Fossil Hunting: An Expert Guide to Finding, and Identifying Fossils and Creating a Collection Paperback – November 16, 2009

As a beginning fossil hunter, I purchased this book to take on our vacation with our 9 year old son (we stopped at the Penn-Dixie site outside of Buffalo and found lots of trilobites, crinoids, fossil coral and brachiopods!) This is a wonderful reference for the beginner/intermediate fossil hunter - clear illustrations and "how to" guides, tips on techniques and suggested items to bring on a fossil hunt. Both my son and I found it very useful, and it's definitely earned a place in the day pack for future excursions! It's on the larger size - about 9x12 inches, and about 1" thick, with a cardboard laminated cover, so it's not a lightweight, compact field guide. For me, however, the information contained in it was so useful that I ended up adding it, along with a smaller St. Martin's Press field guide to fossils to my day pack. Recommend!

This book is beautiful and hopefully will be a great Christmas gift for my sister and her husband. It is larger than I anticipated and carefully packaged.

Nice reference book good quality pictures

Lots of photos. History of the "science" including some fortunate recent amateurs who made huge finds. Talks about etiquette on collecting sites, the tools you might want to have on hand, safety. Has some especially nice diagrams that help show the periods through which various critters lived, in a clever way. Also talks about the big collecting sites in the world such as Joggins in Nova Scotia (a must see if you've never been) and various places in the Western US, Europe, Africa...I will seek out the author's other books.As for using the book to ID fossils -- eh. I wouldn't buy it for that purpose. But the photos are nice.

Was not the format I was expecting, but I still like it. Love the quality of the photographs.

Its not what I was wanting. This book is alot more about learning the history of fossils and not helping me to identify fossils. I was disappointed.

I love fossils and rocks, very nice book! I have been collecting since I was a kid! A + A +

Bought as a gift for my grandson. Elementary enough for an 8 year old, yet comprehensive enough for an adult. He can grow into it.