NEW TOOL! Bedrock Geology with Road Maps!

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Cliff F., who recently took my fossil tour, shared this:

http://umn.maps.arcgis.com/apps/StorytellingSwipe/index.html?appid=455ad2a467ed4717a09794e2d36261d0#

If this link doesn’t get you there, go to: Bedrockswipe-arcgis

On the left is information on the bedrock categories. Zoom and you can see the road map overlays to the bedrock!

THANK YOU CLIFF!!!   😀

Categories: Geologic Formation Maps | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Fossil Hunting Class! April 9th, 2016

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UPDATE!

I will be holding a 60-90 minute fossil tour at Whispering Winds on Saturday, April 9th starting at 1:00 pm. This will include getting to know your fossils and the fossil prep barn. Then you can purchase a laminated ID sheet with map for Fillmore County (7 sites within 10 miles of Spring Valley) and/or 8 sites with 10 miles of St. Charles and you can hunt to your heart’s content!  😀

 

The tour is $15 per person and each map is $5 – Cash only exact change please.

Whispering Winds

Whispering Winds

If you desire, I can come along and hunt at an extra $10 per hour, or show you even more hunting spots. OR, just bring your fossils back here after you are done hunting and I will ID them and you are welcome to use the fossil prep barn to work on them.  😀

I just got an email from the Eagle Bluff Skills School Coordinator that they have cancelled the April class – classes are scheduled for May through October.

I do give fossil tours and classes on an individual basis as well as for groups of scouts, 4-Hers, schools, etc. If interested, please email me at:

bcfossillady at gmail dot com

******************************************

This class is given through the Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center skills schools classes:

Okay… I have no idea why their link is refusing to come through, but go to: Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center, then the Skills School, and to the April Classes and you will see the fossil hunting class on April 9th. $40 includes an entire afternoon of fossils and hunting!!!  😀

Last year’s class was loads of fun and we found LOTS of fossils!

Family Fun Fossil Hunt – River Roots Skills School

This year the class is meeting at Eagle Bluff (12:30) and then will come to Whispering Winds for a one hour tour of various fossils in a garden setting to familiarize the newbie hunters with what they are looking for. We will also explore the fossil prep barn where you can try your hand at some basic prepping tools.

Then we will hunt! Our first stop will be an old quarry that hosts the Prosser member of the Galena Formation – good for trilobites and many other fossils. This stop also has the Stewartville member of the Galena Formation which can have wonderful preservation of gastropods and cephalopods. AND a hidden stream emerging from the base of a bluff.

From there the class will be tailored to the members desires on what they are searching for in particular. A nice general variety of fossils? Trilobites, please? Fisherites? Spectacular views or let’s get out of the wind?  🙂

All participants will have the opportunity to purchase laminated ID sheets with maps of fossil hunting spots in Fillmore and/or Winona counties for just $5 apiece – cash please.  🙂

What to come back after the class is over (5:30 at Eagle Bluff), prep your fossils in the barn and “talk shop”? I’ll be here!  😀

Categories: Fillmore County Hunts, Misc., Tours | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Happy Easter 2016!

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Coco the Donkey in his Easter Bonnet

Coco the Donkey in his Easter Bonnet

 

Murphy the East Pegasus!

Murphy the East Pegasus!

Standing in front of the Fossil Barn.

Life is too short not to have some fun!

😀

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T.Rex at Quarry Hill Nature Center

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t.rex

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Largest Fossil Only Show in the World!

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The MAPS  Expo

(Mid-America Paleontology Society)

is coming

April 1 – 3, 2016

MAPS_Crinoid1

Iowa City, IA

Sharpless Auctions

Learning lectures, exhibitions, activities and FOSSILS!

The Hotel Show is for the minerals, etc.

http://midamericapaleo.org/

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Yes, I’m Still Alive. :-)

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And I can’t wait to go out fossil hunting!  LOL  🙂

I am soooo tired of being trapped at the computer writing…

But spring is just around the corner and the snow will be off soon!

