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.”
Hi my name is daniel and I really wan’t to know how to find foossils?
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?
i like fossils
Its summer break! That means more time to dig for fossils! Your tips are AWSOME!
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?
Fossils are really COOL. I LOVE ALL KINDS OF OPAL AND FOSSILS. I COLLECT FOSSILS AND OPALS.
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.
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.
I have a rock that looks like the heart. It seemed like it at first but then it looked like a fossil.
the best fossil are triceratops,t-rex,ammonites,nautiliods
That was a cool artical
This article was interesting because it teaches people a lot about fossils, where they come from, how to find them. And it is very interesting to learn about fossils too. I also like to find fossils from different types of plants that are in my drive way, now in stone form!
I learned so much about fossils i cant wait to go out and start looking.
how to find fossils and other interisting items are actually very easy all you have to do is start to dig with a shovel very carfully and sooner or later you’ll find somthing intresting.
sweet fossils!!!!!
Next time I go outside I will make sure to look for these things
the folsels are so cool
I have found many fossils just looking by the creek and in the pea gravel by our swingset. We find fossils by the Lake Michigan beach alot also.
The best one I have was in a rock garden at our neighbors. They had just gotten a fresh load poured from the truck and I looked down and this is my best fossil ever.
You rock at finding good fossils.
Thanks alot boyslife.com!
Fossils may be gros but they’re awsome I’d like to find fossils.I love to find fossils.
I love to find fossils eather they’re under ground or in the mountains the’re still realy awsometo find them exspeicaly in the summer.
where is the derdra
i had a necklace that looked like it had tons of crinoids strung around it.. i think it was just plastic though
I have A cystal rock and it is still growing
In Jurassic park they make dinosoar amusement parks from fossils.
i think i found a fossil of a skull
Thats awssome
Rocks are really cool!
i always find tons of fossils on the exposed side of a cliff