Outdoors
How to find fossils
Sometimes a rock’s just a rock … and sometimes it’s a fossil. How can you tell the difference?
Research which fossils are common where you’ll be hiking.
Stop by a museum or visitor center, call a local university’s geology department or search for a club of paleontologists (people who study fossils of plants and animals).
Find the right kind of rocks.
Fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, like sandstone, limestone or shale. Sedimentary rocks look like layered pancakes.
Look for exposed rock.
Check out stream cuts, bluffs, sea cliffs, road cuts or any place where bedrock is eroding.
Get low.
You’ll see more fossils when you’re on your hands and knees. Use a magnifying lens. Form a “search image” in your mind. If you spotted ammonites at a nearby rock shop, think about what they looked like. Search for spirals and snail shapes. And remember that most fossils are small sea animals - not rare dinosaur bones.
Leave fossils as you found them, so others can enjoy them, unless directed otherwise by local authorities. If you think you’ve found something unusual, make a careful note of its exact location - information that’s as important as the rock itself. A fossil’s location tells its story, where and how the animal lived.
FIVE EASY-TO-FIND FOSSILS;
Here are five fossils that you can look for on your next hike.
Ammonoids: People in the Middle Ages called ammonoids “snake stones” because they thought the fossils were coiled snakes.
Brachiopods: Scientists say most brachiopods disappeared 250 million years ago, when as much as 95 percent of ocean animals died in a mass extinction.
Corals: Algae lives inside the coral, giving it nutrients and oxygen.
Crinoids:
This flower-shaped animal’s anus was next to its mouth.
Trilobites:
Growing trilobites crawled out of old exoskeletons through head splits, giving their fossils “facial structures.”
Jan. 7, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I LOVE FOSSILS BUT I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO FIND THEM!!!!!!!!!!!
Sep. 20, 2008 at 9:33 pm
yaaay!
Aug. 13, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Hi my name is daniel and I really wan’t to know how to find foossils?
Jun. 24, 2008 at 9:34 pm
I found a weird-looking fossil. I looked it up and the nick-name for it is “Indian Bead”
the scientific name for it is Crinoid Columnal…
i seem to find a lot of these type fossils…
there IS this creek…at the bottom of my driveway….is there a possibility that i’ll find some fossils there? hopefully?
May. 28, 2008 at 5:46 pm
i like fossils
May. 22, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Its summer break! That means more time to dig for fossils! Your tips are AWSOME!
May. 19, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Really cool fossil pictures. I have a creek in the forest in my backyard I have found a few fossils there.From all the information you gave me in boyslife im going outside today to see if I can find any fossils. Where have you found fossils?
Apr. 12, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Fossils are really COOL. I LOVE ALL KINDS OF OPAL AND FOSSILS. I COLLECT FOSSILS AND OPALS.
Mar. 31, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I live in Wisconsin and have found lots of fossils over the years. I lived most of my life by
the bay of Green Bay and all you have to do is go to the shore and pick up any rock and
look at it. So many cool things can be found right under your feet.
Mar. 12, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Where I live there’s a lot of fossils in limestone rocks. Once I found a fossil of a shell in KANSAS where there aren’t any lakes.
Mar. 8, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I have a rock that looks like the heart. It seemed like it at first but then it looked like a fossil.
Feb. 23, 2008 at 5:13 pm
the best fossil are triceratops,t-rex,ammonites,nautiliods