Bev with jessBeverly

My email is: bcfossillady at gmail dot com

Phone: 507-922-0083

This year I am hosting fossil hunts through the

Eagle Bluff Environmental Center Skills School!

Fossil Tours

here at Whispering Winds are $15 per person

for approximately 1 hour starting in late April –

get an idea of what you are looking for and basic prepping.

I have laminated maps with ID sheets for both

Fillmore and Winona counties for $5 apiece,

so you can go out and hunt your own fossils!

Categories: Fillmore County Hunts, Fossil Hunts, Fossil ID Sheets, Misc., Tourism, Tours, Winona County Hunts, Winona County Hunts | Tags: , | 2 Comments

Writing a Book!

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large_open_book

UPDATE:

I am currently working on writing a book tentatively titled:

Trails to Trout Valley:

The Tale of Three Families

1851 to 1960

 

No, Trout Valley is not fossiliferous.  🙂

Just an FYI on why the blog is not getting updated regularly.

 

Categories: Misc. | Tags: | 2 Comments

Meat Eating Dinosaur Claw Found in Minnesota!

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Mosasaur Tooth in the Ordovician?! NOT

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What do YOU see?

Mosasaur tooth side 1 rs

mosasaur tooth side 2 rs

mosasaur tooth top another angle rs

mosasaur tooth top

I met a young man who said he had a mosasaur tooth that had been IDed by a paleontologist from the U of Minnesota. I took one look at it and thought “horn coral”. It was collected near Rochester at an Ordovician outcrop, but what do I know compared to a real paleontologist?!

Now, Minnesota has a lot of marine cretaceous even though very few finds in that time period – a few hadrosaur bones are all that I can find in the literature for cretaceous fossil finds in Minnesota.

However, this area was covered by the waters of the Great Warren River System that drained the glaciers and we have had 4 glacial covers in the past 200,000 years. Both could have brought fossils down from various formations to our north. Best to keep an openmind. I took pictures and posted them on thefossilforum.com

Mosasaur Tooth in the Ordovician thread link: http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/59012-mosasaur-tooth-in-the-ordovician/?p=629211

Long story short, everyone IDed it as an Ordovician horn coral. I even contacted my paleotologist friend, Carl Mehling, who IDed it as a horn coral and gave his perspective on IDs.

Thefossilforum.com is a virtual fossil museum online and has amazing fossil authorities from around the world! THE best place to get a fossil IDed!

Also, if you go to the Gallery on the top bar and type in what you are looking for “mosasaur tooth” or “horn coral” you will find a wide array of excellent photographs of real fossils.

I once had a professor of Geology at Winona State University ID a sandstone concretion I had found as a dinosaur egg – had it on the mantel for years in a glass case. It was IDed on TFF as a concretion. As I have hunted in the Ordovician so much, I now see these oval sandstone concretions quite often along with amazing sandstone “sculptures”.

Need an ID? Become a member of thefossilforum.com, take good pictures from all sides with a reference for scale such as a coin, where you found it, and in what formation and with luck someone, or plenty of fossil enthusiasts, will ID it for you. If you have something truly extraordinary they will even help route you to the top expert in the field.  🙂

 

 

 

 

Categories: Coral, what's this | Tags: , | Leave a comment

LOL Halloween Fossil Headstones! :-D

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Halloween Fossil Headstone

Halloween Fossil Headstone

Halloween Fossil Headstone

Halloween Fossil Headstone

Halloween Fossil Headstone

Halloween Fossil Headstone

Less than $12 for all three “headstones”.

Halloween Fossil Headstones

Halloween Fossil Headstones

Instructions here:

http://grandmabevseducationaltours.com/2015/09/halloween-easy-inexpensive-cemetery-headstones/

Categories: Displaying Fossils, Fossil Art, junk fossils, Misc. | Tags: , , | Leave a comment