Please include places in your state to see and collect fossils. We invite Countries outside the United States to send your places as well!
Texas is where this site originates so it will be the anchor. Please join in!
Texas Links:
The Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas in Austin has a website: http://tmm.utexas.edu/ that can help connect you with the fossils found by the university and its paleontologists around the state including the Big Bend fossils named below. This museum houses many of the fossils found in the parks around Texas including mosasaurs and many of your favorite dinosaur species. This is a great place to spend the day out of the Texas heat.
Big Bend National Park has a wonderful new Fossil Discovery Exhibit
by Cindi Sirois Collins
Visit https://fossildiscoveryexhibit.com/ for more information.
Big Bend National Park is the only park that preserves the uninterrupted history of life in its rock formations of the last 130 million years. There has been a total of about 36 species of dinosaurs found in this park.
The Fossil Discovery Exhibit is a 3,000 square-foot self-paced exhibit that was designed by Big Bend National Park (BBNP) geologist, Don Corrick, Steve Wick, the Park’s paleontologist at the time, the Big Bend Conservancy and fellow colleagues who wanted to show off the diverse and amazing fossils found within the park. Mr. Corrick, who has worked in the park for over 20 years, dreamed of replacing the previous Fossil Bone Exhibits with the unique fossils found in the park that were being displayed everywhere else, but not in the place they were actually found!
An example of this was the largest (until recently) flying pterosaur with a wingspan of 35 feet, Quetzalcoatlus northropi was discovered in Big Bend National Park in 1971. It was on display in Austin at the Texas Memorial Museum of the University of Texas, but not in BBNP. Thanks to the many public and private donations, the Big Bend Conservancy and the National Park Foundation, this pterosaur and many other interesting fossils are now on display in the park exhibit.
This exhibit features the beautiful artwork of paleo-artists Julius Csotonyi and Alexandra Lefort that shows how the ancient animals looked when they lived in this area during their time on Earth. Go through the exhibit as fast or as slow as you like. It can be seen from dawn until dusk any day the park is open. The Fossil Discovery Exhibit is located on the right side of the road 8 miles north of the Panther Junction Park Headquarters on Highway 385 toward the Persimmon Gap Entrance.
- Universally Accessible for wheelchairs, touchable displays for the vision-impaired, as well as Large Print pamphlets to download or pick up at the Visitor’s Center. Cellular reception is usually good at this site.
- Equipped with a single-seat vault toilet which does not flush. The waste goes into a vault with a toilet seat on top. The waste is then pumped out regularly.
- There is no water here so bring your own.
- “The Boneyard” –a shaded picnic area- is available with fossil structures for kids to climb on and learn more about fossils.
- RVs and trailers are not recommended for this parking area.
Visit https://fossildiscoveryexhibit.com/ for more information.
Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas
https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/dinosaur-valley/dino-tracks
Visit this site to see on Google Earth the Dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy River.
For Texas Geology Fans:
“All the Vocabulary about Dirt You Ever Wanted to Learn”
https://texasbeyondhistory.net/beene/digging/vocab_layerstime.html