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Collecting fossils
 Where to look for fossils
Dave Martill's favourite fossil sites
Reporting fossil finds
Safety tips
Where to look for fossils
Fossils can be very common, if you know the right places to look. There are some places in the UK that are particularly famous for their fossils, either because they are abundant or because they are spectacularly preserved – though of course spectacular fossils do tend to be rather harder to find.
Fossils are commonest in sedimentary rocks (rocks formed from particles of sediment, usually laid down in water) that have remained relatively unaltered by the ravages of time and plate tectonics (the movement of the Earth's land masses). They are only widespread, however, in rocks that formed in the last 570 million years. Rocks older than this can contain fossils, but they are usually very rare and often very small.
Rare fossils, such as those of dinosaurs, are usually only found in Britain by chance. Very few people go out looking for dinosaurs and come back with one. Even on the Isle of Wight, one of the best places for dinosaur fossils in England, it is not easy to find them. The most exciting fossil finds are often made by accident – and often by children or amateur collectors, rather than by expert palaeontologists.
In Britain, rocks containing fossils are generally only accessible to fossil collectors on the coast or in mountainous areas, and in artificial outcrops such as quarries and mines or deep road cuttings.
To enhance your chances of finding fossils, it is best to go to an area that not too many people visit. Some places in southern England have suffered from over-collecting – although, surprisingly, even at Lyme Regis, Dorset, one of England's most famous fossil sites visited by thousands of collectors every year, it is still possible to make fantastic discoveries.
Many fossil collectors specialise in fossils from a particular time period (the Jurassic period is very popular among British fossil collectors), or by collecting fossils of a particular type – ammonites, for example, which come in many different shapes, sizes and styles of preservation. You will never collect the full set of ammonites. One scientist at Oxford has dedicated his entire career to studying Cretaceous ammonites, and he still keeps finding new species.
If you want to specialise in a particular type of fossil, then you have to find out where to go for rocks of the right age and type (palaeontologists use the term facies for a particular type of rock). For example, if you want to collect Silurian trilobites, you must examine rocks that were laid down in sea water and not river water, as trilobites were exclusively marine animals.
There are a number of ways in which you can find out where the right types of rocks occur. First, it is worth visiting your local natural history museum to talk to the curator in charge of geology. The curator will be able to tell you where you can collect safely and without causing damage to sensitive sites. Local geological societies usually run organised field trips during the summer to collect fossils and minerals, and to study aspects of geology. These are a great way of learning where the best localities are, and membership is usually very cheap. One of the best-kept fossil hunting secrets in Britain, Dinosaur Isle on the Isle of Wight and the fossil shop at Black Gang Chine, organise trips for families to collect fossils, with experts leading them. Many other places run similar expeditions.
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