My geology/mineral/rockhound
Blog (my only bow to social media) often receives a variety of questions from
readers. I might write a post on a particular mineral but receive questions like: Can you help me? I found
this rock in my backyard, and it looks like a fossil. Do you know what it is? I
like to collect fossils in the rocks around my farm. How may I learn to
identify them? The questions usually require several more exchanges of
information before I can give a best judgement call, but readers do get an answer.
Now, depending upon
their interests and perhaps future collecting plans, I suggest publications
that could be acquired and that would help with their identifications. Some of
my suggestions are free on the Internet, most are available from used book
dealers, and most are found in university libraries. As a last resort I will
also scan some illustrations and send them via email if they request further
help. Depending upon their collecting habits I might supply some information on
collecting rules and regulations. No two questions, or answers, are the same
but mostly all are enjoyable.
There are a ton of
paleontological articles on the Internet. However, many are highly technical,
and many are difficult to locate. Often a technical article only describes a
particular taxon and that is not very useful to a kid trying to identify the
clam she found in the roadcut.
I am an “old-fossil”
type of guy so that qualifies me to talk about the “old days”. Well, in the old
days, say 1900s in the U.S., research universities, the U.S. Geological Survey,
and many state geological surveys, supported some “really smart” invertebrate
paleontologists who published textbooks and research publications with
hundreds/thousands of photographs or line drawings of fossils. Sometime in the
late 1900s it became monetarily prohibitive to publish an article with 200
photographs of fossils. But readers should sometime visit the archives, or
stacks, of university libraries and peruse the older USGS Professional Papers,
the vast resources of the state geological surveys, and even publications of
the state academies of science. In fact, one could enjoy large swaths of winter
days bundled away in the library, forgetting the problems of the world, and enjoying the company of Edward Drinker
Cope.
As my article title
indicated, Old is Good, and so my recommendations for identifying fossils,
especially from states in my area of the country, are publications from the
1900s. All are packed with photographs or line drawings. Now there is a caveat
to using older publications for fossil identifications—the fossil in question
may have been switched from one taxon to another or changed its identification.
But, one can come very close to the identification and then run that term
through an Internet search.
I will focus on
invertebrate fossils since these are of the most interest to rockhounds. And of
course, my recommendations are simply my choices.
Index Fossils of North America
The best single book to
acquire and have in your paleontological library is Index Fossils of North
America, Hervey Shimer and Robert Shrock, 1944, John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
(there may be later reprint editions). This tome is a revision of Grabau and
Shimer’s 1915 classic North American Index Fossils. Known affectionally as the
“Blue Book”, this amazing work describes and figures over 7,500 species with
over 9,400 illustrations on 303 full page plates. It contains selected
bibliographies for all the larger divisions and considers geographic as well as
geologic distribution on 837 pages!
A page from Index Fossils (poorly copied).
Used copies are
available from Internet used book dealers for somewhere around $75-$100 and is
well worth the money if you are interested in collecting and identifying
invertebrate fossils. If uninterested in shelling out a Benjamin, I have
located a site to download a FREE copy. Use your browser and search for
Internet Archive Index Fossils of North America. Sign up for free and download—an
amazing gift.
Invertebrate Paleontology; More and others.
An older university textbook loved by all (well mostly loved) is entitled Invertebrate Fossils, 1952. by R.C. Moore, Lalicker, and Fisher and published by McGraw Hill. Moore, from the University of Kansas, was one of the best-known invertebrate paleontologists in the middle decades of the 1900s (check out his bio on Wikipedia). This was the standard “go-to” paleo textbook for college students for a quarter of a century as it is profusely illustrated with line drawings.
A page of illustrated fossils from Invertebrate Paleontology
Even today, fossil
hounds look for, and are able to purchase, used copies for $30+. But again,
FREE copies are available for download on Internet Archive (note instructions
above).
Kansas Geological Survey Bulletin 14.
Living in Kansas for
several decades, I was always interested in collecting fossils from marine
rocks of Pennsylvanian, Mississippian (Carboniferous) and Permian ages. These
fossiliferous rocks are abundantly exposed in eastern Nebraska and Kansas over
into Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. I fact, Carboniferous and Permian rocks
crop out in many states but seem most fossiliferous in the middle of the
nation. With that information I wish to recommend a paper by R.C. Moore published in Bulletin 169 of the Kansas
Geological Survey: Palaeoecological aspects of Kansas Pennsylvanian and Permian
cyclothems, pp. 287-380. The paper has fantastic line drawings that will help
you identify virtually all Pennsylvanian and Permian marine fossils you will
ever collect in the central U.S. Many of these illustrated fossils may also be
located in other states. The best part is that the Survey will allow you to
download papers from Bulletin 169 for FREE. You can’t beat that. Head to: KGS--Bulletin
169--Symposium on cyclic sedimentation
Page of illustrated Pennsylvanian and Permian gastropods from Bulletin 169.
And finally, fossils of
Cretaceous age are found in rocks cropping out in all central U.S states.
Many/most of the marine rocks are associated with deposition in the Western
Interior Seaway; therefore, the fossils are very similar in all outcrops. For
example, although species of the Inoceramid bivalves may vary from Texas to
Utah they are easily identified as the clam and can be keyed out.
Professional Papers of
the USGS are great resources for determining and identifying fossils in
specific stratigraphic units. However, it will take some internet sleuthing. My
go-to book for identifying virtually every Cretaceous fossil that I have
observed is Vol. 14, Nos. 3 & 4 of The Mountain Geologist, a peer reviewed
publication of the Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists. Edited by Earle
Kauffman, this 1977 classic served as a field trip guidebook for the North
American Paleontology Convention II. Not only are Cretaceous fossils well
illustrated with photographs, but field trip stops at various locations from
Salt Lake City to central Kansas are described.
The Mountain Geologist, Vol. 14, Nos. 3-4.
A page of fossil illustrations from the Mountain Geologist.
Unfortunately, this
publication is almost impossible to purchase. It periodically shows up on
internet used book sites, but those buying chances seem rare. But there seems
to be a solution from RMAG.org, move to publications, move to The Mountain
Geologist, move to AAPG Datapages, verify you are human, fill in form: Full
Text Bulletin 14, Year 1977 to 1977, Select 1977. You may then order any of
the individual road logs or if interested in just the fossils, place an order for
the Illustrated Guide…..at $24. Universities in the Mountain West region also
may subscribe to RMAG publications that are available for examination in the
library.
And finally for the hard-core
fossil hounds, there is the Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, described by
the University of Kansas, the publisher, as a definitive reference work that
encompasses approximately 55 volumes published from 1953 to the present. It is
authored by over 300 paleontologists and provides extensive information on
every phylum, class, order, family, and genus of both fossil and extant
invertebrate animals. The treatise includes detailed descriptions of
prehistoric invertebrates, covering aspects such as taxonomy, morphology,
paleoecology, and stratigraphic ranges.
An early Treatise volume.
The Treatise is
available for open access, allowing users to download entire volumes or
individual chapters in PDF format. This accessibility is facilitated
through the University of Kansas website, where users can search for specific
topics or browse through the available volumes. The content is provided under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY) license, promoting its use in research
and education.
In summary, I have tried
to provide references for interested fossil hounds to help with identifications
of collected specimens. The references noted provide line drawings or
photographs that will help collectors of all ages or experiences. Good luck and
if you run into problems just shoot me an email.