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Types of Fossils: When most people think of fossils they think of dinosaur skeletons and large bones, but there are many different types of fossils to be found. Sometimes people mistake  markings, or impressions such as ‘dendrite’ as fossils. These are called pseudofossils. There are five basic types of fossils …. (Click Read more below)

Index for Category - Fossils & Pseudofossils

This page last updated on 12/26/2017

Click on a Title to View Cougar Ridge Trail Road Fossils - Near Mummy Ridge Ferns or Pseudofossils Coral Fossil Find in Goodsprings Valley Fossils near Potosi Mine The Great Beatty Mudmound Fossils Mount Potosi Fossils My Nevada Fossil Finds #05 My Nevada Fossil Finds #04

Cougar Ridge Trail Road Fossils – Near Mummy Mountain

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(Fig.01)

Picture Notes: On 10/01/2015, I made a trip with my friend Blake Smith to hike the Deer Creek Picnic Spring trail off NV-158 (Deer Creek Rd) near the steep flanks of Mummy Mountain in the Mount Charleston Wilderness Area. While hiking along Cougar Ridge Trail road at 3,520 feet elevation, we found a large boulder under a large tree on the side of the road (Fig. 01). Close inspection revealed that it was full of seabed fossils (Figs. 02 & 03). The last time I had a find like this was hiking around top of Mount Potosi … Mount Potosi Fossils.

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03) Click her to return to the [Index for Category - Fossils & Pseudofossils

Coral Fossil Find in Goodsprings Valley

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(Fig. 01)

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03)

Trip Notes: I actually found this rock buried in the middle of Pauline Mine Road (Fig. 03) on a hike to Aztec Tank on 02/20/2014. The picture in (Fig. 01) is just short of where it was located. As you can see from (Fig. 02) it was nearly flush with the top of the road, and had already been split into two pieces. I poured a little water on it to clean it for this picture. Not knowing how big it was or how deep, I had nothing with me to dig it out. Planning to go back at a later date to retrieve it, I placed a cairn on the side of the road so I could locate it in the future. On 03/17/2014 I returned with a small pick and shovel and was please to find that it was still there. Fortunately it was only about five inches thick and came out relatively easy. Interestingly, I searched the entire area and was unable to find anything else with even a hint of fossilized matter. When I got it home I rinsed it off and sprayed a clear urethane finish on half of the specimen (Fig. 04) to help bring out the detail of the coral.

(Fig. 04) (Fig. 05)

Description: The picture in (Fig. 05) is a 'scanned' closeup of one of the specimen's. I have yet to have anyone look at it, however I did find some similar pictures on the Internet that identified it as Phylum: Cnidaria corel; Class: Anthozoa; Subclass: Zoantharia; Order: Rugosa; Rugose Coral; from an age know as Mississipian. If anyone has any better information, I would certainly appreciate hearing from you.

Fossils near Potosi Mine

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(Fig. 01)

Picture Notes: On 01/08/2014, during a hike to the historic Potosi Mine on the western flank of Potosi Mountain, I observed several large rocks that were embedded with various seabed-like fossils (Fig. 01), a close-up of (Fig. 02). My guess is that they may be some type of pelecypods or Brachiopoda. If anyone viewing this page can identify these, please email me at ... kccandcj@yahoo.com.  Even though the item in the center of (Fig. 03) appears to be some type of fossilized item, I have no idea as to what it might be. Something I find interesting is that only last year I found quite a few rocks containing sea fossils at the very top of Mount Potosi … Mount Potosi Fossils.

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03)

The slideshow below is designed to run automatically in place. Clicking anywhere in the black background area that surrounds the picture being shown will PAUSE the show and bring up the Pause, Forward and Back menu at the bottom of the slideshow window, allowing you to start, stop or manually forward pictures one at a time. To view the slideshow full-screen, click in the middle of the running show. When the new browser window appears, click on "slideshow" button in the bottom left corner of the window where it says "slideshow".

Slideshow Description: The slideshow above contains 41 pictures that were taken on this hike.

The Great Beatty Mudmound Fossils

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The Great Beatty Mudmound: This bioherm was first recognized in 1960 by geologists H.R. Cornwell and F.G. Kleinhampl during their geological mapping of the region. This pod-shaped accumulation of calcium carbonate is some 270 feet thick and more than 1,000 feet in length as it protrudes from the west side of a mountain above Secret Pass just south of Meiklejohn Peak, elevation 5,940 feet. To gain a better appreciation of the mudmound's dimensions, one must hike up a steep canyon wash and stand near the base of it. From this up-close-and-personal vantage point, this uncommon geological structure is a massive, pale gray body of limestone exposed along the skyline of the mountains, that truly dominates the view. It was much bigger than we expected. Written reports on the Internet indicate that the core of this formation contains a wealth of excellently preserved invertebrate animal remains some 480 million years old, including echinoderms, sponges, bryozoans, ostracodes (tiny bivalve crustaceans related to barnacles), pelecypods, gastropods, trilobites, conodonts, cephalopods and brachiopods. The specimens are restricted to sporadic, productive pockets within the core of the mudmound and to, more abundantly, the medium gray to olive-gray and olive-brown shaley limestones along its flanks and directly above the mudmound itself. other calcium carbonate layers contain prolific quantities of brachiopods, most of which are rather tiny.

