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.

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.

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.

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.

Vintage Coke Bottles and a Strange Owl.

Someone enlighten me.  I have no idea what this is.  It's an antique but that's as far as I've gotten.

The coke bottle was made in 1923.  The Pepsi bottles are pretty old as well.

A broken Native American Artifact and three fossils.

This summer has been horrendously hot.  The earth is dry and the water in the river is incredibly low.  There are some perks to having the water low, things that have been hidden under the water for years and years are finally exposed.  It's a good time to be a pirate and walk the river bank looking for treasure.

And treasure is what I found. We did some cyber sleuthing and found out that the Coke Bottle is ridiculously old.  The internet says it's from around 1923 (-1931) and I always believe the internet...

Along with the vintage bottles (and fossils and arrowheads remnants), I found this really strange owl.  I have no idea what it's origins are but I'm assuming it came from a bed post.  It was pretty cool to pull it out of the water, it's quite the find.