United States
Fossil Hunting Sites by US State
We document 147 sites across 44 states. They are grouped here by geological province, because the province tells you what to expect and the state line does not.
Why province beats state line
The rock under Maryland does not stop at the Potomac. The Miocene beds that make the Calvert Cliffs productive continue straight into Virginia, and the same shark teeth wash out on both banks. A collector who thinks in provinces rather than states finds the next site faster.
Coverage here is uneven and it reflects our work rather than the geology. California carries the most site pages by a wide margin. Fifteen states carry exactly one. Six states have no documented site at all, and their absence below is a gap in our catalogue, not a statement that they hold nothing.
Access rules change at the state line even when the rock does not. Federal land prohibits vertebrate collecting nationwide. State parks vary, and several allow no collecting whatsoever. Always read the access note on the individual site page before you travel.
Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain
Young marine sediments, mostly Cretaceous to Pleistocene, lying almost flat. Rivers and the sea cut into them and release the fossils onto beaches and stream banks, so this is the easiest collecting in the country. Shark teeth, shells, and occasional marine mammal bone.
Appalachians and the eastern interior
Folded and flat-lying Paleozoic rock, from Ordovician through Carboniferous. This is the classic invertebrate ground: trilobites, brachiopods, crinoids, corals, and bryozoans, plus the coal-measure plant beds of the Appalachian Plateau.
New England and the Connecticut Valley
Much of New England is metamorphic rock, which destroys fossils. The exception is the Hartford Basin, a Triassic and Jurassic rift valley whose lake sediments preserve some of the best dinosaur track surfaces in North America.
Western Interior and the Rocky Mountains
Mesozoic and early Cenozoic rock laid down around and after the Western Interior Seaway. This is dinosaur country, and it also holds the Eocene lake beds and the badland mammal faunas. Much of it is federal land, where vertebrate collecting is prohibited.
Pacific coast and Alaska
Cenozoic marine basins and accreted terranes, scraped onto the continental edge and then faulted and folded. Ages sit side by side here in ways they do not elsewhere, so working out which unit you are on matters more than usual.
Other ways to browse
The national guide to the best states for fossil hunting ranks and compares ten of them. Outside the United States, browse by country. You can also browse by fossil type or by geological period.