I thought it would be cool to see what members here at UM have come across.

I live in Cleburne, Texas, which some of you may know is only a few miles from Glen Rose. Glen Rose is the city in which many dinosaur fossils and tracks have been found, and it is in a rock shipment from that town that I found the most incredible thing ever: A two foot Mosasaur Skull. You may also know that Texas used to be underwater, hence the discovery of fosilized shells, fish, and larger sea predators... Unfortunately, I found the skull on my father's boss' property, so it belongs to him... And since the two of them have since parted ways in a nasty fashion, I doubt I'll ever get to see it again.

I work at GameStop here in the States and have had the pleasure of meeting a few interesting people. Luckily, one of them happened to be a palaeontologist. I gave him a few snapshots, and he's the one who returned several days after consulting his coleagues declaring it a mosasaur. The mosasaur is considered by many to be T-REX of the ocean, although you Megladon buffs out there might disagree.

I do not have a picture of the one I found because I am currently without a scanner, but in case you are wondering, below are a few pictures of a Mosasaur skull/tooth/what it may have looked like/etc.

So, what have you found, and where?

Its most likely you found the skull of a small mosasaur, not one of the giants like Kronosaurus, Tylosaurus, or Liopleurodon.

Sadly, nothing but Petoskey stones and the odd fossilized shell. The terrain where I live (northern Michigan) was largely pulverized by glaciers during the various ice ages and I doubt many large specimens survived. However, Petoskey stones are somewhat interesting, I suppose. They are found only in northern Michigan, and are in fact the state stone. The things are so common that you can wander around in virtually any stony area and find at least one. The stones are sometimes polished and sold to tourists (at an outrageous fee, of course) because of their unique texture. This arises because they are not stones per se, but rather fossilized coral.

Here is an image of several polished stones. Note that they are normally found in irregular, stony lumps, with one or more sides covered in "eyes."

http://fossilrocks.homestead.com/7stones1.jpg

The Petoskey stone predates even the dinosaurs. They were formed in the Devonian period of the Paleozoic era, roughly 350 MYA.

-Pilgrim

Tylosaurus is indeed an enormous mosasaur, but kronosaurus and liopleurodon are pliosaurs - short-necked plesiosaurs.

-Pilgrim

My mistake...I don't know how that slipped my mind...

Nothing much in SE Michigan...Well, nothing at all.

That's pretty cool. In a way I wish that kind of stuff was as easy to find down here as it is up there. But in the end, I must be satisfied with the rarity of the discoveries, because they tend to be great ones when they pop up.

The last I heard, there was an Apatosaurus found in Glen Rose, and hadrosaurus tracks found in Lake Grapevine. There is also a rumor of a supposed Pterodactyl found in a cave near the Brazos river... Don't know how much weight that one has, though.

Google it if you're interested!

Anyone else?

Not sure if any sites are in SE QLD in Oz that I might check out, never heard of one. Sure would be a fun to hunt fossils with my son
Closest I have is a few aboriginal stone axes.

That's awesome! That's a bad thing about living in Texas... The only things you'll find from "ancient" civilizations are Civil War/Texas-Mexican war artifacts. I'm really big into past civilizations. My dad has arrowheads dated back to colonial days and earlier, but that's about it...

Actually, where I was raised in the Outback, they are just lying around, I have found them in paddocks, creekside and even on the side of the road, mind you, traffic on those roads consists of a single vehicle every few hours - on a busy day.

Texas sounds very cool, a collegue of mine went for a holiday last year. Love to visit one day.

There is a very interesting thread about a pyramid in Gympie in here somewhere, it is not far north from here, I am trying to find out what I can about it. I am sure you would enjoy reading about it.Gympie Pyramid

Found this at the museum
I have 80 pics so I'll share a few... I wish I could discover something myself but its hard living in a big city.

I should go to the city (Philadelphia) and get us sum pics.

I've only found a few sea shells back when I lived in south Sweden, which was once covered by a sea. A (not very good) pic (since my camera's crap and my table lamp's busted).
In the middle is a very pretty and totally clear piece of amber I found on a beach, also in south Sweden, on the west coast were you usually don't find amber.

I thought amber was yellow... Damn you lying Jurassic Park bastards!!!!

Amber varies in color depending upon its composition, from pale yellow to dark brownish-black.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amber

-Pilgrim

The amber I have is actually what you could call classic amber orange, it's just the bad light conditions of the photo that makes it look darker. Nevertheless, amber do come in a variety of colours.

I'm going to Gotland (Sweden's biggest island) in June, and for what I've heard the ground there is pretty much covered in fossils. I'll be going around by bike, so I won't be able to take too many with me, but hopefully I'll find some nice ones.

Too bad there is nothing here in MI except Petosky stones along the coast.

Here around Stockholm there's only solid bedrock like this with a thin layer of earth on top, so there's not much to find here. Gotland on the other hand is mostly limestone and it used to be the bottom of a sea, so there's lots of fossilised sea shells and stuff.

Well I'm happy to say I live in Texas, which also used to be at the bottom/edge of an ocean.... I'm about 20-30 miles out of Glen Rose, so every once in a while I'll head out that way and pretend to find stuff...

After talking to a regular customer where I work, (GameStop), I found out that he is a paleontologist. He does digs all over the country and is about to go on another this summer... He told me that they take people with them all the time to watch and/or help if the situation is right, and he offered to take me with him when there is one nearby. He's actually made me consider taking up paleonology as a profession, although I doubt it'll ever happen...

Would be cool to go on a dig every once in a while, though...

Have you ever been to Canada? They have a lot of cool fossils there. If you go to Kettle Pont you can find Shale that has spores from the first forest on it.

I've found some chicken bones...

I have some pretty cool stuff collected in Morocco. I guess my best is a complete marine crocodile skull that is four feet long, so the beast itself may have been over 30 feet. I'm still cleaning it. I have a nice bottom jaw of a mosasaur, and some big Spinosaur teeth, and what might be part of a Spino's claw. I will try to post the skull here.

That would be cool. You seem to have found quite a bit. Do you just look for it in Morocco, or have you been elsewhere?

I lived a long time in Germany, so searched the lithographic limestones a good deal but never found anything important. Now that I am back in the U.S. I'd like to search here, but need to check out the rules. I don't think people are allowed to keep fossils on public land.

I wonder if there are any big ranches or other private land in good "dino country" like Montana, where for a small fee, people are allowed to search and keep their finds.