Fossil hunting

[Nauti]

Hi,i'm quite interested in this topic although I have'nt taken a serious interest as yet.I live in England where I live not too far from the jurassic coastline which is a world heritage site and a great place to obtain many different fossil types.We are lucky in the fact that people are encouraged to obtain fossils along this coastline so that good examples can be preserved rarther than just eroded away by natural processes.
I hope this forum takes off as it would be interesting to see some of the fossils you guys are finding,compared to those we find over here.
All the best,neil.

 

[Guvner]

n/t

 

[2000nkb]

I know those Floridians have access to some cool fossils. I've been down the Peace River looking for Megalodon teeth. I ended up finding 148 shark teeth, with a few pieces of Meg teeth. I also found a 10000 year old Tapir tooth. This year we hit the gulf coast and found 600 shark teeth. Lets get this forum moving a little. I'll consider posting some pics.

 

[KinTN]

Years ago while visiting family for the holidays, I used to scour the central Florida strip mining pits before they would fill them in. All kinds of fossils, including Megs, alligator, tapir, elephant, fish, etc. Go on the weekend so that you aren't interfering with their operations and they wont care.

 

[mudpuppy]

I trapped coyotes on a big ranch at the edge of the South Dakota Bad Lands back in the 80's...Rancher said I could do anything I wanted, stay as long as I wanted to in the bunkhouse, ride his horses, shoot deer and turkeys, kill every coyote, raccoon, fox, everything except to leave his turtles alone.

Turtles?

Well, the SD badlands are just full of fossils, and on this guys ranch there was fossilized turtles all over the place! Some were only as big as a grapefruit, and some were as large as a coffee table! I did as he instructed, left them all alone...drove on up in there a few years back in the late 90's to show the wife and daughter where I used to trap, the ranches were all gone, the road had degraded into a two track with prarie dogs living in it...very desolate...I dont know what happened. Wonder if all those turtles made it through the ranch community decline, or wound up for sale at Wall Drug? Someday I think I'll go back in there for a walkabout.
A couple of hippies had a great fossil shop up in Hill City SD. They created quite a business for the tourists, made stinky money! They were also the guys that found that T-rex "Sue" and got into all sorts of trouble...fossil hunting is a lot like detecting, get outside and have a look, can make some good bank too if a fellow gets lucky...Always wanted to find a megalodon tooth, in FL or the Carolinas..
When I was a kid I read all the books by Roy Chapman Andrews...read them hundreds of times and dreamed of going on an expedition like he did...cool forum..
Mud

 

[flinthunter]

I trapped coyotes on a big ranch at the edge of the South Dakota Bad Lands back in the 80's...Rancher said I could do anything I wanted, stay as long as I wanted to in the bunkhouse, ride his horses, shoot deer and turkeys, kill every coyote, raccoon, fox, everything except to leave his turtles alone.

Turtles?

Well, the SD badlands are just full of fossils, and on this guys ranch there was fossilized turtles all over the place! Some were only as big as a grapefruit, and some were as large as a coffee table! I did as he instructed, left them all alone...drove on up in there a few years back in the late 90's to show the wife and daughter where I used to trap, the ranches were all gone, the road had degraded into a two track with prarie dogs living in it...very desolate...I dont know what happened. Wonder if all those turtles made it through the ranch community decline, or wound up for sale at Wall Drug? Someday I think I'll go back in there for a walkabout.
A couple of hippies had a great fossil shop up in Hill City SD. They created quite a business for the tourists, made stinky money! They were also the guys that found that T-rex "Sue" and got into all sorts of trouble...fossil hunting is a lot like detecting, get outside and have a look, can make some good bank too if a fellow gets lucky...Always wanted to find a megalodon tooth, in FL or the Carolinas..
When I was a kid I read all the books by Roy Chapman Andrews...read them hundreds of times and dreamed of going on an expedition like he did...cool forum..
Mud

I could be wrong but since you say the "turtles" were all over the place there is a very good chance they were actually Septarian Nodules. Septarian Nodules were naturally formed and are not fossils even though many of them can look almost exactly like turtle shells.

 

[flinthunter]

Here are a couple sites showing turtle shell like Septarian Nodules.
http://museumoftheearth.blogspot.com/2010/08/fossil-of-week_11.html
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/message/3060?fromGateway=true

 

[mudpuppy]

Flinthunter! That sure looks like what my memory remembers! Good Job on that. Cool!
Mud

 

[terry-cola]

I'm so glad they added this forum because where I go hunting I'm always looking for fossils. There are a lot of them and my collection is big and beautifull. I will try to post some pictures of what I have. My main hunting area is in Mexico in the mountaineous regions where there are many old Haciendas from the 1750's to the early 1800's.

 

[old lineman]

The first picture is left to right red petrified wood, dinosaur bone, red dinosaur bone, and red horn coral. The second picture left to right is ammonite, turritella and a small geode

 

[Explorer]

Fossil, mineral and treasure hunting all go hand-in-hand. At one time I had these lining our flower bed but noticed that they started walking off. Ammonites are from the Cretaceous here in west Texas. Yard stick for scale.

 

[Guvner]

n/t

 

[ChuckDiggin it in Florida]

Years ago while visiting family for the holidays, I used to scour the central Florida strip mining pits before they would fill them in. All kinds of fossils, including Megs, alligator, tapir, elephant, fish, etc. Go on the weekend so that you aren't interfering with their operations and they wont care.

Hate to say you are wrong, but they "CARE" plenty and you will go to jail.
The phosphate mines no longer allow trsspass. The occasionally allow clubs and school / 4H hunts.
One of my friends works a mine and can not get me permission to hunt it.

 

[KinTN]

Thanks for the correction Chuck. Always good to hear from folks in the know. My last hunting there was circa 1975-6 and they didn't care then- was told it was fine just stay away from active areas/equip/etc. Was also fine to fish the ponds that they reclaimed and stocked if you just asked. Sad to hear things have changed. Wonder what/who screwed it up for everybody.

They jail a lot of folks for that now do they? Florida must do their trespass laws different from most places that I am aware of.

 

[auximenes]

I've found some horse/tapir/buffalo tooth fragments, lots of small shark teeth, a 4" meg tooth, a few glytodont scales, a lot of turtle shell fragments, and a ton of other tidbits in my backyard.

 

[KinTN]

aux, theres more where that came from including some BIG ones. Get to diggin'!

 

[Ground_Hog_MD]

Recently been getting out hitting the beaches here between Jacksonville and St Augustine Florida.
made a few good finds. most recent was the piece of mastodon tooth ... and a piece of megalodon tooth.
buckets of incised pottery and other pottery shards. shell edged pearl ware. British slip ware. a few civil war items.
Florida is a pretty good spot to hunt. but getting much more restricted on where you can, signs popping up everywhere it seems.
" no metal detecting or digging " up to 5 years in jail & $20,000 fines ...