Fossilized Escargot

Where are those fossils hiding ?

 Why anyone would want to eat a freakin' snail is beyond me. On Sunday the boys, my Dad and I headed south to Redwing to meet Tim S, our acting fossil hunting guide. Mr S has a huge collection of fossils from the area and a vast knowledge of good hunting spots. Tim and I talked at least a year ago about fossil hunting and were finally able to make it happen. From his house we went even further south to a Top Secret location. It wasn't really top secret, but I'm not telling anyway, I also don't have a clue how to get back there since I was following Tim and didn't recognize a single thing until we got back to Rochester later in the afternoon. I can tell you, we found lots of really nice snail shells. Along with that, were some sponges and squid looking things, but the snails were the most abundant. We were on the hunt for about three hours, the boys didn't loose interest in the slightest bit and could have been out well into the darkness. The Mountain Dew, and candy, probably helped too.

Super Y chipping away

G Man looking for fossils inside

 When we arrived, before I could survey the scene, the kids were off  running, hitting everything with the hammers and chisels I supplied them, and scrambling all over the place nearly giving me a heart attack. This place was dangerous for unsuspecting kids, with an overhanging cliff and piles of large loose rock. They did however have safety, or sunglasses, as well as gloves.   

The big one in the upper left is about the size of an adult fist

Big D

 My dad and I quickly laid out the boundaries and things went much more smoothly for the rest of the day. I got to spend some time with each one of them as we dug and chipped away at the limestone while the other two were off with Tim or my Dad. No one got anything more than a bruise and we all found fossils to put in our collections.  Thanks Tim, Dad, and my boys, for an excellent day.

Our crew

Back at the lab for cleaning and identification