Fossil Fest

Save the date!
Fossil Fest 2024 will be the first weekend in November.

Fossil Fest is indoors.

  • Teachers: Extra Credit for Your Students!
  • Homeschool Educators: Great Science Learning Opportunity!
  • Scouts: Presentations can focus on badge requirements.
  • Youth Groups: Plan a great trip to learn about fossils.
  • School / Scout / Youth Groups of 10 or more? Sign up here.

Activities include:

  • Show Spotlight: Prehistoric Life Underwater
  • Guest Speaker: Cindi Sirois Collins, author of Dinosaurs and Other Ancient Animals of Big Bend.
  • BYOF: Bring Your Own Fossil for Fossil Identification
  • Meet a Scientist: Q&A, hands-on demos
  • "Paleo Passport" educational quest for students
  • Exhibits: See what amateur fossil collectors find in Texas
  • Fossil collections: Start yours at the Wheel of Fossils and Fossil Darts
  • Fossils / Minerals / Books / Gifts / Jewelry / Toys / more
  • Hourly and Grand Door Prizes

Daily Schedule of Educational Talks:

TBD

Show Hours

Day Date Time
Saturday November 2 9:00am to 5:00pm
Sunday November 3 9:00am to 5:00pm

Admission:

$3/adult, $2/child (6-12), children under 6 free.
Special rates may apply for school, scout and youth groups. Inquiries can be made here.

Contacts:

Show Chair : showchair at austinpaleo.org
Webmaster : webmaster at austinpaleo.org

Location:

Old Settler's Heritage Association (inside)   
Next to the Dell Diamond on US Highway 79, Round Rock, TX 3 miles east of IH-35. See map below.

 

Grand Door Prizes from 2023

Duckbill Chevron  Locked in Time book

2023 Grand Door Prize. Chevron (a lower part of the vertebrae) is from a fossilized Edmontosaurus annectens - a hadrosaur (duck bill) that linved in South Dakota during the late Cretaceous. Also included is an autographed copy of Locked in Time by Dean Lomax, an internationally recognized paleontologist.



 
Crinoid Slab

2023 Door Prize. Fossilized crinoid plate from Morocco. This dates to the Silurian period and is around 430 million years old.

 
3D Printed Vertebrae  Iberospinus Publication

2023 Door Prize. 3D print of a vertebrae of an Iberospinus, a new early Cretaceous dinosaur described in 2022. It was printed with special permission from Professor Dario Estravis-López. The original specimen was found by an amateur fossil collector, Carlos Natario, in the Papo Seco Formation in Portugal. It is accompanied by a copy of the publication in which the original is pictured.