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

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