 Mark your Calendar for FossilFest 2025 March 15 - 16 |
TBFC Season 2024-2025 updates: Next Club Meeting is Feb. 1, 2025 @ 7pm EDT in the USF Behavioral Science Room #103 (In-Person) Next Peace River Monthly Trip: Feb. 8, 2025 (Paid, Active Members only and water levels permitting) - Zolfo Springs Guage Next CEMEX Center Hill Trip: Feb. 12, 2025 (Paid, Active Members only. Limit 20 People) - Check Facebook for Details Next Brooksville Trip: Jan. 29, 2025 then Feb. 26, 2025 (Paid, Active Members only. Limit 20 People) Next Bone Valley Fossil Farm Trip: Jan. 25, 2025 then Feb. 22, 2025 (Paid, Active Members only. Limit 20 People) Check the Field Trips page or the Calendar for details! |
Be sure to renew your Fossil
Permits! Never Dig into the River banks! Collection of Artifacts is Illegal on Florida state owned land!
President's Message
2024-2025 Season
And just like that, 2024 is done.
Many of us had a rough last few months with storms and flooding, but that is behind us as January is here (good luck to those that are still digging out from the flooding and wind damage). As I write this it seems we will get a day of rain with a cold front, but I certainly expect that river levels will begin to cooperate, and river fossil hunting season can begin in earnest. Visibility in the rivers should continue to clear up and water levels ought to remain manageable until the warm summer brings back daily rains. I’ve seen many of you are already starting to “clean up” in the rivers. Many of you SCUBA divers are already posting pictures of great fossil finds online. Take advantage of the season. You can’t find fossils sitting on your couch or watching football. Plan a river trip now!
January brings the start of a very busy time of the year for TBFC. In addition to our regular monthly meetings and field trips, FossilFest and the Peace River Adventure are right around the corner. We can run the Adventure blindfolded with one arm tied behind our backs, but FossilFest, that’s another animal.
Will there be a Peace River Adventure in 2025?
Folks keep asking, but I just don’t know. I haven’t even had the chance yet to talk with the folks down south to see if the venues were damaged during the hurricanes. I will post here soon if you need to “save the date”.
Read the Chronicles each month (Members Only), check the calendar here on the TBFC website, and follow us on Facebook. Also, please be very cautious while venturing out into the rivers and creeks. There’s nothing in those rivers worth dying for.
FossilFest 2025: FossilFest 2025 runs March 15 - 16 (set up on March 14). The show is big, one of the biggest amateur run shows in the country. It takes a lot of volunteers to operate FossilFest!
What is FossilFest? Find more information here!
We have a busy few months ahead of us. I look forward to accomplishing all these events with your help. Happy New Year & Good Hunting,
Missed a meeting or just want to watch it again? You can view our past meeting recordings or live streams in the playlist below (Also found in the About section):
Announcements
Next Meeting Presentation
Feb. 1, 2025CSI: Montbrook, The Megaherbivores
with Dr. Richard Hulbert, Florida Museum of Natural History, U of F Collections Manager (Retired)/Vert. Paleontology Consultant
7PM IN-PERSON CLUB MEETING at the USF Behavioral Science Room #103
If there’s a hole in the ground in Florida with scientifically significant
fossils to be found, you can bet Dr. Richard Hulbert knows about it. As
the Collection Manager at the Florida Museum of Natural History from
2000 to 2022 Dr. Richard oversaw Florida’s vertebrate fossil treasures.
Museum officials would say Dr. Richard’s specialty was exploration,
curation, organization, and preservation. And they’d be correct. But
one of Dr. Richard’s greatest skills that some of you may not know
about though is his genuine interest in befriending the amateur fossil
hunter. He has the ability to convey the importance of scientifically
significant fossils to the random guy in a canoe, ranchers and farmers,
and all the way up to county governments and the State of Florida.
Dr. Richard is one the most important reasons the Florida Fossil Permit
system is as successful as it has been. His true love of Florida’s prehistory doesn’t hurt either.
Between 2015 - 2024 Florida Museum paleontologists and volunteers
excavated the skeletal remains of 47 megaherbivores from an area of
525 square meters at the Montbrook fossil site near Ocala in north-central Florida.
Megaherbivores are terrestrial species whose adult
mass averages 1000 kg (one metric ton) or more. The Montbrook
megaherbivores consist of two kinds of proboscideans (elephant relatives),
the gomphothere Rhynchotherium (35 skeletons)
and the mastodon Mammut (4 skeletons), and the rhino Teleoceras (8 skeletons).
Excavations at the site are continuing, so these numbers will increase.
These animals were part of a vibrant ecosystem that existed in north
Florida about 6 million years ago. As Vertebrate Paleontology Collections
Manager at the Florida Museum, Dr. Richard oversaw the Montbrook excavations from 2015 until his retirement in 2022. His talk at
the February meeting will focus on the three Montbrook megaherbivores and how Florida Museum paleontologists try to determine
which species are present at the site, what was the cause or causes of
their deaths and why so many of their skeletons are present in such a
relatively small area, slightly larger than a standard basketball court.
If you have any
hard to identify
Florida fossils, or
potential donations you’d like to
make to the Florida Museum of
Natural History,
bring them to the
February meeting.
Tampa Bay Fossil Chronicles
Hopefully you’ve noticed that TBFC has stepped up its game with the newsletter each month. In addition to all of our regular contributors, we’ve added two new recurring articles this season. “In Touch with Inverts” by Rob Carlson was added in September. Recently added, “Paleo Analysis” by Steve Vicari. Each month Steve will be discussing interesting prehistoric fauna and how they relate to extant species.
Please check out all of the articles in each issue. Only TBFC members receive the Chronicles, we don’t post it online or on Facebook.
Be sure to renew your Fossil
Permits! Never Dig into the River banks! Collection of Artifacts is Illegal on Florida state owned land!
