I Had An Entire Year To Hunt Fossils During Lock Down

With the start of Covid lock downs back in April 2020 I had plenty of time on my hands. What better way to make a negative situation into a positive by spending all that free time fossil hunting and practicing social distancing at the same time! During that time I hit most of my private spots locally and teamed up with a group of fantastic, fanatical folks that had the fossil hunting bug just as bad as I did. These folks had honey holes and were kind enough to share them with me. I'm writing this blog entry to highlight some of the fossils found during that year time span and wished I could write about every adventure but my memory fades as each day passes.

Sometime after Covid lock downs took place I was introduced to Shark Teeth hunting by friends. I have never been a fan of shark teeth...that is until I got into a creek and started sifting for them and there she wrote. I found not only one but several, and I was totally hooked and it didn't let up for the entire year because I was making weekly trips down to the creek up till November 2020! These four species of shark teeth among other marine fossils found are from the time period known as the Cretaceous Period...the time when dinosaurs roamed the land masses and marine life inhabited the southern part of Alabama...how cool is that! I was finding bone, shark, fish teeth and vertebrae, molds of shelled organisms in my sifter to bring home and add to the collection!

I also took several trips to the State of Mississippi during 2020 and 2021 to hunt marine fossils as well. The site in particular was part of the Cretaceous Time Period where the seas covered part of the state. Love going there because of the interesting fossil finds found there such as crabs, gastropods, clam, shrimp and lobster fossils!

Anyhoo, in between those trips I would hunt other fossils too, most of them Carboniferous Period Plant Fossils. I found so many of those fossils I keep running out of room to store them! School teachers, students and friends are now the beneficiaries of the fossils that are just excess and taking up room.

Between the plant and marine fossils I was able to hunt trace fossils which is one of my favorite fossils to collect. There were two sites I got to visit regularly, and they produced some really nice specimens from arthropod to tetrapod tracks and track ways that lived during the Carboniferous Period 300 million years ago in Alabama.

During the lock down I also had the opportunity to become and learn how to be a paleo artist and tried to figure out ways to incorporate the artwork I was producing with my fossils? I tried to draw pictures of the fossils I found with colored pencil and graphite depicting what they looked like in color using that artistic license we artist use when creating art of something that went extinct millions of years ago. These ancient marine animal drawings will go in a frame along with fossilized teeth.

Not only am I into fossils but now a thrift store junkie to find, repurpose picture frames I purchase there to incorporate my fossils and artwork into. So my entire year of 2020 and now into 2021 has been pretty busy creating. I look forward to doing more art and fossil hunting to see what ideas I come up with!