hooked!

From there, I started to do research with the internet and library trips, ... started collecting wherever I went, much to my family's chagrin!

I have been collecting ever since! Of course, my wife and kids who don't love it the way that I do usually find the best fossils.

It's funny, my kids, (they're 12 and 11) think my finds are cool, but are not easily impressed, ... while their friends are blown away.

My wife actually had to tell them not everyone collects fossils!!

They have always collected with me, and it is common place - no big deal.

Anyway, thanks again for starting this thread.

Look forward to hearing everyone else's tales!!

[seanm]

I know what you mean about others being impressed. My old kids couldnt care about the fossils but everyone who walks through my front door and sees a 3 foot mosasaur skull in front of them cant beleive their eyes!

[Auspex]

Also six years old, in Wayzata Minnesota; a favorite pastime was looking for agates in the gravel road by the house, and I happened across what I learned was a horn coral (with neat internal structure revealed) and a sponge shaped like a bird's nest (the road was surfaced with local glacial till). That got my imagination up, and I started reading all the kid's books about prehistoric life that I could find. The world had suddenly gotten a lot bigger, and time had suddenly gotten bigger than space.

"Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be fossilers...."

[Uncle Siphuncle]

I'm quitting because Tracer is such a bully!

Actually I started around age 5, as my family is outdoorsy and after church on Sunday's we'd either shoot BB guns, go fishing, go fossil hunting, etc. We didn't know anything about fossils but were seating in excellent Ordovician outcrops in the Cincinnati area and got to hit many of them decades before collecting became so popular.

At Blue Ash YMCA day camp around 1979 or 80 there was a counselor who taught about fossils and took us to look for stuff in the creek. I was hooked.

I hunted on and off but later became consumed with weightlifting, deer hunting, and girls. I moved to Texas in '93 and about 7 or 8 years ago a guy at work gave me Finsley's book on Texas fossils and recommended I join the Dallas Paleo Society.

I went on many club field trips despite the long driving distance. Very early on I realized that I couldn't expect others to give me their best site info and resolved to supplement club trips with my own self guided trips. I figured that many outcrops were small and hidden and now that I had the internet, a little time, and a few bucks at my disposal I could ferret out some virgin outcrops. And thusly my quest evolved from there.

True to my roots, scientific interest and thrill of discovery are what keep me coming back more than anything, and watching my 8 year old son make an occasional Smithsonian grade "find of the day" is very rewarding. He likes to smoke the Old Man, and I give him all the glory when he does. He especially likes to rub it in I miss something. Once he even critiqued my technique..."You just walk straight ahead and don't even look side to side"....

[bear-dog]

:)I started a little later.My love for fossils began about the same time.I had a brother check out a childs book at the library,the story was about a man that hunted dinosaur fossils and had great pictures.I was hooked.Iwas going to hunt dinosaur fossils.[in Florida.]

Weeks later a man had fossils on display at the library.I told him of my plans.He was polite,but explained you cant find dino fossils here.I was devistated,but a couple of years another man had fossils displayed at the library he took some time and explained the wonderful creastures that once roamed our state.After our talk he gave me a fossil horse tooth.Iwas hooked again.

Iwas lucky enough to have my brotherto take me to some phosphate mines from time to time,when you could just walk into the mines and hunt.

Just a note here.If you give talks to children on fossils,be careful with your answers,it's tough to start a spark with a fire extinguisher.

[barefootgirl]

I got a very late start on my fossiling career. About 3 years ago I was down in a local creek exploring with my daughter. I found my first shark tooth! After that we were both hooked and that little creek became our home away from home. Unfortunately that creek has now been destroyed by the city but we still have the Sulphur and other sites in the area that we hit often. I also have to give this forum a lot of the credit as well. I always knew I was finding fossils and had picked up a few books about them, but The Fossil Forum really helped me understand what I was finding. This forum has only fueled my passion for fossils.

[MikeD]

Grew up around Ordovician exposures. Probably about 6 years old, I picked up a couple of brachiopods and horn corals on the side of the street near my house. Took a break here and there but never stopped.

[baybay]

In mid January 2009 I found a mentor to tutor me in my school fossil competition. He took me to some Devonian exposures after a couple months and I was hooked since then!

[Gatorman]

I started a while back shortly after Cris did. He was big time into artifact hunting and was searching in a creek off the Santa Fe and found this beautiful mammoth tooth.

