Hi all,
I went fishing today and worked one of my fossil layers in the canyon on the way home (NF) to complete my day.
Most of the fauna fossils I find from this location are severely fragmented (not specimen grade) and the matrix is fairly brittle.
This one is nearly a complete leaf (unknown species) in a decent matrix... so I made a keeper out of it. Fun!

that is a great find! we to can't seem to find a complete specimen either. Yours will make for a nice display.

about 42 years ago,when i was in the Army in Europe ,i was out walking with my camara and came upon a hillsdie covered with larger limestone boulders to hold the soil back. i started to take a "shortcut" up them ole rocks when i was about 2/3 the way up i slipped on one of the smaller rocks and banged my knee,and it hurt like......... well it just hurt! as i sat rubbing my knee, i watched that ole rock ,that i slipped on, tumbell down the hillside. i thought to myself,"self,go get that rock and teach it a lesson", so i proceeded back down that hill to "capture" that rock and i was going to throw it to teach it a lesson. well just before i threw it i glanced it over and low and behold it was a perfect slice of a 5 1/2 diameter snail.i forgot its rotation, but i kept it and carried it all darn day in my travels. i kept this ole rock on my shelf forever and for some reason (in all of my moves) i cant find it anymore.maybe it finnaly snuck off???

Good story russ!

I did a repeat of my last adventure yesterday with good results again. This time I took a friend and we spent about an hour working the layer on the way back from fishing.

This was my only keeper. Very good leaf with sawtooth edges, which can reveal some climate conditions from that period.


This is one of my friend's keepers and it is the first I've seen. It appears to be a fossilized twig from a Spruce tree of some kind. Very interesting and also can reveal climate conditions from the period. I was jealous of this one, find of the day!


These last two pics show the type of material we were working. As you can see it is very rich in fossilization. This is a fairly thick set of layers and just keeps on giving (easy to split). Eventually I hope to find an insect fossil hiding in these layers.... never know. For now I'm happy exploring the ancient plant life.

(like!)

I really like the first one you posted, great finds Swizz!

Thanks my fellow nerds Kev and Denise.

More fishing and fossil hunting again tomorrow... hopefully I'll find another keeper.
really really want to find an insect fossil though

Have a great time tomorrow!

With your luck you will do even better than that........You will probably find an insect on a leaf!

Today I started on this wedge of layers


This is a few layers into it.... lots of fossilization in each layer




Here's my keeper for the day. It's a raised fossil of a twig with a couple branches. Not many people can get excited about finding a twig, it's a good find though.

That is some good looking stuff you got going there Chris. I am going to try and "strong arm" you someday and a see if we can't rake up some of those leaves together. Maybe someday we can make a road trip from north to south. Take a couple days off and go on a fossil hunting expedition. I know a lot of secrets about this great state of ours! Have a good one, Woody.

We can hit this layer anytime on the way to & from the claims. It's along side of the hwy on NFS managed land (unclaimed of course).
Jeep is less than 10ft away from where I'm digging. I would definitely like to come down your way for Shark teeth or Trilobites at some point though!
... and oops - in my initial post I referred to this fossilized area as "fauna". I meant "flora"... have not found any fauna fossilization here yet.

Awesome finds, especially the branch! That one is definately a keeper!

very cool, I have found some great shell fossils in glenwood canyon i will try to get some pics up. Have you found anything els in with the leaves?

Nothing other than flora fossilization so far but the potential is there.

This chunk weighs about 25lbs. It has a lot of clustered leaves in it's layers.


The following two pics are both sides of a palm-sized leaf which opened like a book. It is interesting that there are crystallized dendritic formations showing on the matrix at the tip of the leaf.

Awesome finds and great pictures Chris! It almost looks like a limb end in the bottom middle picture near the leaf.
The dendritic tips look really cool against the leaf. Good job!
SCORE!

Some very neat fossils at this spot for sure as the pics already show on page 1. Recently I got to visit this spot with Swizz and I actually found a few neat samples myself. We'll definitely have to visit there again.
Here are a few pics of some I brought home, many different types of plant leaf and stem material. I have no idea on the id's of each plant other than what looks to be a large maple leaf.
Each picture hopefully shows the texture each fossil has of the original stem/veining for each plant type too.

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Thanks for the fossil stop off Swizz, fun stuff!

