Passionate about rocks - Fossil hunters happy with local finds

PART ONE

Area hillsides, fields, roads and streambeds may hold unusual rocks, fossils and other treasures for those with the passion to find them.
Two local ladies, Flor Lorenzo and Donna Pierce, have been avid fossil hunters for years and have passed along the interest to their children.

Flor Lorenzo
Originally from El Salvador, Flor Lorenzo has lived in Berkeley Springs since 2000. She found her first fossils here while on her honeymoon in 1999.

Over the years, she has amassed a collection of rocks, minerals, fossils, driftwood and Indian artifacts. It’s always exciting for her to find pieces, Lorenzo said.

The last major piece she brought home is, she believes, a Native American axe head.

Lorenzo has also found Indian pipes, mortar and pestles, daggers, scrapers and pieces of pottery.

In her travels, she has discovered trilobites, snail fossils, rocks with leaf ferns inside and brachiopods, which are shell fossils from sea creatures.

“The Indians were everywhere and fossils are, too. First, you have to read the land,” she said.

Lorenzo only hunts for fossils and rocks in places where she has permission from property owners. Sometimes she displays part of her collection at the Berkeley Springs State Park museum or at Berkeley Springs High School for students.

In addition to Morgan County, she has looked for fossils in southern Maryland and North Carolina.

“It feels so peaceful to be able to go into the woods and find things,” she said.

As a child, Lorenzo sometimes discovered interesting rocks while playing, though she never looked then for specific objects.

Now she’ll decide she’s looking for something special like coins and go for a walk. Sometimes she takes her children along.

“You never know what you’ll find,” Lorenzo said.

The older kids — Olman Guzman and Christian Guzman — help if she finds something heavy. Her younger children — Sania Guzman and Joseph Guzman, Jr. — are the most excited about fossils. A 10-year old niece is interested, too.

Lorenzo said she has a gift of walking to the general area where artifacts might be and finding them. “I sense where to go,” she said.

She has rocks from all over the world A friend gave her a collection of stones from Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela.

“I really love rocks,” she said.

Lorenzo doesn’t sell her rocks but sometimes gives them away “because I can always find more.”

Donna Pierce
Great Cacapon resident Donna Pierce has also collected fossils and rocks on hikes in the woods and along the Cacapon and Potomac rivers.

Her sons Doug Powell and Joshua Powell also got into fossil hunting. “Between the three of us, we have a nice collection,” Pierce said.

Pierce’s collection includes Native American milling pieces, layered shell and snail fossil rocks, petrified wood, coral pieces and trilobites, tiny oval-shaped sea creatures that became fossilized.

One large lava rock that her son Doug found looks molten but has a smooth circular area in its middle. Pierce wonders if it was a natural occurrence or something made by Indians.

Her son Joshua found an unusual fossil that resembles a palm tree in 1993. Pierce said he took it to school and was told it might be petrified wood.

A magazine article she later came across had a photo of a similar fossil found in Logan County. That one was identified as a tree root generally found in coal-bearing forests.

Pierce has been fossil hunting since childhood. The first fossils she found were shell fossils and trilobites, she said.

Pierce said that her mom Geraldine Kidwell got her interested in fossils when they would go for walks.

Pierce routinely looks for unusual rocks when she is outdoors. She said she really loves rocks and thinks they’re unique.

“I find their design and shape pretty,” she said.