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@mackenzie-smith ID help here?

Hi there! Most of the rock in that area is marine so plant life would be rather unexpected. However, terrestrial material can wash in on occasion. For stems (which includes wood) the most useful angle for generic ID is from the top/bottom (i.e. a cross section).

Thanks for checking it out. I added a couple more pics

Thanks! From the cross sections we can see that we have two, circular zones: an inner and outer. Sadly, there is no cellular detail preserved which would help us get a more specific name on it. The outer texture is actually a root mass from the same plant. These combined characters let us know we have a tree fern stem (true tree ferns do not produce wood). Because there is no cellular detail I can’t say which fern (like Paleosmunda or Psaronius) although Psaronius is a relatively common plant fossil. While extinct it is part of the living order Marattiales.

Thank you so much! Are there any books or websites you recommend that are particularly user friendly in terms of learning how to identify fossils? I recently got the Audubon society guide to fossils but I did not find it very helpful.

Yeah, the Audubon fossil guide is really general and doesn’t help with specifics. One pretty much needs a guide for each region they go to to account for the diversity of life over the past 541 million years (and sometimes that can be hard because there isn’t entry level material for everything). I looked online and the best thing I could find is a site called http://www.lakeneosho.org. You will have to know what geologic formation(s) you were in though. This can be done by cross referencing a USGS map (also online).

Thanks again for taking the time to look into that for me. I will check it out!