Here is a shot of a few plant fossils I collected at the old coal mines near Durham, Walker & Dade counties, GA from 1988-1991.  The fossils are in the coal shale that formed between seams of coal.  The various coal mines are located nearly on the county line.

It was some of the easiest collecting I ever did.  The fossil shale over burden was about 15-20 feet high in long ridges, with trees growing on them.  Just scramble up the slope and dig down between the trees with the rock hammer and pull out slabs of shale.  Take a flat edge screw driver and pry the layers apart, or tap gently with the rock hammer, and voila, you've exposed a fossil that was about 300 million years old.

Scott,

Yes, I have been able to get some IDs on most of them, but not down to species.  Here is some info on the Age and types of plants that have been found at this locality:

Durham, Walker County, Georgia

Pennsylvanian Age (325 to 286 million years ago), Rockcastle Formation (Pottsville Series of Georgia and is of Lower Pottsville age)

Plant Fossils:

Lycopods such as Lepidodendron
giant horsetails such as Calamites (and its leaves known as Annularia)

Pteridosperms (seed ferns) such as:
Pecopteris: Pennsylvanian Age – (Order:)
Alethopteris: Pennsylvanian Age - (Division: Pteridospermatophyta; Order: Medullosales; Family: Alethopteridaceae)
Neuropteris: Pennsylvanian Age - (Division: Pteridospermatophyta; Class: Pteridospermatopsida; Order: Medullosales; Family: Neurodontopteridaceae)
Archeopteris: Upper Devonian to Lower Carboniferous - (Kingdom: Plantae; Division: Progymnospermophyta, Order: Archaeopteridales; Family: Archaeopteridaceae)

tree fern–like plants called Sigillaria

All of the plants are extinct, but they have modern day relatives like the Lycopods, Horse-tails, ferns, and tree ferns (no seed ferns exist today).

The photo shows only one half of one shelf.  There is a second shelf that has more seed ferns and additional plant fossils from that locality.  I collected over 200 pounds of the fossils during 5 visits over 2-3 years.  I used the fossils to trade for some nice Arkansas quartz specimens and the Stanley Butte quartz I posted earlier, and I gave many away over the years. 

I stopped collecting there because the property changed hands and my favorite reclaimed (by Nature) shale piles became picked over.  The locales would drive up to the locality and fill up their pickups with the low grade coal that still could be found to use in their coal stoves.

A few miles south at another old coal mine a piece of shale was found that contained an amphibian trackway.  I saw photos of it and it was great -- extinct salamander tracks covered one side of the shale.  I never had that kind of luck!

Dennis

Those are pretty. Bug & worm fossils not so pretty - plants, flowers, ferns = pretty.

Too bad you can't go there anymore. I think there is a place around Chattanooga, TN that had some interesting fossils in shale.

Thanks for all the great information here, Dennis.
Glad you had a good get-a-way south of the border.
Congratulations on finding the snake, I guess, I mean if that's
what you were trying to do.
Do you have some sort of a whistle for them or do you
just go, "Here Snakey Snake Snake".