The Aurora Fossil Museum is a one-of-a-kind fossil discovery experience. The long drive rewards you with the unique opportunity to get dirty and find real fossils. It is a great way to inspire a young paleontologist or just do something new.
Where?
The Aurora Fossil Museum is not surprisingly located in Aurora. This small town is the less travels parts of Eastern NC. Just off of the Pamlico River, Aurora is mainly an agricultural area with few people passing through. The museum is locate squarely in the middle of downtown which has little else. Aurora is also home to a small free ferry to cross the Pamlico River. Aurora is not far from New Bern and Little Washington. This makes Goose Creek State Park and The Estuarium in Little Washington good place to stop in also when you visit.
Parking will always be available. Nothing else is in the downtown area at all besides a few local establishments. Even when we came for the fossil festival, the parking areas were designated with more than adequate space.
A Little Back Story
The Aurora Fossil Museum is sponsored by the near by industrial phosphate facility owned by Nutrien. The museum very nicely outlines how their mining operations are reaching into ancient seabed material containing fossilized materials. In the process of refining their products, these larger fossilized items are extracted. Nearly all of the items in the museum are found from the materials that came from this facility.
When we visited for the annual Fossil Festival, Nutrien was out and about giving away promotional material. You may disagree with what they are doing but I find it really neat that they are re-purposing waste into something the community can enjoy. What can I say, I’m a nerd.
The PIT
The main attraction is the dig pit. This is a fair sized area full of a sandy mixture from the phosphate facility. The pit is regularly refilled on Mondays with new material. People come out here fairly regularly to look for sharks teeth and other fossils. Entry is free and open the the public. They do ask that you come into the museum so they can maintain an accurate count of people using the pit. The pictures below are from the festival which was much more busy than usual. Normally, there are a handful of people here at most.
You can bring your own shovels, chairs, sieves etc. to do the work. Screen size maximum is 12 inches x 12 inches, and no large shovels with handles larger than 36 inches are allowed (not really sure why). The gift shop in the museum does sell sifters with mesh designed for this type of sand. Kaitlyn bought one and thought it was worth the cost.
We noticed plenty of veteran Fossil hunters had little plastic boxes that come with purchase of screws/nails. These seemed to work a bit better than just plastic bags and were harder to lose. I have heard of panning for gems but I can not recall any other place where you can reliably go fossil digging. This is a one-of-a-kind experience to say the least.
Oh Ya. There’s a Museum Too
Honestly, I forgot that there was a museum until Madilyn started to get too hot. Normally the museum has very light traffic but during the fossil festival it was packed. There is only one way in and one way out of the museum. All of the walk ways are fairly narrow but well furnished will all the different finding from the fossil pit.
The majority of the finds are teeth of various kinds. It was interesting to see what other people have found and learn a little about the mining process that makes this possible. There were a few fun photo opportunities but that’s about it. Most of the museum just makes you want to go back to the Pit.
Overall
The Aurora Fossil Museum is an amazing opportunity to get hands on while fossil discovery. The Pit is the main attraction for good reason and will have you thinking about coming back.
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