Mount Potosi Fossils

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Picture Notes: On 08/20/2013, I made a trip with my friend Harvey Smith to the top of Mount Potosi, elevation 8,515 feet. Probably the most surprising find of the day was the amazing number of seabed fossils that we found in some of the large rock faces while walking along the east side of the road just below the summit. The shots in (Figs. 02 & 03) below show the location of the area where we first spotted the fossils in (Fig. 01). As we continued to walk further down the road, we found even more (Fig. 04). I created the collage (Fig. 05) from a grouping of pictures I took along the way.

(Fig. 02) (Fig. 03)

(Fig. 04)

(Fig. 05)

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My Nevada Fossil Finds - #05

Picture Notes: During a hike on 04/18/2013 to the Yucca Peak fossil beds inside the Desert National Wildlife Range, I found the two rocks shown in diptychs above and below. Though I’m not sure what the stem-like fossils are in (Fig. 02), you can see from the top and bottom view of this specimen, that they extend right through the rock. The fossil in (Fig. 03) is half of a clam-like shell. The first picture shows the rounded surface of the outer top half of the shell; while the bottom of the specimen shows the bottom edges of the shell. (Figs. 04 & 05) are some more examples that I found while hike the upper ridge of these fossil beds.

My Fossil Finds – #04

(Fig. 01)

Picture Notes: During a hike near Table Mountain of of Sandy Valley Road on 11/27/2012, I discovered these two examples (Figs. 01 & 02 below) of a fossilized seabed floor. It is just amazing to me that I found these at an elevation close to 5,000 feet above sea level. In the same area, only a half mile away I also found the specimen shown in (Fig. 03). Could it be a fossilized dinosaur egg?

(Fig. 02)

(Fig. 03)

Ferns or Pseudofossils?

(Fig. 01)

(Fig. 02)

Figures 01-03 are three different specimen’s of sandstone that contain dendrite, a crystal that develops with a typical multi-branching tree-like form, that I picked up while hiking Weiser Ridge, Nevada. Pseudofossils are markings, or impressions that might be mistaken for fossils. Pseudofossils may be misleading, as some types of mineral deposits can mimic life forms by forming what appear to be highly detailed or organized structures. (Fig. 03)

The term "dendrite" comes from the Greek word dendron, which means "tree". The most common example of this is when manganese oxides crystallize with a characteristic treelike or dendritic pattern along a rock fracture. They form when water rich in manganese and iron flows along fractures and bedding planes between layers of limestone and other rock types, depositing dendritic crystals as the solution flows through. A variety of manganese oxides and hydroxides can often be involved. The formation of frost dendrites on a window is another common example of this crystal growth. Concretions, are sometimes thought to be fossils, and occasionally one contains a fossil, but are generally not fossils themselves. Click here to learn more about concretions ... Concretions. (Information was taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Rock Fossil

On 09/29/2011, while walking a wash along the western side of the access road up near Lovell Canyon, I found this rock specimen with several conical-like shells imbedded within it. (click to enlarge). Though several others in our group have found some rock specimens containing impressions of small shells and plants, I believe this is one of the largest specimens we've found. Fossilization is an exceptionally rare occurrence, because most components of formerly-living things tend to decompose relatively quickly following death. In order for an organism to be fossilized, the remains normally need to be covered by sediment as soon as possible. However there are exceptions to this, such as if an organism becomes frozen, desiccated, or comes to rest in an oxygen-free environment.

What is a fossil? Quite simply stated, a fossil is the remains or evidence of any creature or plant that once lived on the Earth. Most often it is the remains of a dead animal or plant or the imprint left from the remains of such. Though I certainly don’t know enough about this subject to know what classification this fossil would fall into, It appears that one of the more common finds, as in this case, is the hardened shell of some type of ancient invertebrate. If you take a careful look of a close-up on the right, you will notice two things. At the left edge you get to see the curvature of the outer portion of the shell, giving you a 3-D effect of what the shell was actually like. Looking at the center of the specimen  you can actually make out the inside “ribs’ of the shell.