i found some fossils :)

Sorry for the 2 depressing posts in a row, guys! I was being a sad sack. Health issues yada yada yada. got me feeling a LITTLE BLUE. however, I am on the up and up, i promise. I just get a wee bit dramatic at times. emphasis on dramatic.

I still find fossils, guys! even though I've been a terrible blogger.

I found these lycopsid tree root fossils a few weeks ago. 5 dollar bill for scale coz I'm fancy like that.

It's that time of the year!

the ice in the creek bed looks like an ancient glacier (stolen from @itsyourrock on instagram)

I don't know how many of you readers exist in the Midwest...but if you do, our collective pain is palpable.  This winter has been a rough one. I'm sure it's been hard for everyone...there's just something about being land-locked that makes my pain more important than your pain.

Saturday was nice, though.  It was roughly 50 degrees (t-shirt weather, yay!) and we decided to go on a fossil hunt.  We threw the dog in the back of the Honda and were off like rockets to my favorite fossil ditch.  We had a fairly successful venture: horn coral, petrified wood, brachiopods, some crinoid stems, and some Devonian coral (not sure what kind, anyone? anyone...bottom row second from the right).  

Not too shabby.

Fossils 9-26-13

We had to stop at Kyle's camp site at lunch so I took a chance and paroozed the river's edge for fossils.  I found a few!  Well...I found two.

The fossil on the left (not the penny, as if you needed to read that) is part of a bison tooth and the fossil on the right is part of a head of coral.  So cool.

Oh yeah, while I was trying to scan these I spilled coffee all over my crotch and butt.  I'm at work...ugh.  The things I do for this blog.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa. 7-27-13

We went out adventuring. This is what was found.

1.  This blue marble was a lucky find.  I found it under a cement slab on a river bank. Here's a link that tells you the difference between an old marble and a new one.  This is an old marble.

 http://www.ebay.com/gds/6-Differences-Between-Old-and-New-Marbles/29202/g.html

2.  We were fishing and decided to take a little break and walk up a creek that runs into the river. We found all the shell fossils and the two horned coral in a little rock pile in the center of the dried up creek. 

3.  It's hard to tell how beautiful and awesome the rock next to the marble is...sigh.  It's a recently cracked open geode.  All of the crystals are still shiny and unworn...something about geodes are so magical.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa. April, 2013. Brachiopods and Horned Coral.

I pulled more horned coral out of this creek bed in 30 minutes than I have over the course of the entire 2012 fossil hunting season.  Thank you rain.  If it wasn't for you all of these fossils would have been hidden under stagnant dirt and sand for many years.

As you can see, I found a helluva lot of horned coral.  I'm not sure of their various taxonomies but there appear to be three different variations.  I base this off of size, segments, and the appearance of the outside and inside of each specimen (bumpy, smooth, varied?).  But, damn, I'm not a geologist so I'll leave the tedium to those paid poorly for it (always end with a preposition).

As for the brachiopods, there appear to be several of those as well. I believe I have four or five variations. Not to mention a nice piece of branched coral (hanging out above the penny in the bottom photograph). 

As always, happy huntings.  I hope you find something good today.

Fossils and Curios from Iowa.

I picked up display boxes when I went to the pawn shop the other week.  Four of them.  When we got home I spent the better part of 5 hours organizing fossils.  I'm totally normal, I swear.  Obviously, not all of these objects are fossils...there's some raccoon jawbones, a boar's tooth, an old geode bit, some native American artifacts, and a Shriner pin (like the beaver?), an old ass gnawed up deer bone, petrified wood, a wheat penny, and some fool's gold.

I think the display boxes look good and in case there are any questions about the giant glass arrowhead I might as well answer it now.  While browsing the racks at the pawn shop I came across an arrowhead that was napped out of some kind of brownish grey glass.  It was made by some guy in Ottumwa, he probably pawned it for a couple of cigarettes.  The owner of the store wanted ten bucks for the thing.  I offered him five (coz it's really pretty cool) and we had a deal.  Five dollars well spent.

It's pretty cool that I found all of these things.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa: Ditch (creek bed) Time Adventure Time!

Found some nice Brachiopods and a killer horned coral over the weekend (top right, it's segmented and huge, totally excellent).  The ditch was full of biting flies, mosquitos, and itchy plants...if I didn't make it out with a handful of fossils I would have looked pretty pathetic.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa. Various horned coral and branch coral.

Left to Right and top to bottom.

1.  A branched coral fossil.  I happened to see it on the bank of the creek while I was falling down a hill.  I'm glad I fell down that hill, I wouldn't have been on the proper level to see it otherwise.  Serendipitous.

