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Fossil Collecting Jive and Terminology
By Marc Behrendt (and several dozen terminology donators)
I have compiled a list of terms used by fossil collectors around the country and
Europe, terms that may not be in every (or any) textbook. Beware – the use of the
terms is authentic, however unknowledgeable friends and family members may think you have
been out in the sun too long, if you try to use too many of these terms in one sentence.
- A bit of a hybrid – similar to Moroccan special
- A popping – an ammonite or other fossil that bursts in two to give
a pos and neg.
- AEPU (Automated Environmental Preparation Unit) – the back yard
deck
- Argillaceous – (warning: gratuitous educational content) description
of rock, simply stated, means a
- rock that contains clay sized particles
- Beauty – I found it (See "Junk")
- Bessie path – cow trail
- Bite – trilobite
- Blown – an ammonite where the body chamber has a hole in it where
the gas build up caused a blow out
- Boffo – a super find, the best of the day/trip/year
- Boulder – it was too big to break up or take home
- Brach – brachiopod
- Bucket brigade – a scout troop at a fossil site
- Bug – either a trilobite or something crawling from under an
overturned rock
- Butter layer – trilobite bed
- Calcareous - (warning: gratuitous educational content) simply
stated, a rock that contains carbonate.
- Hard shale is probably Calcareous.
- Carcrapodon – the shark tooth equivalent of a yechinoid
- Cops – Phacops
- Crier – broken beyond repair
- Cry-babies – ruined specimens
- Ditto- Ditomopyge
- Euk - Eucalyptocrinites
- Euk top – Eucalyptocrinites cup
- Flaky- description of shale that breaks up into small fragments
- Flexie - Flexicalymene
- Flipp’n Stones – turning over large slabs of sedimentary rock
- Fubar – fouled up beyond all recognition
- Gastropod – snail
- Gem – a perfect or spectacular specimen
- Gigantabite – A monster-size representative for any species
trilobite
- Gnarly – large, 3 dimensional
- Grott ball – very poor specimen
- Gumbo mud – what Morrison and Chinle Formation bentonite clay
turns into if you get it wet.
- Has potential – probable junk, but worth taking home to check out.
- Hash – storm deposits
- Horror ball – see grott ball, only worse
- Implement of death – Estwing tool
- Invite – fellow fossil hunter allows you to help with a dig,
usually means you provide money, food, tools,
- and other supplies, and the unique chance to watch someone else work a fossil site.
- Junk – you found it (See "Beauty)
- Junkasters – (aka Halfasters) – echinoids and sea stars that
are not flawless in the field
- Leaverite – junk, fossil better left in the field, as leave
‘er right where you found it.
- Lens – specific layer of shale or rock bearing fossils
- Leo- Leonaspis
- Machine-gun Kelly – poorly air-abraised prepared specimen
- Major score I – the float that really did lead to mother load and
you got some dug out to take home. (See
- "Surface Float")
- Major score II - "I bought a flat/box/carload/estate at a great
price."
- Maniac – any fossil collector except for me
- Missing a piece…- a range from a fleck of shell missing to most of
the shell missing, depending whom the
- description is intended
- Moroccan Special – trilobite "slightly" augmented
- Nacked – broken fossil
- Napp – trim away unwanted matrix
- Nody buster – a large hammer
- Noid – crinoid
- Packy - Paciphacops
- Paleorapist – a collector with no regard for technique or fences
- Pig – another word for gnarly
- Pod – cephalopod
- Pop – to split a nodule into 2 halves
- Private stash – a collecting site you don’t even tell your
friends about.
- Pseudo – Pseudogygites
- Robust – large 3-dimensional fossil or description of potent
post-collecting drink
- Screamer- a really big bug (See "Bug")
- Snail – gastropod
- Spotted – your excavation site has been discovered by other
collectors
- Stash – hide bags of unsplit nodules for later attention in better
weather
- Sticky – hard to prep matrix
- Surface float – the little chips that weather out on the surface
and lead you to the mother load (sometimes)
- such as a petrified log (See Major Load)
- Survey mode – walking an area rapidly to see what’s there,
while trying hard not to pick anything up or get
- too intent on one area, because if you do, you just know you’ll miss out on better
stuff in the next
- gully
- Trilobutts – pygidia
- Triloparts – disarticulated trilobite remains
- Tutt – a box of or a single fossil that you do not bother to buy
or pick up in the field.
- Vacuuming – picking up every fossil there is at a site and leaving
none behind
- Yechinoids – echinoids that should have been collected 5 years ago
- "&%ow" – I dropped my rock hammer on my foot.
- "&*$@" – I smashed my rock hammer onto my thumb
- "&*$%#@#" - I smashed the fossil instead of my thumb
Many thanks to the contributors who helped make this piece possible. Many of you helped
me out without even knowing it!
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