Fossil Park Quarry — Attraction in Sylvania

Tools not allowed. There's basically nothing there except sticky grey mud. Surrounded by trash. Short walking/cycling trail. Not very scenic. Very small. Fossils are of the lowest quality and too fragile for most. Children might be thrilled to play in the mud and find fragments of ancient shells, but for those hoping for a trilobite or cephalopod, go elsewhere. In my thousand mile trip, this was my biggest disappointment. I suppose it has ample parking and good pavement and a newer rail and cement down to the "quarry."...

Disappointing. Their website says "Tools are prohibited. The shale is soft enough to break with your bare hands" - no it's not, and there's very little shale! There were men there trying to break rocks for their kids by throwing them at walls and other rocks, or trying to chisel them with other rocks. Most of it is big piles of gravel, the few rocks there were mostly definitely NOT shale. Seriously it looked like construction...

I’m rating based solely on the fossil part of the park. I wasn’t expecting everything to be clay but that’s my fault for making assumptions. Yes we did find a bunch of tiny fossils but most broke while cleaning or even just pulling them out. I won’t go back for that reason. But if you want a new place for your kids to get dirty then it’s perfect lol. The rock wall rock was very cool. I did not explore...