2. (top) This horned coral is twice as big as the ones I usually find.  This leads me to believe it's a different variation of the horned coral.  I can't seem to figure out which kind, though.  It's frustrating.  I think it may be a cystiphyllum vesiculosum" because they're common around my area...but this one is WAY too small to be that.  Sigh. Back to the drawing board.

3.  Now this horn coral can be identified!  Ha-zah! It is a "Zaphrentis" pallaensis.  It's known for it's spiny sides and, as you can see in the photo, it has those spiny sides.  Finally, I feel whole again.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa.

1. A rock with a hole in it...soon it will become a beautiful necklace.  2. A strange and orange piece of coral.  Look at that fantastic ridge.  3.  Another small piece of coral or a sponge.  Not totally sure which one it is...I still vote for coral.

Found in Marion County.  It's a rock with a bunch of shells in it...I didn't show the whole fossil but it's shaped like a foot.  My guess is a size 11 in men's shoes.

I think this as a very beautiful impression fossil.  I've never seen a shell type fossil this large.  It's shape reminds me of a tulip and the oranges and ochers of the rock are simply lovely and beautiful.

Phew!  That's a lot of fossils.  As you can tell, I've been very busy tromping around on the look-out for ancient rocks.  Unfortunately, the fossil hunting season is coming to a close.  Two reasons: It's damn cold and the trees are dropping their leaves.  Said leaves cover the ground and it's almost impossible to search for my little treasures without a rake.  I'm not going to use a rake.  That makes it sound like a chore.  So, expect many more posts about paintings.  I hope you've enjoyed looking at this year's finds as much as I've enjoyed collecting them.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa: A few impression fossils.

What my amateur ass assumes to be an impression coral (it kinda looks like this one http://www.flickr.com/photos/85591315@N00/3154262600/).  If you look at my previous fossil blogs, I found another one of these guys earlier in the year (http://fluxbiota.blogspot.com/2012/04/fossil-find.html).  As always, if anyone can enlighten me or suggest a good fossil book I'd certainly enjoy that. 

Some petrified wood (greyish stuff in the back), fossilized bone (in the front, note the texture), and a strange mysterious fossil that looks like a broken clam shell. 

A beautiful impression of a beautiful shell.  So pretty.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa : Bison Teeth Fossils.

A bison tooth fossil in it's natural habitat.

Sometimes people ask me, "How do you find all of those fossils?"  Sometimes it's the fossil that finds you, you just have to be in the right place at the right time and it's obviousness will blind you.  First off, a river bed is always a good place to look for fossils.  The river water cuts  through the earth and moves rock around, exposing objects that have been buried for years.  Also, rivers go through dry periods and wet periods. This getting wet, drying out, getting wet, drying out thing is a very good way to turn bone and teeth into fossils. It allows minerals to turn bone into stone.  Yup.

So, with that being said.  These bison tooth fossils were found on a river bank.  The one in the top photograph (or the bottom of my hand in the other photo) was found on a sandbar (and blinded me with it's obviousness) and the other tooth was found in the river water.  So, my advice? Eyes to your toes, keep looking down and eventually something will find you if you're in the right spot.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa. Lycopsid tree.

Lycopsid tree root or Stigmaria ("root")

Oh god, I just want to drag the description of this ancient plant straight off of the Wikipedia page.  That would be so much easier. Its early, guys.

Basically, we were walking around a pretty area and I saw some rocks that looked like tree stumps with the bark ripped off.  With a closer look, it was pretty obvious that these were plant fossils.  I looked them up (thanks, google) and according to the internets these were Lycopsid tree roots and are abundantly found in coal deposits (we were near a strip pit so it's appropriate that we would find these).

Now...here's the wikipedia link.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopodiophyta

Fossils, man.  So old.  I sound intelligent today.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa: Coral

Left to Right: 1. small chunk of fossilized coral or sponge 2. buffalo nickel so you can guesstimate the size of each fossil 3. Part of a fossilized buffalo tooth.  The surface is very beautiful and looks like the cracked glaze of a raku fired pot. 4. Unidentified solitary coral.  I have never seen a fossil like this one.  Below is a detail of it's center. 5. a really nice chunk of coral.  I usually find tiny pieces of this particular kind but now I finally have a charcoal briquet sized piece.  I was totally pumped to find it.  I need to get better at coral identification.

A detail of the #4 Solitary Coral.  This piece (and all of them, really) have inspired me to find out more about fossils.  I have a generalized knowledge of the stuff, in that if I see something unusual I'll pick it up.  We'll be going to a Lapidary Society Meeting in a couple weeks where I hope to extract some knowledge from the experts.

A coyote skull found on a sandbar.

A pig jawbone found on a sandbar.  I assume someone slaughtered one and threw it's remains in the river as pigs are not native to the area and do not run feral (i god I hope pigs never run feral in Iowa.  They're so destructive)

Fossil Hunting in Iowa: Deer Knuckle Bone Fossil.