Well when he showed me that and asked if I wanted to go there and look for more I said sure. When we went I found this sweet mastodon tooth and I was hooked. Hard not to be when your first fossil is something as nice as this

[Seldom]

I was hired by a secret government agency to watch tracer every time he pick up something I picked up something. In 3 months I had a house full of fossils so I left the agency and became a collector/hunter.

[Terry Dactyll]

Where did it all start... I was a late starter in my mid 20s when a guy I worked with asked if I would go on a guided museum trip to Scunthorpe Ironstone works in north Lincolnshire...being a Fabricator Welder anyway, my links with iron on a daily basis, I thought I would go for a look.....I didnt know at the time but I was being asked to vist what would become a very famous exposure and after I said Id go and found myself in a small museum looking at the wonderful bright green ammonites found in the rock there.... I knew nothing of geology, so spent quite a few hours listening to a guy going on about the strata, and then at the end of the day they let me loose for a few hours in a zone I was comfortable ....with a 'hammer and chisel'.... I hadnt got a clue what I was doing, but I found a small ammonite and what I thought was a piece of a larger one.... I was hooked, the shape of the ammonite, the colour of the crystal... trying to rationalise the age... It started an interest .... the big chunk I found I begain to tap at with a masonry nail and small hammer, taking small lumps of rock off and found more of it to be there, so, I had met a 'prepper' from Whitby, whilst at Scunthorpe on a subsequent visit who I gave the fossil to..... to prep........ It was the start of my interest in ammonites.... the carb fossils, they are my local rock.... kinda like geological local history....

[glacialerratic]

Grew up in west St. Louis Co., MO., when all the agricultural land was beginning to to grow suburbs like mushrooms (I'm kind of freaked out when I visit. They've crammed houses in like sardines). There was an exposure of bedrock on Big Bend Rd., about a mile from our house. Being totally into dinosaurs and natural history, my dad walked me and one of my brothers to the cut. The spot was loaded with crinoid fragments and I was hooked. This was at age 5.

Ever since then, I've searched for fossils, especially in the creek beds.

Hit it pretty hard in college, not so much for about 8 years after -- I was chasing a woman around the country, and in states I wasn't geologically familiar with. My bad!

After I dumped her and moved back to the midwest, it's been loads of fun. I spent 5 years hunting Mazon in the early 00's (totally obsessed with that place), with few trips to the Alpena region of MI.

Ever since joining this forum, I've been having great success, learning lots, and having a ton of fun.

Thanks, y'all!

Tim

Edited June 6, 2010 by michigantim

[pleecan]

Found my first fossil when I about 10yrs old a small brachiopod in shale negative relief in a field..... interest wane as I did not know where to hunt.... fast forward 32years later interest rekindled while visiting a local quarry while looking for some garden rocks found 9" long Isotelus Trilobite Moult.... see the following thread http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?showtopic=10454 .

PL

[erose]

1966, SW Ohio north of Dayton, Lower Silurian Brassfield Formation was exposed near where I lived. The Brassfield was VERY fossiliferous at that locality. My best friend and I collected everything we could: snakes, salamanders, bugs, minerals & fossils. The fossils ended up being my favorites. Later moved into Dayton and there were a few exposures of Cincinnatian strata to keep me occupied. Then 5 years at the University of Cincinnati where between design projects and classes I poked around the classic Cincinnati sites. Set it all aside when I moved to NYC for a job, but that job included design of the new Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta. During that project's development phase I was given a chance to go collecting with Dr. David Schwimmer on the Hannahatchee Creek near Columbus, GA. This included a bunch of state geologists and other academics as well as a special guest: Jack Horner. I took home turtle bones, shark teeth and oysters. Well that completely got the juices flowing again and when I returned to NYC I joined the NY Paleo Society where I learned all about collecting in NY, NJ & PA. I became highly involved with field trips, writing field guides and leading some trips. Now I am in Texas.

Edited June 6, 2010 by erose

[LeeCreek2thHntr]

When I was young, I always liked fossils but I really started at a flea market in Raleigh NC. A man overheard me talking to my dad about fossils. He recommended the spoil piles in Aurora. It took off from there!

