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

  4. Oh my, this is wonderful! Yesterday my daughter and I just poured over your photos. She’s quite the rock/fossil lover and I know she would be on cloud 9 if she won. Thank you for the opportunity!

  7. How lovely you of you, this is a fabulous giveaway! My boys would absolutely love this. We hunt sea glass and rocks, but I know fossils would be so much more interesting.

    Tiff

  9. As soon as I read the post about your trip I started doing some fossil research for Pennsylvania.
    This would be such a great prize to win. My children are 9 and 7 and I think they would really enjoy.

  11. We are just getting into fossil hunting. I would love this intro kit to inspire us. I can’t wait to check out the links you posted.

  15. How wonderful! We’ve been fossil hunting twice here in the Pacific Northwest and love it! We always find ancient plants & trees. A bit jealous of your shark teeth! Would love this box of goodness. Thank you!

  18. Oh, my boys would love this! We have a couple of local fossil hunting sites bookmarked for day trips this summer, and I’ve been searching for instructions to make sifters. Having a model set made by an “expert” would be terrific! Crossing fingers and toes!

  23. Would love to win this! My kids great-grandfather just passed away, and he was an avid fossil collector. The kids are interested in following in his footsteps, and I’d love to give them the tools to get started.

  26. This is amazing and would entertain my girls and me for a good long while this summer.

  28. My littlte ones love being outside, this would be an awsome new outdoor pastime to introduce them to!

  29. This is great – would love to win. I’m nearby (Old Town) so no shipping necessary! lol
    Thank you!

  31. Oh my gosh, I would love the chance to win this! Was just going to check it out and see if I could buy it but winning would of course be so sweet.

  37. Oh my!!! My daughter would LOVE this! She loves mining for gems, but I can only imagine the excitement on her face to be searching for fossils!!! 🙂

  38. come on random number generator. . .you know you love me!
    🙂 love your blog for so many reasons, but especially as a catholic homeschooling family in ohio with an 8 and 6 year old!

  42. What fun! My daughters would love the tools to look for fossils.
    You pics are beautiful of your beautiful family.

  44. Your fossil hunting posts couldn’t have had more perfect timing. Now that school is out, my daughter and I are planning to head to the beaches in Venice (FL) to look for shark’s teeth. I was a bit perplexed as what to take/make as a sifter and your link looks perfect solution. Thank you!

  45. This is an absolutely incredible giveaway – one that my granddaughter would be thrilled with and sharing the experience with her dad would be a memory recalled forever.

    Shared on my FB Page.

  46. Awesome giveaway! We actually have plans to go to Aurora this summer, it is in our neck of the woods and I have been wanting to go since we moved here. Thanks for sharing all the excitement!

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