I found a few more things while walking through the skunk river.  This deer knuckle bone was one of the first things I picked up from the dry river bank.  One will come across a plethora of bones while hunting for fossils.  Most bones are just bones, nothing too special.  This one struck me as odd...deer have run around Iowa since the ice age ( http://www.uiowa.edu/~osa/Silos/Ice_Age_Residents.html  this is a nice little article that describes the time, it's short so don't be afraid) and a fossil can be made in about 200 years in the right conditions; pressure, amount of water it's exposed to, the type of soil it's in.  It looked old.  It looked very old.  Like Discovery Channel old.

The bone struck me as odd because of the color, feel, and heaviness of it (there hasn't been water in the creek for a month, so the heaviness was not from being water logged.  Which is the case in most bones found in water).  So, I did my "tooth tap test."  Bone will make a hollow clunk on the tooth while a fossilized bone feels like tapping a rock on the tooth.  It felt like a rock.  The I did the "tongue touch test".  If you stick your tongue to a fossilized bones, all of the little porous areas will slightly stick to the tongue (yuck, but a paleontologist suggested the test).  It slightly stuck.  So, in my pocket it went.  I did some research on the internets the other day and it does appear to be a fossilized deer knuckle bone.  Which is cool.  A week later it's still heavy, rock like, and still gets an A on all the gross fossil on mouth tests.  I think it's a fossil.

I did not take this picture.  It just shows you what parts of the deer knuckle bone look like when they are fresh. http://rs.leaftradingpost.com/images/thumbs/0000000047852_600_0.jpg  This is where I borrowed the image, thanks Leaf Trading Post.

Skunk River. Fossil Hunting in Iowa.

It was an Ames, Iowa kind of a weekend.  The Skunk River runs through the town and there have been rumors of a dry river bank.  A dry river bank makes for good fossil hunting so KP, the dog, and I decided to check it out.  Lo and behold, that damn river was dry.  We counted 2 puddles in a 2 miles stretch.  There were hundreds of minnows and frogs in each patch of water.  It was an interesting microcosm if not a little crowded for the poor guys. 

Here's one of the pieces I found on the river bank.  I believe it to be a solitary coral of some sort.  It looks unlike the other solitary corals I've found in the past (see horned coral).  I know it takes a lot of pressure to make a fossil so perhaps it's just a squished horned coral.  I'm not an expert, I'm still a novice but none of my fossil books have a picture of this fossilized fellow.  If any of you know anyone I could ask that would be great.  Maybe I'll put the image on a fossil forum website later today and get back to you.

This is the back of the same solitary coral (or what I believe to be a solitary coral).  It's about the size of a dime.

Left to Right: 1. a rock that looks like a silly profile. 2. This fossil was odd, I'm not sure what it is.  If you hold a magnifying glass up to it it has a pattern like some kind of a dense coral.  Lots of circular patterns. 3. A piece of a fossilized bone (the outside). 4. A piece of a fossilized bone on the inside, you can see the marrow. 5. A piece of a fossilized tooth.  This one was a heart breaker because it would have been so awesome had it not been broken.  The enamel of the tooth looks like pottery glaze.  Sigh.  Oh, well.  At least I still found it. 6. A piece of native American pottery.  This piece was found in Marion County.

Fossil Hunting in Iowa.

Left to right: 1. a layered fossil of tiny shells.  2. I believe this to be a part of coral, it has a hole in the center and is fossilized. 3. this one I'm not so sure about.  It branches like a coral but plants also do that.  Any ideas, readers? 

This is the single best example of a horned coral I've ever seen.  It was 100% there.  No chips, no dings.  Very nice.

I found this in a ditch.  When I busted a certain type of rock in half I would find these plant like pattens in the center.  I am so unfamiliar with this type of fossil that I purchased a book written specifically about fossil hunting in Iowa.  Pretty soon you'll have to call me Professor Jane. 

This appears to be another type of plant fossil but there looks like there is some type of circular shell in it and some type of crinoid in the very center.  Someone help!  I feed feedback!  It looks like a layer of ocean trapped in a smallish rock.

Fossils in Iowa: Mahaska County.

The dry weather has hindered my adventures.  It's a sad thing, really.  When rain water doesn't flow through creek beds weeds quickly take over the crevices.  Poor Jane is left standing in sad, weedy mud puddles wondering what happened to all of her wonderful fossils.  I'm a tough cookie, though.  When I decide I'm going to find something I'll do it and I managed to find a few fossils on the Des Moines River this Saturday.  There's a few shell fossils and a pretty nice chunk of coral (i can't take credit for finding that one, my partner in crime did).

It's always neat to find something that is millions of years old.