[Angus Stydens]

I first starting collecting when I was 14 years old and living just northwest of Charleston, S.C. in the town of Summerville. I was with some friends on a Saturday morning and we were all trying to come up with something interesting to do, and one of my friends suggested we go looking for shark's teeth. Being naive about fossils, I thought he meant maybe going to the beach to find recent shark teeth washed up by the surf. But then he explained that all we had to do was ride our bikes through the woods to the back end of the Charleston Air Force base to where there was a ditch dug. We headed out to the drainage ditch and when we got there, the dirt excavated from the ditch was spread out on the flat ground. There were shark's teeth and bits of other fossils laying every where, and we found plenty of fossils each. I still remember finding a whale vertebra about the size of a 2-1/2 pound can of coffee, in excellent condition. I didn't know it at the time, but we were collecting in a late Oligocene marine deposit . My friends never did go back to this site, but I was hooked from the very first day. It didn't take long to realize that the fossils were on the spoil mounds alongside the ditch, on the banks and lying on the bottom of the ditch. This drainage ditch ran for about a mile, and every bit of it was rich in fossils. I collected there for about two years until the vegetation took over completely. From that day forward though, I kept watch for any other ditches dug anywhere, and I have been collecting fossils ever since.

[palaeopix]

I have always been a nature freak (no, not a freak of nature!) interested in animals and especially marine biology. When I was a child growing up in Victoria, British Columbia, I spent weekends at the beach looking under rocks and collecting shells. My favorite uncle nurtured my interest by taking me to the Provincial Museum (now the Royal British Columbia Museum) almost every weekend during the summer. Well at least it seemed like it was every weekend!

My interest in fossils was sparked when that very same uncle brought home a trilobite from his travels through South America. I was twelve at the time and that fossil grabbed hold of my imagination. What a strange and wonderful creature, long dead for hundreds of millions of years. At twelve I could not comprehend the vastness of geological time, a concept that still often baffles me today. Back then the Devonian and trilobites were as exotic as my uncle's travels through South America. That fossil formed the basis of my collection. A collection that has at various points concentrated on trilobites, ammonites, leaves and insects depending on the proximity of the local fossils. Who knows were I'll be in ten years or what I will be collecting but one thing is certain, that very first fossil will still be in my collection!

Here is a photograph of that first fossil.

Eldredgia venustus. Lower Devonian Sicasica Formation, Bolivia.

Edited June 7, 2010 by palaeopix

[ptychodus]

I took a geology class in college where we went fossiling. Found a straight nautilus and rolled trilobite which really excited me, but I didn't do much fossiling after that until I injured my back playing softball. Since I could no longer play, I looked for something not quite as physically taxing which could get me out-of-doors. Fossiling was the answer and fortunately Alabama is one of the better states for hunting fossils.

[kolleamm]

What started everyone here collecting fossils? If you think about it from an outsiders point of view (my wife's for instance), we collect rocks with dead stuff in it. For me its simple when I was the grand age of six I went fly fishing with my dad at a local lake. As we were fishing (I think I was mucking about in the water more than fishing!) I saw an odd looking rock. I picked it up and showed it to my father who told me it was a fossil snail. It turned out to be an ammonite. 30 years later im still picking up odd looking rocks and that first water worn ammonite is still pride of place in my collection.

Sean

i just loved dinosaurs since i was a kid, and you never know what your gonna find, so i guess the mystery of it got me interested

[JimB88]

I was hiking in Texas and this Tracer guy jumped out and bit me, I didnt realize it at the time but I was infected by a wonderful curse...

Seriously, I got into it in 93' when I was helping my folks build a rock wall with the local dolostone. It was Ordovician and loaded with fossils. So I began collecting them. Then when I found an unusual one I took it to the Burpee Museum in Rockford where I became friends with Mike Henderson (the one who really got me hooked!) Mike and I had a falling out and I stopped collecting. Years later, after moving to Tennessee I found myself drawn to all the geology around me. I love the peace of it.

And now the curse..it has me....cant resist it....

Edited June 11, 2010 by JimB88

[32fordboy]

My grandpa used to take me to the museum all the time. He is a man with a 6th grade education. He's also a WWII and Korea vet. Science has always fasinated him to no end and I got that gene from him. I love showing him my fossils and seeing the gears in his head turn. He had a stroke several years ago and has been confined to a wheelchair since. It is a miracle he's still around and I am D*mned proud I was able to let him finally touch a real mammoth molar, or a sloth claw, or a dinosaur tooth, or whatever else I have...great feeling.

Fossils aren't that big of a deal to many of us here, since that is our hobby, but for some people, the idea of holding a REAL fossil is magical.

[worthy 55]

Finding this one day while looking for artifacts in the river.

[32fordboy]

Dang, talk about a high-mileage tooth!