The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils
The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils

By Ida Thompson. Photographs by Townsend P. Dickinson. Visual Key by Carol Nehring.

Published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.

This is a 4" by 7.5" book with a flexible plastic cover. It runs to 848 pages of thin paper. It's a compact little volume that will fit easily into a coat pocket.

Audubon field guides are standard resources for birdwatchers, amateur geologists, and all sorts of other nature lovers who want a quick reference to information about what they're seeing out in the field. This book is the Audubon Society's guide to fossils commonly found on this continent.

The book is organized into three parts, plus a 98 page introductory section that provides information about geological eras, about geology, etc. The first part has about 500 color plates, which are very clear photographs of examples of different fossil types, divided by broad zoological classification but also by shape. This section also has maps, a thumb-guide tab, and other guides to using the plates. The next part has the textual descriptions of the fossils, about 430 pages worth, divided by classification. These descriptions are mostly just under a page in length and provide detailed descriptions, age ranges, and other useful information for fossil-hunters. The third section has appendices including such things as Phylum Illustrations, a guide to collecting and preserving fossils, a glossary, a list of fossil discoveries, a list of geological surveys, and a list of specimen localities.

This is a very handy book for anyone interested in fossils.