Amateur Fossil Hunter: Improving The Likelihood Of Finding Something.

[Sharpie443]

I'm a very amateur fossil hunter. I posted a video on her a while back of some of my findings in the fossil bed just across the street from my family farm. I find the Devonian period fossils in a small stream that runs down into a valley there. The bigger fossil covered stones i find in the stream and at the bottom there is an area full of gravel where the stream turns into the valley. All of the smaller fossils get deposited there.

I'm going out to the farm for three days and I have a few questions before I go. I know very litle about fossil hunting and it's probably a fluke that i find the stuff that I do, so I would like to improve my chances.

1.) Should I take a chisel to split rocks? I know what the rocks look like that contains fossils but sometimes they don't have anything on the surface or just something poking out. I was wondering if I should attempt to break the rock to see what is inside.

2.) It's not easy to find the fossils there. The whole stream and gravel bed is protected from the sun by the forest so you don't get a lot of light. Any tips on spotting the fossils or rocks that might contain them. I'm kind of self-trained to spot the greenish gray rocks that I find the indentations and shells in but I see people saying to look for black rocks for trilobites.

3.) Should i be digging stuff up. All the years I’ve been looking there I've only looked at rocks and gravel on the surface. I don't have any way to get mud off the rocks especially when the stream is just a trickle like it is now. So I don’t know how effective that would be.

Any tips you have would be appreciated.

Here is the video i posted before if you want to see what i've been finding so far.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Geg6zcz8p8

Edited July 7, 2012 by Sharpie443

[Missourian]

Hope I can help with answers....

1. Not sure. That rock looks awfully hard. You could try chiseling some to see what happens. The exposed fossils may end up like that brachiopod with the split shell. But then you never know....

2. No tricks that I can think of. How far can you walk up or down the creek? You never know if you will encounter another bed with different kinds of fossils.

3. Again, I'd just walk along as far as I could go, and see what turns up. If I hit some really good stuff, then I would think about dredging some up.

Also, the mystery fossils appear to be sediment-filled burrows. They could have been produced by worms, but other critters like mollusks or arthropods are possibilities too. The shells all appear to be brachiopods, as far as I can tell. There are a number of members here that could id these Devonian brachs for you.

[FossilDAWG]

I doubt that digging would be useful. It seems you have a lot of rocks to look at in/along the stream, you'll get better mileage (literally and figurtively) if you just cover more ground and look at more rocks. I only dig if there is a specific layer in the outcrop that has a high enough density of fossils to make good finds likely. On the other hand, some tools to crack open promising rocks is always a good idea. Sometimes the fossils will make a weaker layer in the rock that will split, exposing unweathered fossils (though they might split too). Also, if you find something good on a large rock, some tools will help you reduce the size.

Don

[mzkleen]

That one rock looks like you have a whole mess of worms or worm casings there. Very interesting rock. I find lots of worms & casings in rocks. I live in an area that is mostly Devonian, Mid-Devonian in Central PA. Great finds!!