Fossil Fanatics
It all began when we attended our first gem, mineral, and fossil show in Mesquite, TX sometime around 1995. We noticed a vendor with local ammonites and we were bound and determined to find one of our own! After joining the Dallas Paleo Club and meeting other fossil hounds, we finally found our own ammonite and the obsession grew.
Wow, we hit the mother lode!
We studied the ammonites of the Woodbine Formation, and a good friend educated us on where the formation surfaces. One day, in 1998, while traveling through the area, we noticed construction stakes dotting a hillside where the formation surfaced. The construction soon began, and there were dozers, excavators, dirt movers – you name it – crawling across the hillside and stripping away the dirt for an apartment complex. We obtained permission to collect and were allowed on the site for nearly a year. We made friends with the construction crew and brought them some brews at the end of their day. They became so comfortable with us that they threw the dozer keys to us one weekend and said, “Have fun – just keep it between the stakes!” The majority of the Calycoceras tarrantense ammonites seen on our web pages came from this construction site.
As the ammonite site began to dwindle, we had a yearning to find more fossils. While looking for Texas trilobites in Mineral Wells, we made friends with other collectors who told us about the amazing Oklahoma trilobites. We all made a road trip to Oklahoma, and Bob Carroll allowed us to collect trilobites at Black Cat Mountain. We were hooked! Nearly every weekend, we were headed to “Bob’s” or we were busy prepping specimens. At home, we had a work area complete with a budget micro-abrasive, a flat lapidary unit (we obtained by trading ammonites) and a homemade 14″ rock saw. We started selling our fossils at the local gem, mineral, and fossil shows and that’s how we became Fossil Fanatics LLC.