Dan, those look great! In the second pic... I've seen this up there before.... that stalk on the lower portion of the rock, I think it's either Asparagus or Bamboo. The fossilization on the bottom image still looks like Dendrite to me.
It was totally my pleasure to pick that locale with you! I'm so glad we stopped there on our way. I can spend a whole afternoon there getting lost in those layers, so fascinating. Not many people can appreciate a good lil fossil hunting session but a bunch of us here sure can!
I'm uploading a couple pics of my finds shortly....

These are my keepers from that short dig.

Unknown Fossil
Fossil Unknown 1 2k by ghostcreekmine, on Flickr

This is kinda rare for that area, I've only seen one other... either a small fern or pine needles fossilized.
Fossil Flora Unknown by ghostcreekmine, on Flickr

Beautiful finds!

Very cool finds guys! You will have to spend more time at that spot next time, think of all those goodies just waiting to be found.

Here are a couple more keepers from the same formation. Was back there having big fun with MikeS and Dave a couple days ago.

Leaf Fossil 1 by ghostcreekmine, on Flickr

Leaf Fossil 2 by ghostcreekmine, on Flickr

Awesome! Wish y'all were closer :(

It is on the way to the claims Crusty so if you ever want to check it out when you're up this way just let me know! We spent less than an hour there and just footsteps away from the vehicle.

Will definitely take you up on that! Would love to check it out!

awesome

Josh, Colin,
You guys are also welcome up here any time. I can put you on a little Gold and a lot of fossils in the same area.

Hello all.


Just wanted to show a few pics of the fossils found with Swizz. And one I found previous.

A leaf fossil

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A fossil specimen of ancient Horsetail plant ( reed like plant that still grows there today) the two brown splotches above the plant, are cross sections(slices) of the same plant.
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A pine cone bud? or a mammal turd?

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A piece of wood? Seed pod? or a insect cocoon(butterfly)?

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And an almost complete spiral/cone shell fossil from near Green Mtn. Res.

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If this is close to Swizz's joint, maybe if we get tired of slinging overburden, maybe we can take a field trip to check this area.

I am rained out from work and heading out to look for some more Flora fossils. I've had VERY few days at all to prospect, mine, or do anything this season due to my biz and family events. I have to take advantage of any day I can (really looking forward to the labor day club outing). Will add pics if I find any keepers today.

Happy hunting!!

Wow, it was a glorious day! I found some interesting stuff and will update with pics when I get a chance.

Here are some pics from that little excursion.

This one took about 1.5 hrs of careful extraction.
2015-09-14_06-13-31 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

2015-09-14_06-15-36 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Here's the final extraction. Crusty is now the owner of this one.
2015-09-14_06-15-11 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Not quite as good as the other (missing partial upper left) but a keeper. Rare to find a complete leaf.
2015-09-14_06-51-38 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Other finds of interest from the day.

2015-09-14_06-13-09 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

2015-09-14_06-10-05 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

2015-09-14_06-10-58 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Sweet fossil finds!! That one that Crusty gets is pretty nice, good job extracting them!!

Thanks Denise! I took home some rough that I can pick layers apart from this winter. I had a ton of fun that day and am planning to get back there at least one more time before ol man winter returns. Into a good layer there now.

Going to make it a multitask dig day when you head out to remove some overburden on your claim?

I"m thinking I need to spend a full day at each.

I have the rest of the day off so I'm gonna go fossil hunting now for the heck of it.
Hopefully I can add a few more finds to the thread.

You lucky duck!! Have fun out there today and stay safe. Looking forward to seeing more of your fossil finds!

Here's the final extraction. Crusty is now the owner of this one. 2015-09-14_06-15-11 by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr [/quote]

Thanks for the treasure! Would love to check that spot out sometime!

Maybe we could meet there on one of the next times we go to the claims. It's only about 30-40 minutes from where I live but you generally travel to the mine from the WY side. I think you would like it.... even for just an hour or so. I spent about 4 hours there today.

My neighbor Steve came along this time. We prospected new areas without too much luck and then spent a few hours at my old leaf dig which is never disappointing. Here are some pics from today. Really fun!

This is Steve working one of the layers.
Fossil Hunting by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Here's a great twig bookend that he found.
Bookend Twig Fossil by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Other stuff....
Leaf Fossil B by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

Fossil C by GhostCreekMine, on Flickr

After next week, I've got nothing but time, so I could just ride up there on my bike and meet you!