Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
This group is for fossil hunting, paleontology, and geology in the Virginia/West Virginia states. Share fossils, sites, stories, museum pics… anything!
- Members
- 9
- State
- Virginia, West Virginia
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1 week, 1 day agoSydney Golditch joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
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1 week, 3 days agoIan Hoppe joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
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1 week, 5 days agoNathan Newell posted an image in the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting from the myFOSSIL appThis site at Mint Spring, VA, is interesting in that it proves you can find fossils in the most incongruous of places. It’s actually in the parking lot of a hotel, which means it’s safer and more accessible than many of the road cut sites. I’ve only found graptolites here, and why only graptolites are preserved and nothing else, I have no idea. The strata are nearly vertical, forming a wall of sedimentary rock. Some of the best specimens are readily visible on the left side of the exposure, but I doubt they can be easily extracted. It’s probably more fruitful to look along the base of the wall to find loose specimens. The rock tends to break off in extremely fragile plates, so be careful. Check out my fossils to see more detailed pics of the graptolites I found here.
Location: Mint Spring, VA.
Coordinates: 38.07666, -79.08472.
Age: Ordovician.
Formation: Edinburg Formation, Lincholnshire and New Market Limestones.
Fossil Types: Graptolites. #fossil #collection_site
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2 weeks agoShauna Baird joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting -
2 weeks, 4 days agoHayley Nedbalski joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting -
2 weeks, 6 days agoTammy Potter joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
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3 weeks agoJohn Potter joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
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3 weeks, 2 days agoElizabet Lu joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting -
3 weeks, 3 days agoNathan Newell posted an image in the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting from the myFOSSIL app
This is my go-to book for fossil collecting in Virginia and West Virginia: Fossil Collecting in the Mid-Atlantic States, by Jasper Burns. The majority of the sites I visit come from this book. This and Google Maps make it easy to pin-point exactly where to go to find fossils.
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3 weeks, 4 days agoJennifer Bauer joined the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting -
3 weeks, 4 days agoNathan Newell posted an update in the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
Let’s start this group with the first location that I went fossil hunting, which is a road cut along Lost River in West Virginia. I found this site on FossilGuy.com and it can be a good place to get some cool (if headless) trilobites. The road cut has a big mound of scree with a substantial flat area that you can use for parking. Be sure to wear gloves; the scree consists of millions of sharp little shards of shale. (Fun with alliteration!) The site sometimes yields some nice trilobites and brachiopods, and the occasional horn coral, but it seems pretty picked over sometimes. I suspect that since it’s not only shown on FossilGuy but also published in a couple of books, it’s one of the more popular fossil sites in the area.
- Site: Lost River, WV
- Coordinates: 39.064757, -78.660888
- Age: early to middle Devonian
- Formation: Marcellus Formation and Needmore Shale
- Fossil Types: Trilobites, Brachiopods, Corals
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Whoa, very cool!! Any echinoderm pieces from this area?
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@jbauer Yeah, I see lots of crinoid stems (at least, I think that’s what they are) but they’re all in pretty rough shape. They tend to look decayed and rusty.
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@nathan-newell – that’s sad but not surprising. Echinoderms like to fall apart into many pieces. I’d really like to get back up into the Appalachians. I did some mapping in the WV area but not much collecting. I’ll *never* find peace with the Tuscarora Sandstone, that unit does some weird things!!!
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@jbauer Cool, I love collecting in the Appalachians. Stay tuned, I’ll post more locations that you might want to visit next time you’re up here. 🙂
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3 weeks, 5 days agoNathan Newell created the group Virginia and West Virginia Fossil Collecting
