small things

Fossil Hunting in a Box and Some Tips for Getting Started {giveaway}


My kids carried five gallon buckets on our recent fossil hunting trip, and filled them full of fossil dirt from the pungo piles in the parking lot at the Aurora Fossil Festival.  They will slowly pour through the dirt, searching for fossils, over the next few months.  When I saw buckets full of fossil dirt for sale at the Aurora Fossil Museum, I knew I wanted to bring a bucket home to give away.  I picked up a few little visual guides to help with identification as well.


Jonny built a small set of nesting sifters to go with the bucket of dirt.


The sifter with 1/4 inch mesh nests into the sifter lined with window screen.


Fossil dirt can be sifted through the screens (about a cup at a time,) and the larger fossils will be caught by the 1/4 inch screen, while the tiny ones are caught be the window screen below.  Water is poured over the dirt to aid the sifting process and make the fossils easier to see.


These are some of the fossilized sharks’ teeth and other fossils that Seth found while digging through the fossil dirt in Aurora.


Since arriving home, he has found countless tiny little shark’s teeth in his bucket of fossil dirt.  You really have to look closely so that you don’t miss any.  It’s a nice slow process that requires some concentration.


If you look really closely, you will even find teeny tiny fossilized fish vertebrae in the dirt.


If you would like to win this “fossil hunt in a box” leave a comment on this post.

Because shipping would be prohibitively expensive (the dirt if heavy!) this giveaway is only open to my U.S. readers.  Thanks for understanding!  I’ll use random number generator to select a winner this weekend, and announce the winner within this post.

Comments are closed and the winner is Jess:  “WOW!!! My boys would love this!! They both already love to hunt for arrowheads, and this would be a great addition to their explorations. It would be even better to win this on my sons 7th Birthday today!!!! Keeping our fingers crossed!!!”

And now, here are a few links to help you get started if you or someone you know would like to start hunting for fossils in your own area!

First and most importantly, this site (fossilsites.com) includes a list of fossil sites in the U.S. and Canada.  The U.S. is divided by state, and Canada by province and territory.  After clicking on the area you are interested in, you will find a chart with information about each specific location including the types of fossils found there (Of course there are tons of different types of fossils out there, we just live in a region that is rich in fossilized sharks’ teeth.)  In order to find more specific information than what is given, you will want to Google search the sites your are interested in.  So for instance, if I click on “Virginia” on the main list, one of the fossil sites that pops up is “Carmel Church.”  I then search “carmel church fossil hunting” on Google and a list of informative sites pops up, and hopefully I can figure out where exactly to go in order to hunt fossils there.

Seth’s favorite fossil site is Black River Fossils.  The site is dedicated to fossils and artifacts and is full of photographs and “trip reports” which are essentially descriptions of people’s fossil hunting trips including videos, photos, and more.  The trip reports are organized by state, and quite a few states are included.

A couple other websites dedicated to fossils, but more heavily weighted to the East Coast where we live are FossilGuy.com (lots of great photos there,) Phatfossils (click through the trip reports for photos and videos,) and The Fossil Forum.

Finally, here is a link to a tutorial on how to build a sifter for fossil hunting in water.

p.s.  The knitting in my previous post:  Knitting for bunny, not baby!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. My kids would absolutely LOVE this. We go hiking all the time nearby and the North River goes right through it. They always play in the water and find cool rocks, but they would have a ton of fun with this! Even if we don’t win, I think I will buy this.

  3. My 6 yr old son is obsessed with sharks and shark teeth. He would flip for this!

  4. What a wonderful giveaway! My boys would love this and it would be a great way to fill the first days of smmer break.

    Many Blessings!

  5. Awesome giveaway! We have had some phenomenal trips hunting for shark’s teeth and would love to win this.

  8. We would love to win this. It would bring much joy to my girls to hunt for sharks teeth.

  9. You have inspired our next family trip! Thanks so much for all the helpful tips.

  12. WOW! What a GREAT giveaway! Yesterday my children all gathered ’round the computer practically salivating as we scrolled through your fossil hunting/museum trip. They were in awe, I tell you. We live in the po-dunks of PA so I am not sure we would be finding any shark teeth but we did find a SUPER COOL fossil that I have never seen before once when we were hardly even looking. (I think I was hauling rocks to round out the flower bed) I’ll post it on my blog and then let you know when so you can see it. My four children would REALLY get into this. BIG TIME. And shhhhhhhhh—-I would too. 😉

  13. Fun! My kids would love this. My kids dig around our 5 acres daily looking for treasures. They would have a great time with this fossil kit. I think I might have to look into what kind if fossil hunting we could do here in Southern Louisiana.

