GRAVEL

Locality · City park: free collecting

Ladonia Fossil Park

Fannin, Texas, United States

Ladonia Fossil Park on the North Sulphur River in northeast Texas is where the channelised river cut through the Late Cretaceous Ozan Formation, exposing mosasaur skeletons, shark teeth and ammonites, with Pleistocene mammoth and bison in the overlying gravels. It is a free public site in low water and has produced complete mosasaurs for the Perot Museum. The Lake Ralph Hall dam is changing access, so verify before a trip.

CountryUnited States
State / provinceTexas
CountyFannin
Land manager / statusCity of Ladonia
AccessFree; park at the FM 904 bridge over the North Sulphur River
What is foundmosasaur bone and teeth, Cretaceous shark teeth, ammonites, Pleistocene mammoth and bison
Coordinates (public site)33.42, -95.95

Rules

Ladonia Fossil Park allows free surface collecting in the river channel with hand tools; no digging into banks. The Lake Ralph Hall reservoir project has restricted access to parts of the North Sulphur River since 2022, so check current status.

Source: https://www.ladoniatx.com/ (checked 2026-09-16).

Collecting rules

Elsewhere

Cite this article

Stratum Strata. "Ladonia Fossil Park" (Locality). Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/strata/localities/ladonia-fossil-park. Accessed 2026-09-21.

@misc{stratum-ladonia-fossil-park,
  title        = {Ladonia Fossil Park},
  author       = {{Stratum Strata}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/strata/localities/ladonia-fossil-park}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Locality article, Stratum Strata pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.

Sources for this article: Stratum editorial (Stratum editorial). As of 2026-09-21; Strata pack 2026.09. Data reproduced under the licences shown; text in Stratum's own words unless a section names its source.

Found an error? Write to drew@tyr.ac with the article id locality:ladonia-fossil-park.

Stratum is the inventory, provenance and certificate system for fossil, mineral and shell collections. Strata is its open reference: every fact cites its source, and the credits page lists each one with its licence.