I've been hunting fossils for some years now, driven by a lifelong love of the outdoors and a kid's passion for the prehistoric. I'm not a scientist. I'm drawn to these bits of rock and bone for their rough beauty and frail evocation of the primeval. Pursuing them in the field also makes a great excuse for getting ground level with nature. It's led me to explore corners of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, California, Arizona, Kentucky, Ohio, Ontario and Alberta (so far) that I certainly would have skipped otherwise.

First and foremost this web book is a celebration of the pleasure fossils have given me. I began writing these essays as articles for the New York Paleontological Society newsletter. The more I wrote, the less technical and more personal they became, limning my progress from novice to journeyman fossil collector. So the subject is less fossils found than the experience of finding them. While I try to label specimens as accurately as possible, I wouldn't presume to call this a field guide.

I also hope to convey their beauty as objects. The images are of fossils I have collected and the places I found them. Photos taken by others are credited accordingly, the rest are mine. I will continue to add and edit pictures and stories as time goes on. This then is a work in progress, a work in process. I invite you to return and watch it evolve.

Last update: April 28, 2013. While attending a fossil prep symposium in Alberta, Canada I went on a field trip to Dinosaur Provincial Park. Very exciting to find hadrosaur, ceratopsian and tyrannosaur bones eroding out of the badlands. It being a protected site we were not allowed to collect anything, but it was reward enough just seeing these bones in situ.

Questions? Comments? Please write me at alan@fossiling.com

Coquina