  15. What a wonderful giveaway!! My boys would be thrilled with this! Thank you for a chance to win it!

  17. I have a son who would love this! Thank you for thinking of your readers like this on your vacation! It is so generous of you!

  19. What a delightful blog and family! Fossil hunting sounds fun. Our friends just moved near a dinosaur fossil museum and we look forward to visiting them. Maybe someday we will hit the fossil festival in your neck of the woods. Thanks for the giveaways and the neat products and people you introduce.

  22. Awesome giveaway! Great timing too since we are planning our summer trips. Thanks for all the info.

  24. It is interesting. We are thinking ti begin our fossil journey! Thanks so much for a chance!

  25. I ask,
    “How completely cool is this?”
    Thank you for introducing us to the activity.

  27. We would love to win this giveaway! We’re already planning a trip to Westmoreland State park this summer in hopes of finding some goodies.

  30. My kids saw your post yesterday, and were asking where we could go to find fossilized sharks teeth near us. Turns out “near us” is about 8 hours away! They would be thrilled to win this!! Thanks for the chance.

  31. This is incredibly generous of you! Traveling with 6 + kids is “strenuous” (difficult!) — to be thinking about your blog readers at the same time puts you in another league. My 5 kids — especially the oldest (9) would be over joyed to find some shark teeth. Thanks for thinking of all of us whom you don’t even know…

    Blessings!! (and I love your blog. Just bought myself some butterbean sunscreen last week. Thanks for keeping things simple, green and very real)

    Rhonda

  32. I was wondering about the pink yarn 🙂 Oh what a wonderful giveaway. I would love to win this amazing fossil set. My boys are great at finding shark teeth I’d love to see what else we can find! I will share this on my blog and FB. I’ll be back to let you know when I do.

  33. Oh, my kids would be so excited to win this! I am going to be looking at Black River Fossils to find where we could go fossil hunting ourselves. Thanks for the giveaway!

  34. What an absolutely awesome giveaway! The kiddos and I would love fossil hunting this summer together. Thanks for the chance.

  36. I love your curious cat! An reading your P.S., I guess I wasn´t the only one thinking you knit something for a baby girl 🙂

  38. My daughter would love that! We currently have a meglodon shark exhibit at our local natural history museum.

  39. I think this is the best giveaway you’ve ever had! My boys would love this–and what a wholesome hobby to encourage! We are from Eastern NC and I had no idea there is such excellent fossil hunting there. Now I know what we’ll be doing the next time we head home to visit grandma and grandpa 🙂

  40. I’m certain my girls would flip over a chance to search for fossils… what a cool idea to offer another family a chance to do this (without the need for a trip to the festival!)

  43. We live south of St. Louis and my children find fossils and crystals in the limestone rocks. They are rock hounds, searching for Crinoid and coral and sea shell fossils from the time period of this area.
    They dream about going to the east coast to hunt shark’s teeth fossils. It is one of their day dream vacations that they plan and ask for our family to go on! I’ve shown my 11 year old your site when you’ve shared pics if the shark teeth finds and they are a wee bit green with envy!! They mostly think it is really cool. I am impressed with how dedicated your family is to this passion of fossil hunting. Where do you find room for the children to keep all their treasures and equipment? We have issues in our home with stubbing toes on giant muddy rocks brought home to treasure! 🙂

    • Right now the equipment is all over our front porch 🙂 Fossils ans sharks’ teeth are stored in fishing tackle boxes or Riker mounts for display. I guess sharks’ teeth are easier to store than big rocks!

  47. That is a great activity!
    My daughter is named Aurora, It would be quite fun to take that trip sometime!

  48. Ginny, what an awesome fun giveaway! I just know my boys would love it! And thanks so much for the list of links/tips. My boys are already itching to try for fossils in the creek behind our house. 🙂

  49. We would love to win this! I have been waiting for school to end to take my 17, 15, 13 and 10 year old fossil hunting at Westmoreland State Park–we live in Fort Hunt. Have a great day!

  50. What an exciting giveaway! My boys would love something like this. Maybe if I won the grandparents can hang on to it for me.

    Peace!